A DELICIOUS NEW TWIST ON OLDTOWN.
In downtown Salinas on a mild Wednesday evening, in a formerly blighted building once most notable for dust and bird droppings, patrons sit at a long polished bar in a beautiful brick-walled space, toasting one another with craft beer and boutique wines, watching the World Series on flat screens over the bar.
Lauren and Colin Hattersley, owner-operators of the new Farmers Union Pourhouse — so named for the local labor organization that occupied the building in the 1890s — tend to the taps. The mood is both energizing and relaxed.
Just down the block, another upstart is abuzz. The brand-new restaurant Portobello’s features a full bar and deli counter with a colorful assortment of salads, sandwiches and indulgent desserts. A sunny patio and industrial-chic design born of concrete and exposed girders — courtesy of third-generation Salinas design firm Kasavan Architects — lends urban sophistication to the proceedings.
Freshly relocated from across town just a few months ago, Portobello’s is already a local hub, with a menu that expands on its past incarnation with appetizers and popular pizzas — like the 104 with meatballs, mushrooms and roasted garlic. Its cult-favorite meals, meanwhile, remain hits, whether that’s the plus-size breakfasts, the braised short rib, the sand dabs or the meatloaf.
Not bad for what was — three years ago — a parking lot.
Welcome to the new Oldtown Salinas. After years of grumbling over its sleepy tendencies and watching locals habitually marching west to Monterey and Carmel for a night out, the downtown district of Monterey County’s biggest city (and seat of the county’s government) has turned the corner. Ten years ago, it was pocked with empty storefronts and sidewalks empty enough to imagine a tumbleweed rolling through. Now it’s one of the area’s most vibrant places to eat and drink.
“It’s nice to see people making Oldtown their destination,” Colin Hattersley says.
At the same time, the area retains its folksy and familial element. At any given moment, a fellow diner might share a story of local history or a taste of her calamari.
The biggest catalyst for Oldtown’s new energy: The debut of Taylor Farms’ huge five-story, 100,000-square-foot corporate headquarters — where Portobello’s occupies the bottom floor — which brings both a swell of consumers and business space to Salinas.
Oldtown previously got a big infusion of energy in 2014, when two major anchor restaurants made their debuts; today both are undergoing renaissances-ofsorts, a gnocchi’s throw from Portobello’s and Farmers Union.
Right at the heart of Oldtown’s Main Street, Patria has done European countryside comfort food — and ambiance — with aplomb since its opening at the start of 2014. Every nook of the large floorplan enjoys cozy accents, whether it’s a vintage wooden wheelbarrow loaded with onions and herbs, paintings by chefowner Paulo Kautz or the brick and slab wood bar of the cocktail area.
The menu dovetails naturally with the aesthetic, drawing from German, Italian and French influences to present habit-forming dishes like the prawns and gigandes bean salad, butternut squash pizza with bacon-bechamel sauce, wild boar pappardelle and rabbit with braised red cabbage.
No discussion of the best food in Salinas was complete without Patria, but now, with new GM Kim Mihkail coming over from The Market Restaurant in North Monterey, the service and overall vibe are more welcoming than ever.
Across the street, Giorgio’s arrived around the same time as Patria and has also improved noticeably of late. The Italian restaurant, which debuted in 2014, occupies a mothballed bank and features
soaring ceilings, chandeliers, neoclassical columns and a glowing onyx bar straight out of the 1950s. Unfortunately, a little bit of menu schizophrenia — including detours into everything from bulgogi broccolini to Moroccan pizza — on top of inconsistent service and cleanliness stole some of its lustre.
Of late, however, after a brief closure for a thorough cleaning and a rigorous staff training, Giorgio’s has found delicious new rhythm, lifting its cocktails, service and food to the level of its worldly ambiance. The menu is more focused without sacrificing creativity, dishing treasures like artichoke bisque, FrostedFlake-and-chili-crusted asparagus and mesquite-smoked octopus salad. Meanwhile its sister business next door awaits a January relaunch as Citracada Pacific Fusion, which will deliver burrito and poke bowls in a fast-casual format.
There’s a lot going on along Main Street — an authentic old-world spot called Little Sicily just opened this fall. That said, Salinas will never compete with Carmel. And that’s a good thing for people looking for something different and less discovered.
“It’s still a very homey city where people feel like family,” Mikhail says. “Only now it’s got more energy.”