Michele StuevenSusan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken’s long anticipated Socalo restaurant in the Gateway Hotel opens today for breakfast and lunch with dinner service starting January 2nd, kicking off Santa Monica Restaurant Week which runs from January 6-12.
Baja Seafood Platter (Courtesy Socalo)
Inspired by the Spanish word Zócalo, meaning a central gathering place in Mexican cities, and the restaurant’s home in SoCal, Socalo offers breakfast items like sweet or savory house made granolas, chia passion fruit, oat milk yogurt or Straus yogurt, topped with farmers market fruit or vegetables prepared by Executive Chef Giovanni Lopez. A Buenos Dias Bowl with impossible chorizo, crunchy quinoa, fried egg, spinach, queso fresco and salsa verde as well as guava cheese empanadas are also on the menu.
The restaurant provides quick counter service at breakfast as well as at lunch, which features items like vampiro steak and shrimp tacos, griddled cheese and salsa macha. The dinner menu shifts to full-service dining with raw bar offerings and an array of small plates, salads, taco selections and large plates.
Michael’s Santa Monica (Jakob Layman)
Thirty-seven restaurants will be participating in this year’s restaurant week, which will celebrate the featured seasonal ingredient – the kumquat. There will be salmon poke with kumquat ponzu, serrano chile, cucumber, rice, fennel and sesame seeds at Socalo. Michael’s Santa Monica will be serving Brian Bornemann’s signature Baja style yellowtail set in an aguachile sauce with kumquats, and the Little Prince on Main Street will combine fall with winter in a pumpkin toast with burrata, kumquats and pumpkin seed crumble.
Socalo, 1920 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica; (310) 451-1655 https://www.socalo.com
Click here for a complete list of participating restaurants: https://www.santamonica.com/restaurantweek/
Courtesy Little Prince