The Top 3 Tasting Menus Near Silvers Omakase
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Rank 1. Silvers Omakase
Omakase Sushi
At a narrow counter where all guests sit together, Chef Lennon Silvers Lee mills his own rice and dry-ages fish sourced from both coasts, shifting the nigiri menu daily with precision. The uni rice, spiked with wasabi and crowned with crisp masago arare, arrives as a kind of punctuation before house-made sorbet closes the meal.
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Rank 2. Yoichi's
Traditional Japanese
Chef Yoichi Kawabata, trained at Nobu Tokyo, runs this austere white-walled dining room with his wife, serving precise seven-course kaiseki menus built on pristine fish and seasonal vegetables. Grilled Wagyu glazed in sansho pepper and tender duck breast in sweet soy exemplify the kitchen's restraint and refinement.
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In a compact Santa Barbara counter near the Montecito Inn, two chefs work in sync, torching slices of A5 wagyu and Japanese tuna, finishing them with brown sugar, chili ponzu, fried onions—ingredients that treat omakase as a kitchen's playground rather than a tradition to revere. The mood is convivial and loose, the chefs eager to talk; later seatings reward patience with extra courses.