August 2, 2016 – Carmel’s most anticipated new restaurant, Cultura — comida y bebida, is sharing the white-hot excitement it’s generating by handing over 100% the proceeds of its opening night to victims of the Soberanes fire.
The special benefit this Friday August 5 carries a hefty price tag of a $500 minimum donation, but will get diners in the door of the former Jack London’s on Dolores between 5th and 6th Avenues a full week before the restaurant opens to the public on August 11.
Benefit attendees will be treated to a five-course tasting menu to be paired with selections from the owners’ own personal collection of rare mezcals and wines. The guest who offers the largest donation will also receive his or her own bottle of rare Mezcal for drinking on future visits to the restaurant.
Sarah Kabat-Marcy and John Cox, business partners in the new venture, worked together at Post Ranch Inn’s Sierra Mar restaurant in Big Sur, where Kabat-Marcy was a sommelier and cellar manager and Cox was executive chef. They say they’ve been heartbroken by the damage caused by the Soberanes fire.
In particular, they’re concerned for the 
artisanal dairies, orchards and apiaries that have been destroyed and as a result, will ask the Community Foundation of Monterey to channel all of the donations Cultura collects to helping rebuild them and other sustainable farming operations affected by the fire.
“They are an irreplaceable part of our hospitality community,” Cox and Kabat-Marcy said in a statement, referring to the farmers and ranchers affected by the fire. “Their contributions are critical to preserving our local culinary heritage.”
Despite the large donation required to attend, the benefit was almost sold out as of noon on Tuesday August 2, just four days after it was announced on social media—and it’s no wonder.
Not only has the fire—which as of Tuesday afternoon burned more than 43,000 acres and 57 homes in Big Sur and adjacent areas of Monterey County—generated a huge outpouring of support by the community, Cultura is generating an exceptional amount of anticipation from local diners intrigued by its unusual mission and the rockstar team that will be running it.
Cultura will use heirloom ingredients commissioned to be grown for it on a local organic farm to prepare highly creative, authentically Latin, and particularly Oaxacan-influenced dishes developed by former Sierra Mar executive sous chef Michelle Estigoy and consulting chef Cox. But it won’t all be fancy or expensive, as one might expect from former Sierra Mar chefs—along with the Waygu beef, there will be Mexican street tacos, Cox says. Click here to see menu.
The bar program is equally aspirational, with a couple of other great local chefs—Matt Glazer, formerly of Big Sur Roadhouse, and Kyle O’Dell, previously of Carmel Belle, creating the cocktails. The focus will be on agave distillations, mostly mezcal, Kabat-Marcy says, especially small-batch, single wild origin mezcals procured through fair trade from small family farms.
Cultura also plans to eventually serve its own pulque, a refreshing traditional Mexican agave ferment. It will also offer a small but very special list of natural wines and, if requested, Kabat-Marcy says, classic drinks.
Such high-concept food and drink deserves an intriguing setting, and Cultura’s collaborators have also delivered on that: The restaurant is adorned with brightly decorated sculls, atmospheric photos and a series of original portraits by Beau Bernier Frank of women personifying the nature of different agave plants. And for those who want to enjoy themselves outside on the patio, fire pits await.
“This is the dream,” says Glazer, referring to the chance to work with such an exceptional team of people on such an exciting project.
To make a reservation for the benefit, email culturacomidaybebida@gmail.com
For more about the collaborators and their plans, see (https://ediblemontereybay.com/blog/chef-john-cox-joins-new-latin-venture-in-carmel/).
Cultura — comida y bebida • Dolores between 5th and 6th Ave., Carmel by the Sea • 831-250-7005
About the author
SARAH WOOD—founding editor and publisher of Edible Monterey Bay—has had a life-long passion for food, cooking, people and our planet.
She planted her first organic garden and cared for her first chicken when she was in elementary school in a farming region of Upstate New York.
Wood spent the early part of her career based in Ottawa, Canada, working in international development and international education. After considering culinary school, she opted to pursue her loves for writing, learning about the world and helping make it a better place by obtaining a fellowship and an MA in Journalism from New York University.
While working for a daily newspaper in New Jersey, she wrote stories that helped farmers fend off development and won a state-wide public service award from the New Jersey Press Association for an investigative series of articles about a slumlord who had hoodwinked ratings agencies and investment banks into propping him up with some early commercial mortgage securitizations. The series led Wood to spend several years in financial journalism, most recently, as editor-in-chief of the leading magazine covering the U.S. hedge-fund industry.
Wood now lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she is a freelance writer and manages communications for Samaritan Ministry, an antipoverty and antiracist nonprofit that provides struggling Greater Washington residents with highly personalized and compassionate life counseling and coaching.
