Fans of Bell Street Farm are flocking to Los Alamos to sit down for chicken dinner. It’s the eatery’s first evening dinner series; every third Saturday night of the month, Bell Street Farm stays open late to serve supper.
Patrons have pleaded for this ever since owner Jamie Gluck opened the doors in 2011 to his casually stylish restaurant and market and started serving delicious farm-fresh salads, sandwiches, soup, rotisserie chicken and pork, and local boutique wines and craft beer.
Bell Street Farm’s regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday through Monday, for breakfast and lunch.
Now the merchants of Los Alamos are staying open after hours the third Saturday evening of every month for some “down-home hospitality,” shopping, wine tasting, noshing, and art gallery gazing; creating a sort of relaxed nightlife. They call it the “Third Saturday Evening Stroll Series.”
Their inaugural event in February, with a Valentine’s Day theme they called “Love Fest,” was a resounding success.
That night, 75 people sat down family style at 10 tables in Bell Street Farm’s front dining room for a prix-fixe chicken dinner. The crowd was a mix of locals and out-of-towners.
“I think there were Santa Barbarans up here. I had two tables of Los Angelinos, and that’s all because there’s such a huge L.A. wine country/winemaker contingent, and I love them to death,” Gluck said. “They’re all excited to come back next month.”
Diners started with scrumptious antipasti, inspired by a heavenly antipasti bar that Gluck discovered at a wine store/restaurant near the Pantheon while honeymooning in Rome.
Bell Street Farm’s endless antipasti bar in February featured quinoa, kale, and mushroom salad; wild arugula salad with Bellwether Farms Pepato cheese; oil-cured tuna, cucumber, and white bean salad; orzo pasta salad with lamb sausage, olives, and peppers; chopped salad; fennel salami; fresh goat cheese and herbs; aged goat gouda; Mortadella sausage; broccoli with chili and garlic; house-made pork rillettes; and fresh baked baguettes.
“People were blown away,” Gluck exclaimed. “It’s the way I like to eat and entertain. … I just can’t wait until late summer [when we have] a tomato and mozzarella bar!”
Then, the main course was served: Huntsinger free-range rotisserie chicken with olive oil-roasted organic vegetables and potatoes.
Gluck explored extensively to find the finest California chicken. He found it at Huntsinger Ranch in Valencia.
“It was just by far the best. I have yet to have a better chicken,” Gluck praised. “We’re really proud to serve it. It is an expensive bird, but it’s really something we believe in.”
Bell Street Farm’s chef Evan Klein seasons the chickens with his house-made Eastern Mediterranean Za’atar spice blend of rosemary, thyme, and sumac. He then roasts each chicken on Bell Street Farm’s French rotisserie machine.
The juicy chicken is served with house-made rosemary and Cannellini bean hummus: “I love it,” Gluck said.
For dessert, customers chose from a cookie plate or Doc Burnstein’s affogato.
The complete dinner costs $40 per person, not including tax or gratuity.
Bell Street Farm always has excellent local wines available for purchase, by the glass or bottle.
Seating will be limited, so call ahead to reserve your place at the table on March 16 or any third Saturday of the month.
Gluck appreciates his loyal customers and the excitement they bring to his restaurant in the tiny Northern Santa Barbara County town he fell in love with years ago while escaping Los Angeles on the weekends.
“I always am very, very grateful to the clientele,” Gluck said. “The story of the whole town’s success is that everybody was really rooting for this, and I think people feel the pioneer spirit behind Los Alamos and they want to be a part of it.
“There’s this sense of discovery you get from not expecting anything in this one-horse town, except maybe a tumbleweed, and you come across this quality! It’s just so fun,” he said.
In addition to Bell Street Farm, Los Alamos is home to the celebrated Full of Life Flatbread restaurant, Café Quackenbush, Bedford Winery, Casa Dumetz Wines at Babi’s Tasting Room, The 1880 Union Hotel and Saloon, art galleries, several antique and collectible shops, and more.
Gluck enjoys seeing urbanites wander through Los Alamos for the first time and “their mouths drop open because it’s just so unexpected, and then we all deliver!
“It’s nothing that isn’t happening in big cities, but it’s definitely special to be happening right in the area surrounded by the farms and surrounded by the livestock,” Gluck told me.
“So, it’s not only they get this sense of ‘Wow, this is something special,’ but then they eat it and they realize, well, there is a food movement here,” he said.
Sun food and wine columnist Wendy Thies Sell welcomes restaurant and winery story ideas e-mailed to her at wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 7-14, 2013.