Executive Chef Erik Dandee plates a butternut squash soup in the Sear Steakhouse kitchen. The restaurant’s dishes will include ingredients from two local farms, owned by restaurant owners Demetri and Karen Loizides.
A new farm-to-table restaurant will serve locally sourced ingredients and prime beef dishes to customers in the heart of Solvang.
Sear Steakhouse, located in downtown Solvang, is set to open March 3, complete with a full-service restaurant and bar.
The restaurant will source ingredients for its food and drink menus from the restaurant’s very own organic agricultural properties, Sear Farm and Roblar Farm in Solvang.
Both of these locations are minutes away from the restaurant’s location and produce more than a hundred varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs. The restaurant will also source its beef from a Colorado farm, which will provide the restaurant with USDA Prime and Choice beef.
Restaurant owners Demetri and Karen Loizides, the duo behind Solvang’s K’Syrah Catering & Events and the popular Maverick Saloon, decided to open Sear Steakhouse after their catering business was hit hard by the pandemic. Without large gatherings to cater, the owners decided to transform their catering space by doing a modern take on a classic steakhouse.
“Due to the events of this past year, our catering platform faced so many limitations,” Mr. Loizides said in a statement. “But we still had our farms, and we were still floating the idea of opening a restaurant in K’Syrah’s Solvang space. We just needed that final push, which we received in the form of two great additions to this business: Alberto (Battaglini) and Chef Erik (Dandee).”
Chef Dandee will sit at the helm of the kitchen staff as executive chef, overseeing all menu and recipe development. For a few weeks now, Chef Dandee and his staff have been experimenting with local produce in the kitchen, working to find the perfect blend of ingredients for mouth-watering dishes, like the beet-cured salmon or the bone-in pork chop with charred kale.
“I think our restaurant will stand out due to us knowing that we have a very good product to start with and matching that up with excellent service,” Chef Dandee told the News-Press Tuesday. “We’re really proud of what we’re doing, and we think this something that is going to be easily approachable by everyone.”
Mr. Battaglini, who is well-known on the South Coast for his mixed drink concoctions, will pull from the Steakhouse’s farms to curate cocktails for the restaurant’s menu. The restaurant plans to offer classic drinks such as a Hemingway or Pisco Sour, and a menu of farm-inspired cocktails created by Mr. Battaglini.
During its grand opening, the restaurant will seat guests on its front and back patios in compliance with current indoor dining restrictions. Once the restaurant can return to indoor dining, the steakhouse will be able to accommodate approximately 150 diners.
The restaurant’s initial opening hours will be 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 p.m to 9 p.m. on Sunday.
To learn more, visit searsteakhouse.com.
email: mhirneisen@newspress.com
