Toma Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

4.5 stars. just the best meal we ate while visiting Santa Barbara celebrating our anniversary. lucky enough to have our reservation on the first night of indoor dining after Covid restriction changes. so nice after some nights outside in the wind. the service could not have been more professional and enjoyable. began our celebration with a glass of Prosecco and a Toma Bellini-prosecco, lychee nut puree, and orange bitters. both lovely. fresh warm bread gratis with Pink Hawaiian salt sprinkled on high quality butter. delicious. for entrees, my wife chose a pasta dish made with all her favorite ingredients-italian sausage, pomodoro sauce, cream, garlic, and tomatoes on rigatoni pasta. all of which were cooked perfectly and flavorful. especially the sausage, with great seasoning. not wanting pasta tonight, i looked over the protein options and found plenty of things that sounded good but the combos(carbs, veggies, etc) missed the mark for me. upon request, the possibility of changing the cream corn risotto listed with the grilled swordfish filet to the mushroom risotto found elsewhere was greeted with a "no problem". very happy. the dish was also served with a tangerine citronette and a cucumber & orange zest salad. the filet was perfectly grilled and fresh. so good. the risotto also. salad was a small amount placed on top of the fish and nicely done. the one misstep was the overabundance of the tangerine "sauce". it was too much of a pool in the bottom of the bowl and just soaked the risotto. much better if drizzled over the top of the dish to add flavor rather than so much IMO. still ate every bite. to top off our celebration, we chose a dessert that sounded like it was made for us-Phyllo Crisp. there is a photo of this on the website if you are interested. made up of Pistachio phyllo pastry incasing local strawberries, placed on top of an outstanding raspberry mousse, and enhanced with both vanilla bean cream and berry sauce. damn this was worth getting two:). if it sounds at all good, pull the trigger. so good. i would recommend this establishment without reservation. they really do know what they are doing all around. oh, and by the way, if it's the right time of day, you can have a view of the ocean just across the street. highly...

We visited Toma tonight for my mother-in-law’s 81st birthday. The food is top notch, I had the lasagna and I'd say it was about the best I’ve had. It was hot but not molten lava hot like most restaurants where you can not even eat for 20 minutes. Also the beet appetizer was excellent. The flavors were unexpected, and the prices are decent as well, about what you’d expect from a restaurant in its class. The service, on the other hand, did not match the quality of the food or the establishment. Our server, Jay, came around at the beginning and took our orders, but did not provide any opinion on the choices when asked. He did not ask for our drink order before our food order. And then never came back until our plates were cleared and we had a credit card to let us know we had enough. Jay never asked or offered bread with our meal, although I heard him discussing bread with the party next to us. We waited 15 minutes from the time our appetizer plates were cleared and our main course was served, and in that time, not a single member of the staff came to our table to ask if we would like another glass of wine, water, or bread. Our water was empty, and the wine was gone. We never had bread anyway. The manager walked past our table a dozen times as we were right next to the bar. If I were a manager that day, I might have stopped by and said Sorry that your meals are delayed. Can I get you another glass of water or wine? Our meals were great when they arrived. However, our waiter kept walking past us, serving others, and never stopped to check if everything was all right, which it was. Or to ask if we needed anything else. I might have liked coffee, a dessert, or a glass of port. We would have stayed for a bit of birthday celebration. Too bad it was a great meal, but the whole experience was just brought down a few notches by poor service.

EDIT - I especially like it when the restaurant does not even reply to their reviews. So, I suppose they don't...

We had a delightful dinner reunion with longtime friends in the small but stylish dining room decorated with interesting art that reminded each of the five people at our table of something different. There’s a small, L-shaped bar where we would have dined if it had been just the two of us, but we were lucky to have a round table for our group, which was best for conversation and laughter. This restaurant was a recommendation of two in our group, who had been here before and loved it, one of whom ordered the roast chicken because she loved it so much the first time she was there. Another friend ordered the wedge salad and mussels, which she gave rave reviews. We shared the Crispy Skin Salmon and the Tuna Cones (an appetizer). The former was a melange of flavors and elements, from the perfectly cooked salmon itself and its crispy skin (at home the skin goes to our huskies but I was happy to have it for myself this time) to the pork morsels (yes, it works), lemon aioli, cannellini beans, and smoky tomato remoulade. It was as delicious as it was interesting and different. It also had a little kale, but I’ll forgive them for that because the dish was so good (when I run the world there will be no kale). The tuna cones get top marks for presentation, taste, and discussion. The tasty cones of tuna tartare were coated in tuxedo sesame seeds and slightly sweet, leading everyone to discuss how they were made. No consensus was reached. We also encountered a white wine varietal that our collective wine knowledge had never heard of: arneis, which we loved. We finished with the molten chocolate cake for the table, which capped off a perfect meal with perfect service. Next time we’ll try one of the pasta dishes, which all...