Mediterranean Meets Montecito at Bar Lou

Little Dom’s Seafood Squad Brings South of France Vibes to Coast Village Road

Some of the enticing small plates and vegetable dishes at Bar Lou | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

“That feeling of being up on a hill, next to the ocean,” says Brandon Boudet, seconds after I squeeze into a booth at his new Coast Village Road restaurant Bar Lou, “it reminds me of the South of France.”

Not that this cozy, welcoming Montecito bar-bistro sticks to just French food, as that stretch of coastal France sucks up Spanish influences from adjacent Catalonia before spilling east into the Italian Riviera and onto Greece, Turkey, and, well, the whole Mediterranean — even a bit beyond.

“It’s a little catch of everything,” explained Boudet, “but with local ingredients.”

He then scuttled off to the kitchen to send out baguette with salty Bordier butter, fried Comté laces with Espelette chili sauce, crunchy zucchini blossoms in an anchovied dip, and a smoked black cod smørrebrød, or Danish toast, topped with dill pollen crème fraîche, potato, and pickled fennel. (Denmark’s Riviera cuisine, I gather.)

With his business partner Warner Ebbink, Boudet, who’s originally from New Orleans, came to Carpinteria to open Little Dom’s Seafood in 2020. He quickly earned the respect of our fishing fleet for his dedication to buying fresh fish from the Santa Barbara Channel, which is not as common for restaurants here as you’d assume. Little Dom’s followed two decades of the partners tackling the Los Angeles food scene, starting with their takeover of Hollywood’s 101 Coffee Shop in 2000, their resurrection of Rat Pack hotspot Dominick’s in 2004, and the bang-up opening of Little Dom’s in Los Feliz in 2008.

The former two concepts have since closed, but their Los Feliz restaurant remains a neighborhood institution, even as Boudet and Ebbink have shifted their attention north. They’ve both owned homes in Ojai and Carpinteria for more than a decade — Ebbink became a full-time Carp resident in 2015 — and are on the verge of launching perhaps their most ambitious project yet: the Condor Bar inside of Hotel El Roblar, a 50-room property in the heart of downtown Ojai expected to open later this year.

[Click to enlarge] Clockwise from top left: The homey yet hip dining room at Bar Lou, spacious outdoor area welcomes guests, the outside partio at Bar Lou, dog portraits give Bar Lou a whimsical vibe | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

Bar Lou partners Brandon Boudet, left, and Warner Ebbink | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

Meanwhile, Little Dom’s Seafood is humming along, so the partners weren’t looking to add more to their menu. “We had no intention of opening another restaurant,” said Boudet. But when Oliver’s vegan restaurant closed last spring, they were presented with an offer that was hard to refuse, especially since Coast Village Road is doing such strong and steady business these days. Said Boudet, “This block kills it.”

So, they took over this onetime home of the beloved bar-restaurant Peabody’s, with Boudet’s designer wife, Isabelle Dahlin, bringing a homey yet hip sense to the spread. The wood paneling, cheeky dog portraits, and leafy patio, heated by a circular fireplace, exude a comforting warmth that’s reflected in the farm-forward cuisine.

The restaurant is far from vegetarian — seafood abounds, and there’s steak au poivre, lardon salad, and chicken confit, among other meaty bites — but veggies might be the best-dressed at the Bar Lou ball. (Boudet’s wife leans that way, so he gave them starring roles, but subtly so.) After we extinguished our initial dishes, we were wowed by the texturally tremendous king oyster mushroom skewers with minty zhoug, Urfa biber–spiced carrots topped with their own carrot top pistou, and creamy ayocote beans, enhanced by a delicious confit of chanterelle.

The wines — also largely from the southern stretches of France, though with hometown nods to folks like RZN Wines — kept coming, from ugni blanc and vermentino to pinot noir from lesser-known regions and lush bottles of top-shelf white Rhônes. We started with craft cocktails, as one should in a place that has “bar” in its name, but I was far more intrigued by the range of by-the-glass options that aren’t so common around these parts.

Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

Our entree was the branzino almondine, its buttery flesh flecked with crunchy nuts, briny capers, and lush brown butter, as satisfying as it sounds. My wife somehow had room for French fries, eventually exclaiming, “Best fries I’ve ever had!”

Dessert was had, but my notes grow squiggly at that point — something about avocado chocolate mousse with “crunchy things.” It was good too, which explains why Bar Lou was starting to crowd up at 7 p.m. on a random Tuesday night in December.

This wasn’t what Boudet and Ebbink were planning to do next, but it got the right feels and foods to last awhile.

Bar Lou, 1198 Coast Village Rd.; (805) 845-5489; barloumontecito.com