Best Seasonal Restaurants in Santa Cruz

We used to have lunch at Basil quite a bit (always excellent) but the pandemic interrupted that. Decided we needed to revisit so two neighbors joined us for dinner last night and our expectations were exceeded! Great cocktails (superb Manhattan & Old Fashioned), delicious appetizers (small pizza & Focaccia-be SURE to get the burrata w/the Focaccia!) and 4 excellent entrees. The menu is extensive, service very good and pricing is moderate but a good value. It was a bit noisy inside because of a very large table/party of a dozen plus people & children but there is heated outside seating available. If you’re fortunate to have Fredrico as your server, you’ll have an especially fun time. Basil is as good as ever - highly recommend.

We ordered off of the Happy Hour menu and had a number of delicious dishes; lasagne & salad, burger & fries, and Mac n’cheese. The Olive app was good too. Also the happy hour cocktails: Negroni & Orange/ pomegranate cocktail were delicious. Unfortunately the avocado toast wasn’t available, but we’ll be back. Our server Janet was great too!!

Loved the food as always, creative yet simple enough to let the ingredients “talk”. Fabulous service.

I chose Chocolate for a birthday/retirement lunch with family. I was the only chocoholic in our party, but all enjoyed the food. We all got different hot chocolates to begin, a variety of main dishes, and different desserts, all of which we liked. I got a dark Colombian hot chocolate, which packed the kind of deep punch I like. I also got the chicken mole. They now have only one type of mole, which was a little spicier than I'm used to. I acclimated quickly and gobbled it all up, although the spice did affect the taste of the remaining hot chocolate. For dessert, I got the chocolate sin cake, which was nice and dark, though not as dense as I expected. We ate inside, which was rather dark--I had to walk over to a window to read the menu. Service was generally good and well timed, although the one soda ordered was not brought. The restaurant is quite small, so it's probably never loud inside; we were there mid-afternoon, and there were only a handful of other patrons. Metered parking right outside on the street was surprisingly available, although not cheap. There is also a covered lot right around the corner. We will definitely return!

It was elegant and good energy. Drink menu was creative and well executed and the food was really good. I think one knock I might have is that their menu was very limited (5 main entree options). It’d be nice to see a few more options, that’s all. Similarly the wine list was very limited which isn’t in line with the overall quality of the restaurant