Full Belly Files | Do We Need Big City Validation?

This edition of Full Belly Files was originally emailed to subscribers on September 1, 2023. To receive Matt Kettmann’s food newsletter in your inbox each Friday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

Like smaller towns located near mega-cities across the world, Santa Barbara endures a complicated relationship with our neighborhood metropolis of Los Angeles. Stay out, we say, and keep your traffic and crime and consumerism away.

And yet, since it is the capital of so much modern culture, especially the epicurean kind, we simultaneously covet certain stamps of approval from our Angeleno amigos. Whether you’re a celebrated chef or a proud hometown foodie, it’s natural to yearn for recognition that — despite, or perhaps because of, our certainly slower, often simpler ways — Santa Barbara is excelling in ways that compete with the best that bigger, faster cities can offer.