Chef Dom Crisp opened Dom's Taverna in Santa Barbara, a Basque-leaning restaurant emphasizing California seafood, on August 22. Crisp relocated full-time to Santa Barbara in January 2025 and purchased the building with partner Raj Nallapothola of Toronix Gourmet. The menu draws on Basque tradition and local seafood, offering Basque-inflected shakshuka, cioppino pasta, saffron bomba rice, squid ink crab rice, mussels or clams with Basque sausage and sherry vinegar, pintxos, Txangurro tortas, and a crudo bar featuring oysters, crab claws, a rotating daily crudo, and a Louie salad with wild bluefin tuna belly, crab, and poached shrimp. Whole fish Basquaise and a wood-fired bone-in steak round out the menu.
In January 2025, he relocated to Santa Barbara full-time and purchased the building that houses Dom's Taverna with his business partner, Raj Nallapothola of Toronix Gourmet. Crisp quickly got to work developing the restaurant's menu, drawing on California's long Basque history and the local bounty of seafood. "I feel like a kid in the candy store," he says of Santa Barbara's extensive options for locally caught seafood. "The bounty and the fisherman in this town are so giving."
At Dom's Taverna, Crisp prepares dishes like a Basque-inflected shakshuka, seafood-heavy cioppino pasta, and a saffron bomba rice Basque bowl for lunch. Dinner brings squid ink crab rice, along with mussels or clams over Basque sausage with sherry vinegar. Evening starters comprise pintxos with buttermilk chicken croquettes and Txangurro tortas (crab corn cakes). Crisp puts the region's finest seafood on display with the crudo bar, which includes oysters, Santa Barbara's crab claws, a rotating crudo with the daily catch,
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