Chomping Southeast Asian Street Food at Tyger Tyger

What’s the next move when you’ve created a string of successful restaurants, all in a two-block radius, from Californian, Italian, and Iberian in flavor to full-service, wine bar, bottle shop, and bakery in style? Walk-up Southeast Asian street food served in a colorfully casual cafeteria setting, alongside a gourmet ice creamery and small-batch coffee roaster, of course.

So concluded Sherry Villanueva and her team at Acme Hospitality, whose quiver of Funk Zone eateries includes The Lark, Les Marchands, Loquita, Lucky Penny, Helena Street Bakery, and the Santa Barbara Wine Collective. Last fall, they added Tyger Tyger to their celebrated culinary crew, and lines immediately formed out the door for slurps of Northern Thai curried pork noodles, chomps of Vietnamese crêpes, and sweat-inducing bites of “Weeping Brisket” that’s slopped up with sticky coconut rice. Diners can follow up with exotically spiced cones from Monkeyshine Ice Cream or a pull of espresso from the Dart Coffee Co.; all are under the same roof surrounding the pink-lamped, open-windowed dining hall, although the coffee business is independently owned by David Dart and Erika Carter Dart.

Leading the Tyger Tyger experience is Chef Daniel Palaima, a Santa Barbara–raised surfer, paraglider, and rock climber. He’s returned home after culinary school in San Francisco and jobs at top restaurants in the Santa Ynez Valley (including four-plus years at Root 246 under Chef Bradley Ogden), Lake Tahoe’s Martis Camp, and Chicago, where he moved in 2014 and worked under two of the world’s most respected chefs. He learned high-volume, all-from-scratch, modern Chinese cuisine under Stephanie Izard at Duck Duck Goat and then was rising up the ladder in Grant Achatz’s Alinea group when he got the Tyger Tyger call.