Finch & Fork - Santa Barbara (CA)

5 /5 Kevin Shin: Great restaurant attached to the Kimpton Canary Hotel. Staff was excellent and friendly and the food was delicious. We had both a dinner there (the black cod in coconut curry was a great choice) and breakfast (definitely get the short rib sweet potato hash). Surprise highlight are the deviled eggs. We loved them so much we had them twice. And the foccacia bread is light, fluffy, and filled with delicious herbiness. Since we booked through Chases The Edit program, we had credits toward both meals, which certainly made the cost more reasonable, but I would say that the restaurant is good enough that I would have happily paid full price.

2 /5 Kevin C: Finch & Fork advertised a special New Year’s Eve dinner with live jazz, so we gave it a go. Very disappointing. Despite the high price tag, there was zero effort to create a festive atmosphere; it felt pretty dull. The servers all seemed harried and under pressure, which doesn’t help the vibe. We were seated so far from the advertised jazz band that we could barely hear them, which was probably not a bad thing. The food tasted okay, but left us feeling mostly underwhelmed. Definitely not worth the ridiculous premium for a drab New Year’s Eve dinner. We had folks join us from out of town and I even felt a tad embarrassed at how flat this was. Luckily we landed up going to a live music venue after, which salvaged the night a bit.

5 /5 Mitchell Neller: Went here recently with my family to celebrate my mothers birthday because we have been multiple times before and she expressed this was one of her favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara. Specifically the Brussels Sprouts! Sadly, the Brussels sprouts were no longer on the menu as they were our favorite dish, gone. Even the waiter agreed and was unsure why they removed them from the menu. However, that truly did not ruin our experience at all. We ordered quite a bit of things and enjoyed the night because everything was good! We ordered the deviled eggs, which were small and nothing too crazy, but a good option to share for the table! We also ordered the kung pao cauliflower. Now this dish, took us all by complete surprise and quite honestly, stole the show for the whole night. We legit ended up ordering 3 in total because of how good these were. The sauce, the crunch on the cauliflower, the little spice backed by sweet, this was some bomb cauliflower. Would ABSOLUTELY come back just for this dish truly. We all would! The Tomato Veloute, Pork Chop, Short Rib Pappardelle, Scallops and Catch of the Day were all very tasty and good options! Oysters are amazing. A great amount of liquor in them! My only suggestion would definitely be the broccolini. We each took 1-2 bites, just not good. It barely had any flavor and almost tasted like it was undercooked. Would not recommend it, but definitely does not overshadow the rest of the phenomenal dishes. Highly recommend it for a good night out with friends and family and you MUST get the Kung Pao Cauliflower. HAVE TO!