Did the World’s Best Restaurant Just Open in Montecito?

If there was any confusion about what to expect during a multicourse meal that costs as much as a plane flight across the country, the first proper dish flickers with gold flakes, as if to reassure that the cost is warranted. Beneath that is a mound of caviar, floating in a transparent gelée of lobster essence, strategically pockmarked with miniscule dollops of hazelnut cream and square nuggets of smoked eel that circle like the hands of a clock. Encasing it all is an iridescent bowl, its color somewhere between silver and platinum, with handcrafted floral flourishes framing those flickering flakes and black fish eggs.

But over-the-top opulence is not the only technique on display at The Silver Bough, the eight-seat, $550-per-person culinary experience now served in a hidden corner of the Montecito Inn. The three-plus-hour experience — which involves tastes of nearly two dozen different creations and sips of about a dozen expertly curated beverages — is a culinary lesson of the highest order, featuring techniques both primal and prototypical that are dutifully explained, if you so desire.

Yet it’s also like visiting a fine art gallery, in the eye-wowing manner that each dish is presented, complete with custom-made utensils and flatware; like a night at the theater, with storytelling and performance interwoven; like enjoying the ballet, with carefully choreographed kitchen movements and simultaneous server deliveries; and like a hangout with old pals, as the banter is convivial and casual, and diners are encouraged to linger long over post-everything beers and digestifs. And, oh yeah, you eat and drink ’til your stomach and soul are more than content.