A Barbareño Recipe You’ll Want on Repeat: Persimmons & Burrata

The Barbareño Menu: Food with a Sense of Place

Barbareño is both a Santa Barbara restaurant and a love letter to the region. Led by chef and co-owner Julian Martinez, Barbareño builds every dish around story, place, and memory. Think tri-tip on backyard grills, salty air at Hendry’s Beach, farmers market hauls that taste like home. The result is a Barbareño menu that’s familiar, inventive, and deeply tied to the land.

Our team at Figure Ate has known Julian and his partners for over a decade, long before our parent nonprofit, White Buffalo Land Trust, ever produced Persimmon Vinegar. It’s been a long, meaningful collaboration ever since.

How Barbareño Started Cooking with Figure Ate

We met Chef Julian long before Figure Ate existed—back when Jesse (our cofounder and WBLT’s Director of Land Stewardship) was farming at Casitas Valley. The connection carried through the founding of White Buffalo Land Trust, and subsequently Figure Ate, and Julian quickly became one of the earliest champions of our Persimmon Vinegar. He first used it in 2020, tucked into a duck confit agnolotti with persimmon, treviso, and pink peppercorn, and it’s shown up in seasonal dishes ever since, evolving with whatever the farmers market offers. This year, the collaboration takes on a new form: a persimmon and stracciatella salad that feels quintessentially Santa Barbara.

A Barbareño Recipe You Can Make at Home

If you’re the kind of person who builds travel plans around food, add Barbareño to your Santa Barbara restaurants list. The Persimmon & Stracciatella Salad is peak Barbareño: simple, seasonal, and designed to tell a story. Featuring fuyu persimmons, stracciatella, pistachios, treviso, and a bold Figure Ate persimmon vinaigrette, it’s the kind of salad you don’t forget. Lucky for all of us, it’s on the menu to try in person — and easy to recreate at home.

Persimmon & Burrata Salad Recipe

Ingredients

Persimmon–Ginger Vinaigrette

  • 100g persimmon vinegar

  • 30g honey

  • 10g fresh ginger, minced

  • 5g salt

  • Pinch black pepper

  • 50g pistachio oil

  • 50g grapeseed oil

Hachiya Purée

  • 125g very ripe hachiya persimmon, seeds removed

  • 5g orange juice

  • 5g fish sauce

Cardamom–Black Pepper Mix

  • 2 parts whole black peppercorns

  • 1 part hulled cardamom

Salad

  • 3 fuyu persimmons

  • 1/2 cup finely sliced treviso

  • 1 cup stacciatella

  • 1/4 cup toasted pistachios

Directions

  1. Make the vinaigrette. Whisk together the vinegar with honey, ginger, salt, and pepper. Slowly whisk in oils. Season to taste.

  2. Make the purée. Using a blender or a bowl + an immersion blender, add ripe persimmons, orange juice + fish sauce. Blend lightly until smooth but not watery.

  3. Make the pepper mix. Add peppercorns and hulled cardamom to a pan heated to low-medium heat. Toast until fragrant. Allow to cool, then grind coarsely.

  4. Roast the persimmons. Cut the persimmons into medium wedges. Toss in a bowl with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper. Spread on a sheet try and roast at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until lightly softened and beginning to caramelize. Let cool slightly.  

  5. Assemble the salad. Add chunks of stracciatella cheese, traviso, chopped toasted pistachios and slices of roasted fuyu persimmons to a bowl. Toss with the vinaigrette, and finish with the hachiya purée and pepper mix.

Want the Full Experience? Visit Barbareño

Nothing beats tasting the Persimmon & Stracciatella Salad straight from Barbareño’s kitchen. Swing by while it’s still on the menu (through January) and experience one of Santa Barbara’s most thoughtful restaurants.

🔗 Ready to make this recipe at home? Shop persimmon vinegar now.

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