Olio Bottega Serves Sandwiches and Supplies in Santa Barbara

After nearly six years in business, the Olio Crudo Bar was finally becoming a regular stop for Santa Barbarans interested in raw Italian dishes of “finesse and quality,” explains co-owner Alberto Morello, a veteran of downtown’s restaurant scene. After years of cooking around Southern California, the Sicilian chef first broke into Santa Barbara with his wife, UCSB alum Elaine Morello, by opening the still-thriving white-tablecloth restaurant Olio e Limone in 1999. They doubled down with Olio Pizzeria next door a decade later, and then creatively remodeled the slim, adjacent storefront on West Victoria Street into Crudo in 2014.

Then came COVID in March 2020, and the Crudo Bar’s intimate indoor setting felt doomed. “This will be the last place to be reopened,” Morello thought to himself. “Who’s gonna want to sit next to each other so close?”

Instead, Morello decided to embrace his dream of running a simple panini shop, like the many sprinkled across his homeland, from Milan to Palermo, enhanced with various imported, hard-to-find ingredients. They cracked open the doors to Olio Bottega in September.