Every Meal’s a Celebration at Gala

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen this much buzz around a new restaurant in S.B., and it lived up to the hype so readily. Like the first sip of their crisp cava, Gala, the new restaurant from industry veterans Tara Penke and Jaime Riesco, slides easily into the Santa Barbara scene with a welcome effervescence. From the moment you walk in and see the high ceilings, wide-open windows, delicate floral arrangements, and large bar that seems to sparkle in the sun, you are taken into another world. However, Gala never strays too far from Penke’s third-generation Santa Barbara roots.

Since she was 15, Penke’s been working in all kinds of restaurants, including Michelin-starred spots in New York City and Barcelona. After graduating from UCSB, she moved to Spain, where she met her future husband, now Gala’s head chef. Chef Riesco was born in Chile and worked in London, Berlin, Brazil, and New York City, then moved to Barcelona when he was 24.

It was during their time in New York City — Penke was at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s JoJo and Riesco at Public — that they realized they could make their restaurant dreams a reality. They launched the brunch-focused American-Chilean fusion Picnic in Barcelona in 2010 to much success and have continued to operate it successfully since they moved to Santa Barbara in 2017, splitting themselves between two countries and waiting out the pandemic in order to open a place in S.B.