Malik Williams Opens Eponymous New Restaurant in Aptos

March 1, 2022 – A protégé of local chef Anthony Kresge and a former line chef at Manresa, Malik Williams is set to open his first restaurant, on the former site of Rio del Mar Mexican restaurant. Located at 9067 Soquel Dr. in Aptos, it closed in 2018 and sat vacant for three years, prompting the ambitious 21-year old to undertake a very time consuming renovation. It was more than he bargained for, but after a series of detours and rabbit hole runs with the county, Restaurant Malik Williams is set to debut next week, with a soft opening beginning March 9 and running through March 13. A full opening is planned for March 16. 

The atmosphere is casually chic, with a bright white entrance and kitchen façade, decorated with cutting boards. The kitchen pass-through counter gleams with copper domed lights above. In the dining room, sleek blonde wood and a section of faux greenery make up one wall, while a large, colorful jazz era painting dominates another. High ceilings, gleaming floors, fanciful lighting, a blue tufted banquette and a prominent player piano round out the décor.  

“Did you see this place before?” asks Williams. “It was such a mess. We took it down to the studs. Redid all the electrical, created a new space for an open kitchen, ripped up the old carpet and put in polished concrete floors.”

Light and airy with an exposed wood frame ceiling and beams painted white, Williams describes the restaurant as an open barn, with an intimate feeling and many splashes of color. He points to the jazz painting. “I absolutely love jazz! I found this online and had to have it. I love how it brings the place together!”

Williams was born and raised in the Live Oak neighborhood of Santa Cruz. “I hated school,” he admits. “I was good at it, but just couldn’t deal with it, so I piled up my classes and graduated early.” While still in high school, he began working as a dishwasher for chef Anthony Kresge at Sotola. He quickly moved to prep, then to the line. “I learned so much in prep,” says Williams. “This is where a dish really gets put together. On the line, you are cooking and plating. I love it all, but prep is all about the critical details.” 

After Sotola, he signed up for a 4-year program at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, which he described as an awesome experience that set him on the path to fine dining. “I absolutely loved that part of the world! It’s so beautiful!” he says of the Hudson Valley. “We would take the train into the City all the time, eating out at all these great restaurants in the dining capital of the world!” He was completely hooked on a culinary career, but once again, he just couldn’t dig the school part of it. A friend of a friend knew someone at Manresa and got him an interview with chef de cuisine Nicholas Romero.

“I’ll never forget that moment, sitting in my dorm room, waiting for that phone call,” says Williams. “At exactly 6pm on the dot, chef Romero called me. Very polite, straightforward, asked me a couple of questions and ended with, ‘When can you start?!’ I was floored. The next week, I was on a plane to California!”

He describes the experience of working at Manresa as a grueling exercise in relentlessly rigorous perfection, with constant cleaning and a level of fastidiousness that became indelibly ingrained. The work was brutal, the hours exceedingly long and often packed with tedium (imagine chopping cashews with a paring knife for hours, because a food processor would render them junk), but the camaraderie was amazing, and of course, the food was superb. It inspired Williams to perform at his highest level, and led to the dream of his own restaurant. 

And now, here he is, sitting at a handsome black table on a soft brown leather chair, surrounded by cookbooks, looking like a man who just got handed the keys to a multi-million dollar yacht. 

“I really want to create an atmosphere where people are constantly delighted and maybe a bit surprised,” he says, with his constant smile. “I am planning to offer guests a pour of sparkling when they arrive, and then a complimentary little basket of bread, with a hunk of parm, maybe some butter, and local olive oil. I want it to set the stage for a special evening they want to experience again and again.” 

Williams loves mismatched tableware and has collected all manner of dinner plates and bowls, in fanciful, colorful patterns. Part of the charm will be the presentation, as no two courses will use the same plates. 

He imagines the cuisine to be simple, fresh and hyper local, with no more than three or four ingredients per dish, each done with reverence and intent. A double seafood consommé might be served in an uni shell. Black cod will be poached sous vide in exotic herbs for maximum flavor and moistness and served over angel hair pasta with pesto and tomato confit. “Nobody makes seafood sausage around here, so I’ll make my own, maybe from black cod and crab, and serve it as an appetizer with stone ground mustard beurre blanc and seaweed.” 

The kitchen is small, but the meat locker is filled with prime beef that he insists on dry aging himself. “We’ll have a dry-aged ribeye with creamed morels and fingerling potatoes. Every single element has to be absolutely perfect. There’s no place to hide in a dish like that!” He explains that 25 days for dry-aging is just about the pinnacle for flavor and texture. 

His signature dish, though, will be the seasonal risotto. “I adore risotto and rarely find it cooked properly at restaurants. Mine is creamy, never dry, not soggy, and we’ll do vegetables, seafood, maybe even fruit. It’s such a versatile dish.” He’ll start out with a snap pea risotto served with seared scallops. 

All the menu items are cleverly named, like “A Sheep in Tuscany,” herb crusted lamb with black truffle polenta, mint chimichurri and cauliflower purée.

Williams has already hired all the line staff, and front of the house. “I want this place to be tight in execution, where everyone knows their job,” he says. “It drives me crazy when I go to a restaurant and the wait staff have no idea what’s in a dish or where the ingredients are sourced. There’s no excuse for that in fine dining.”

So he’s paying his front of the house to memorize the menu before the place opens. It’s not a large menu, but it will showcase the culinary skills and discipline he absorbed throughout his rather compressed career. “I want to do fine dining, but I want to start off with something manageable, and make each dish as excellent as I can possibly make it.”

Expect to be delighted, perhaps even entertained, as the brigade style kitchen springs into action and the piano plays itself merrily in the background. Williams loves live music, and hopes to eventually feature soft jazz, flamenco, cello and anything the local talent has to offer, especially once he gets the back porch fixed up. 

But for now, even as his eyes twinkle with the possibilities ahead, he’s focused on making a debut those first guests will long remember. 

Restaurant Malik Williams, at 9067 Soquel Dr. in Aptos, will be open Wednesday through Sundays from 4pm until 8:30pm. Call 831-251-0676 or visit Open Table for reservations.