My favorite discovery this year, made while exploring the back roads of wine country, has to be Avant Tapas and Wine.
The contemporary restaurant and bar is at the end of Industrial Way in Buellton, upstairs at Terravant Wine Company—a large, 5-year-old custom crush winery that produces 300,000 cases of wine a year. Much of it is house wine for the likes of California Pizza Kitchen, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Disney, and Target.
Thirty local wineries also produce wines at Terravant, including Hitching Post, Alma Rosa, Ken Brown, Falcone Family, Thorne, and Pacific Ridge Vineyards. Avant also serves as their tasting room.
Visiting Avant is kind of like attending a do-it-yourself wine festival; Avant’s impressive wine wall has 13 wine machines that deliver 52 different Central Coast wines.
You’re given a wine tasting card to slide into the sleek wine machines. You select from a wide array of wineries and varietals, and then choose between a taste, a half glass, or a full glass of wine.
Press a button, hold up your wine glass, and out pours your wine preference. I enjoy the option of small tastes of several excellent wines, such as Fiddlehead Pinot Noir, Zotovich Syrah, DiBruno Sangiovese, Cold Heaven Viognier, Brander Sauvignon Blanc, and Liquid Farm Chardonnay.
And if beer is more your thing, Avant sells more than two dozen craft brews by the bottle.
Avant also has a classically trained chef, Brooke Stockwell, in the newly expanded kitchen. The Santa Barbara School of Culinary Arts graduate was a private chef in Montecito and Santa Barbara for six years before opening the short-lived Valley Bistro in Buellton.
Stockwell recently expanded the Avant dinner menu from a straight tapas menu. She prepares six full dinner entrees that change often, in addition to the smaller plates and seven gourmet pizzas baked in Avant’s wood-fired oven.
“I’ve become a pizza master,” Stockwell said.
An appetizer called “Yuppie Crack” is a house staple.
“We used to call it ‘Bacon-Wrapped Dates’ the first two weeks we were open. A customer came in and said, ‘Joe, this is like crack for yuppies,’” said Avant proprietor Joe Padilla. “And I go, ‘Wow! That’s a great name!’”
The sizzling goat cheese-stuffed dates wrapped in smoked bacon and drizzled with balsamic reduction and basil oil are indeed the first thing I order when I visit Avant.
“Our name doesn’t exactly portray who we are. I mean, it says ‘Tapas and Wine,’ but we’ve never really been a tapas restaurant, in the traditional sense,” Padilla told me.
It frustrated Padilla and his staff when customers would come in for appetizers and wine, then tell everyone that they had reservations somewhere else later. Padilla would explain, “But we have dinner!”
Avant featured the following Spanish-influenced dinner entrees in October Arroz Con Pollo, Pisto Manchego Stuffed Pasilla, Boneless Rib Eye with wild mushrooms and garlic mashed potatoes, California Halibut with Manila clams and wild rice, and Grilled Pork Chop with Spanish chorizo hash.
The chef’s “local-centric cuisine” showcases organic produce from the Santa Ynez Valley.
“I source 90 percent of my menu locally—local grass fed beef, local pork,” Stockwell explained. “I use three local farmers for the bulk of my produce.”
She told me that Avant plans to send her to Spain in November “to eat and learn and bring back some real traditional Spanish flavors.” (Wouldn’t you like to be her travel companion for that exotic culinary adventure?)
I was surprised to hear from Padilla that while locals have discovered Avant (it’s hugely popular on Friday and Saturday nights when there’s live music), tourists, for the most part, haven’t discovered Avant. Yet.
Avant is open Thursday through Monday, but Padilla’s New Year’s resolution is to stay open seven days a week.
Come for wine and lunch and stay for a complimentary winery tour at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. Or try a wine tasting tour at 2 or 4 p.m. and stick around for dinner.
They anticipate large dinner parties in the near future; Avant’s new private dining room will be ready in November. One of their musicians built Avant a beautiful table out of 125-year-old cedar that can seat 24 people.
Visit avantwine.com and sign up for the newsletter to learn about all the unique programs or events offered; check out Avant’s new in-house beef program, the new online wine store, two different wine clubs, winemaker events, Monday Night Football parties, and the annual New Year’s Eve bash.
Avant Tapas and Wine is at 35 Industrial Way, Buellton. For more information, call 686-4742. Hours are Monday, Thursday, and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Sun food and wine writer Wendy Thies Sell finds it hard to keep a secret about good food and wine. Contact her at wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2012.