Shadow Brook: more lack of Santa Cruz sucking...

So now I have another place in Santa Cruz that really, really doesn’t suck. On the advice of Bug & Blinky from Southern Accent we went to dinner last night at a lovely place called Shadow Brook. Opened in 1947, the restaurant sits in the midst of about two acres of cliff side garden at the east end of Capitola Road and is one of those classic Greene & Greene/Eastlake style California architectural splendors that seldom exists anymore outside of books. You start out parking in an unassuming lot more or less across the road from the entrance which definitely belies what comes next. Immediately inside the gate you are standing on the top edge of a long and near vertical tropical garden. Steps and paths, steps and paths past waterfalls and koi ponds down to the entrance proper.

Okay, now to be truthful, we never made it into the dining room because, without reservations, it was simpler to eat in the bar. Again on the advice of Bug & Blinky we sat over by the big wood-fired pizza oven. Looking up to the left all you see is seemingly miles of dark, clear redwood. Beams, cross rafters, open bottomed queen trusses and tongue & groove layered like a Kyoto temple ceiling. Look to the right and you look past a solid glass roof at the verdant landscaping and the waterfall that pools and flows through the building in a gurgling stream.

Old style wait staff and menu, full bar and live lounge music by an aging surfer duo all add to the ambience and make you wish you had driven there in a ’55 Chevy Nomad wagon.

We will go back again and sample more of the menu but, at this point, I can definitely endorse the corn clam chowder, the wood-fire hot Italian sausage & fennel pizza, the crab tempura with puree of pickled ginger & wasabi and the loganberry pie with local ice cream…

Oh, and saving the best for last, when you wander out, liquored up and full, you can skip the long haul up the stairs and just catch the self-service vintage little incline cable car back up to the parking lot.