The Monarch

Really nice place. They accommodated us with a vegetarian tasting menu. The trumpet mushrooms and beet gnocchi were both terrific. I would have liked more small dishes on the tasting menu—like two small portions of the pasta dishes and desserts from the menu rather than just one standard serving of each. Service was very friendly. The biggest issue here is smoke In the dining room. I wouldn’t come here if you are sensitive to smoke.

The Monarch recently trimmed down the size of it's dining room to allow a more intimate feel. The service was truly the best I have had in Montecito and right now Drew (manager) and his staff seem more focused on professional service than anywhere else you'll go in town. The food was arguably the best I have had in Santa Barbara. Their chef prepared the most exquisite plates I've seen around and the ingredients were as fresh as they get. Truly a top tier experience with an up-and-coming staff.

The setting and ambiance are wonderful and the people very friendly but service was sparse. The concept of family eating does not fit for a few customers and fine dining. The choice was have individual choice and have too much food, or share with someone else and give up choice. Cooking was poor, especially the pork that was over cooked and bland. Parts of the duck were “mystery meat.” Overpriced food and wine list denied a range of price choices.

This restaurant is a great spot if you have money to burn and are on a diet. Rarely have a left a restaurant more upset than when I ate here. We came to try out the Santa Barbara Restaurant Week menu, a Prix Fixe menu consisting of 3 courses for $40 per person. The menu they handed us was not the same one they advertised on the website. Most restaurants allow each person to pick one dish each, but at the Monarch, their whole gimmick is "family style" dining with dishes generous enough to split between "2-4 people". Because of this, they only let diners pick one dish per category between two people. What came out was a 2 oz tuna appetizer (really delicious), a 4 oz piece of halibut on a quarter piece of kale (which was raw in the middle and we had to send back for them to cook through), and a dessert indeed large enough for 4. The dessert was a riff on a s’more which was a giant dish of bruleed marshmallow fluff, graham cracker crumbs, and melted ice cream. We were grateful to have something substantial to eat in our dessert, however, we both left with a headache and feeling slightly ill from 50% of our meal being made of sugar. The total dinner came out to $120 between two people for food that was clearly meant for one person. My boyfriend and I looked at each other while parsing out our bites of fish, laughing that each bite was worth $5 and that we couldn't let a single morsel go to waste. Starving, we called Bettina, the new pizzeria that opened down the street, after they bussed our main course plate away to order a pizza for when we left the restaurant. The entire meal lasted 2.5 hours, and we left reeking of smoke from the wood-fire oven in the open kitchen. We asked for a regular menu during dinner to see what we would be paying outside of restaurant week, and an appetizer runs between $15-$20 and a main will set you back about $50. If it were truly family style, that would be a reasonable price, however, the reality is the portions are not enough to share. If they want patrons to spend ~$100/pp for a meal, they should be up front about it instead of going out of their way to hype up the family style intent and portion sizes. And remember to set aside some extra $ for the dry cleaning bill.

The food was good, but the service was horrible. Our waiter was not enthusiastic and before our meal was complete, without warning, we saw him driving away. Another employee finally came to wait on us with no explanation or apology. The kitchen must not be vented properly because the restaurant became smokey and was burning our eyes tremendously....we talked about leaving. Again, no apology. No effort to make the situation comfortable. We would not go back....too many other good places in Montecito and Santa Barbara.

In short: service was lame, stuffed me in the corner of the bar with plenty of open seats telling me a bigger party was coming only to find two single person parties showing up the entire time. Filet was super bland and chewy. Just not good. Really disappointed... go to Lucky’s next door so much better.