Santa Barbara Wine and Food Travel with Rincon Hill Farm
Jamie Knee, Wine Travel Writer at Rincon Hill Farms
Rincon Hill Farm, Monte’s, and the Future of Farm Driven Hospitality in Montecito. By Jamie Knee
There are places where you immediately sense that something important is being built, even before a single dish is served.
On a clear afternoon in Carpinteria, I walked the fields of Rincon Hill Farm as lettuces unfurled in jewel toned rows, avocado trees punctuated the landscape, and pollinators traced quiet patterns through the air. The Santa Ynez Mountains rose behind it all, giving the scene a distinctly Californian sense of purpose. For a wine and food travel writer based in Santa Barbara, these are the moments I pay attention to most closely, because they reveal how a destination is beginning to tell its next story.
I was there for An Afternoon at Rincon Hill Farm, hosted by Endwell Hospitality, the team behind One White Street, the Michelin starred, farm driven restaurant housed in a historic townhouse in Tribeca, New York City. The afternoon also offered a first glimpse of the group’s West Coast evolution, Monte’s, opening March 2026 on Coast Village Road in Montecito.
Rather than a traditional restaurant preview, the afternoon unfolded as something more revealing. Guests wandered the farm, spoke directly with growers, and tasted food prepared almost entirely from what had been harvested that morning. For me, as someone whose work lives at the intersection of wine travel, food, hospitality, enotourism, and sense of place, it was immediately apparent that Monte’s is being shaped by something deeper than concept alone. It is being shaped by the land itself. Wine Travel Enotoursim
A Farm Driven Restaurant Takes Root in Santa Barbara Wine Country
Santa Barbara is already one of California’s most compelling wine and food destinations, but what makes the region increasingly interesting is the way restaurants, farms, wineries, hotels, and hospitality groups are beginning to speak the same language. The best experiences here are not only about what is on the plate or in the glass. They are about the relationship between landscape, season, farming, wine, and gathering. That is why Rincon Hill Farm matters.
A restaurant like Monte’s has the opportunity to become more than another beautiful Montecito dining room. With a farm this close to the coast and a hospitality group already known for serious farm driven cooking, it can become part of a larger Santa Barbara wine travel story, one where visitors come not only to taste Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah, or sparkling wine, but to understand how this region eats, grows, gathers, and celebrates seasonality. This is the kind of hospitality that gives a destination depth.
Cooking from the Farm Outward
Chef Daniel Kim worked in the open air beside the farm’s newly built event space, cooking in rhythm with the afternoon. Multiple dishes came together at once. Mushrooms were fire torched until their edges charred and crisped. Salads were assembled straight from the fields. Fresh juices were poured, bright and alive. Inside the covered space, guests wandered between long tables, pausing to admire piles of just harvested produce on one and an abundant display of mushrooms on the other.
The atmosphere was relaxed and generous, shaped by sunshine, appetite, and the simple pleasure of tasting ingredients at their peak.
When I asked Kim about the opportunity to cook so closely with the farm, his enthusiasm was immediate.
“I’m really excited to show what we’re growing here on the farm and bring that directly to Montecito,” he said.
For Kim, sourcing is not a talking point. It is the foundation.
“The produce we use at Monte’s will come from Rincon Hill Farm,” he said. “It will all be freshly grown and harvested here at the farm.”
That clarity of purpose carried through on the plate. Lettuce tasted vibrant and alive. Citrus was floral and precise. Avocados were rich and clean, served with restraint rather than embellishment. There was no need for excess. The ingredients carried their own authority.
For wine lovers, this kind of cooking is especially exciting. Farm driven food gives wine room to speak. The brightness of local citrus, the freshness of greens, the richness of avocado, and the savory depth of mushrooms all invite wines with energy, texture, and regional character. In Santa Barbara, that might mean a coastal Chardonnay, a mineral driven Grenache Blanc, a lively sparkling wine, a delicate Pinot Noir, or a savory Syrah poured with dishes that feel grounded in the same landscape.
Reimagining a Proven Model for Montecito
For Ryan Sohn, managing partner at Endwell Hospitality, Monte’s represents a natural evolution of a model the group has already refined in New York.
“We’re excited to bring a true farm-to-table restaurant to Montecito,” Sohn told me.
At One White Street in Tribeca, a close relationship between an urban dining room and a dedicated farm has earned critical acclaim and a Michelin star. At Monte’s, that philosophy is being reinterpreted through a distinctly Californian lens.
“The style and concept are very similar in that they’re both farm-driven,” Sohn said. “One White Street is a bit more upscale, while Monte’s is meant to feel more relaxed.”
Monte’s, he emphasized, is designed to belong to its surroundings.
“It’s meant to be a gathering place for the community,” Sohn said. “A lively bar, happy hours, and approachable food that people can enjoy regularly.”
That phrase stayed with me, because it speaks to what Montecito does best when it gets hospitality right. The luxury here is not theatrical. It is sun soaked, relaxed, polished, and rooted in quality. The most successful restaurants in this part of Santa Barbara understand that people want beauty without stiffness, excellence without fuss, and food that feels connected to where they are. Enotourism Writer
The Mushroom Table
If the vegetables set the rhythm of the afternoon, the mushrooms provided its most arresting moment.
Laid out across a long wooden table were pioppino, maitake, king trumpet, lion’s mane, oyster, chestnut, and shiitake mushrooms, cultivated on outdoor logs just beyond the fields. Each variety carried its own character, from the feathery delicacy of lion’s mane to the dense, grounding presence of maitake.
Tim King, the farm’s mushroom farmer, spoke about them not as ingredients, but as living expressions of time and care.
“Mushrooms are essentially the fruit of the organism,” he explained. “They’re like the apple on an apple tree.”
Some varieties arrive quickly, others slowly.
“Lion’s mane can take about ten to fourteen days,” he said. “Maitake, on the other hand, can take two to three months.”
For certain mushrooms, quality peaks after two flushes, a balance point where texture and flavor are at their best. At Monte’s, these mushrooms will anchor dishes with depth, umami, and a sense of place that feels unmistakably Californian.
They also make me think immediately about wine. Mushrooms have a natural affinity for Pinot Noir, aged Chardonnay, earthy Grenache, and savory Rhône style wines, all of which have a meaningful place in Santa Barbara County’s wine identity. This is where food and wine travel become more than pairing. They become conversation between land, cellar, kitchen, and guest.
Chef Daniel Kim Monte’s
A Living System, Not a Controlled One
Rincon Hill Farm operates on balance, with flowering plants attracting beneficial insects and predators managing pests. The ecosystem is allowed to regulate itself naturally.
“The goal is to create a habitat that supports its own balance,” King said. “When everything works together, the system takes care of itself.”
Even setbacks are part of that philosophy.
“That’s part of the ecosystem too,” he added.
The approach feels less like agricultural production and more like stewardship, a living system designed to endure. In a region known for wine, agriculture, coastal beauty, and luxury hospitality, that kind of stewardship matters. Travelers increasingly want to know not only where their food comes from, but whether the experience they are enjoying has integrity behind it.
This is one reason Santa Barbara continues to evolve as a serious wine and food travel destination. The region has beauty, yes, but it also has a remarkable agricultural identity. The farms are close. The vineyards are close. The ocean is close. The mountains are visible. The connection between what grows here and how people gather here is not abstract. It is immediate.
Why This Matters for Santa Barbara Wine and Food Travel
As the afternoon came to a close, Sohn gathered the group to reflect on what the farm represents.
“We’re finally at a point where we can share the farm with the community,” he said. “We hope it becomes a place where people can gather, learn, and really connect to what’s happening here.”
That is the part I find most exciting. Monte’s arrives in Montecito with the quiet confidence of Endwell Hospitality’s New York pedigree, but its identity is already firmly rooted in this soil. For Santa Barbara wine and food travelers, that matters. It gives visitors another reason to understand this region not only as a place of beaches, vineyards, luxury hotels, and beautiful restaurants, but as a living food and wine ecosystem.
When the restaurant opens, the food will tell a story that began long before the first guest walks through the door. Having walked the farm, tasted from the fields, and spoken directly with the people shaping it, that story already feels grounded, generous, and inevitable. Santa Barbara Wine Writer
And for me, this is exactly where Wine as a Passport continues to lead. Into the fields, the kitchen, and the glass. Into the places where hospitality becomes a deeper expression of where we are.
