Xuntos Embraces the Spirit of Northern Spain in Santa Monica
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Walking in to Xuntos on a recent Thursday, past the packed bar and DJ El Dude at the turntable, into a dining room that feels like a tasteful friend’s quietly glamorous home, my cousin and I stopped short to admire the back wall, entirely covered in pinkish-white scallop shells. “Stunning,” we said in unison.
A few days later, I called chef and owner Sandra Cordero to see if she had an estimate of how many shells were on the wall.
“It’d be kind of crazy if you did, but just asking,” I said.
“3,200,” she replied without hesitation.
Of course Cordero knows. She got the idea from a small 12th-century church on Isla La Toja in northwestern Spain, which an architect covered in thousands of scallop shells to protect it from the corrosive salt air off the Galician coast. (The scallop shell is also the symbol used to mark the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.)
Xuntos is Cordero’s love letter to Galicia and Northern Spain. She spent summers there in La Coruña, her father’s hometown, as well as her relatives’ farm in the nearby 500-person town of Bazar. “I loved it. We had to walk the cow, shell peas, get the hay, all these kinds of things I wouldn’t do all year. The other kids were like, ‘Oh, chores,’ but I was like, ‘Yeah! I’m going to do it all.’”
From pulpo gallega and seasonal percebes (gooseneck barnacles, considered a delicacy in Spain) to volcanic wines from the Canary Islands and a menu of tinned fish that will make hot girls weep, Cordero brings the tastes and spirit of Northern Spain, and then some, to the Westside.
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Fill your table with gems from the sea…
Speaking of scallops, you’ll want to order them, sweet and plump, sitting in their shell in a pool of saffron-infused butter. If the waiter offers you a “bubble back,” a small taste of Cava to shoot after the scallop, say ¡Sí! Throughout the summer, there are fresh seasonal anchovies from Captain Erik Sandquist in Northern California, fried and served head-on, with sea salt and lemon. Tinned Cantabrian anchovies (the holy grail of anchovies) are the star of a perfect pintxo, laid atop a buttered brioche finger.
Other Northern Spanish staples include garlic shrimp, Galician-style octopus, and bacalao fritters. If they’re in season, do order the prehistoric-looking percebes, which Cordero sources from a fisherman in Alaska. “If you don’t have a pile of percebes at a wedding in Spain, it’s not a good wedding,” says Cordero. “You gotta show off.”
…and from the land
Cordero’s cherry gazpacho starts at the Santa Monica farmers’ market, with cherries from Murray Family Farm, and ends with a generous drizzle of Spanish olive oil. The Berkshire pork chop from Peads & Barnetts, another market darling, gets the attention it deserves: Cordero brines and marinates it with sherry and soy, grills it over Japanese charcoal, then finishes it with a sherry glaze.
And do not leave Xuntos without ordering the burnt-top Basque cheesecake. “The best cheesecakes out there are inspired by the San Sebastian Bakery La Viña,” says Cordero, and we trust her on this. Xuntos’ version is served with brandied cherries, made in-house with Spanish liquor. The pits from said cherries are roasted and turned into a syrup with almondy notes, used in the Spanish Sazerac cocktail alongside Old Grand-Dad Bourbon and Túnel 14, a liqueur made from aromatic herbs and anise grown in Mallorca.
You don’t see these bottles on every wine list in L.A.
“Winemakers are also farmers. These are my people,” Cordero says. She and Xuntos beverage director Scott Baker are very intentional about what and who are featured on their wine menu. It’s approximately 95% Spanish (along with local California winemakers using Spanish grapes), 60% female winemakers, and 100% natural.
The best strategy is to tell Baker what you love, and let him bring you something surprising and satisfying—perhaps a Grenache-Syrah-Carignan blend from the Montsant region in Southern Catalonia, or a minerally, slightly smoky white from the Canary Islands made with the Palomino grape that’s also used to make sherry. After your cheesecake, don’t be surprised if a bottle appears at the table. The chupito, a post-meal shot in the aguardiente tradition (but Galician), is Cordero’s way of making sure you leave the way they do in Galicia: a little warmer than when you arrived.
The decor is decidedly seaside feminine
After working in male-dominated kitchens, including Grace, Providence, and Test Kitchen—and opening Gasolina Cafe, her own motorcycle-themed restaurant in Woodland Hills—Cordero says, “I was ready to embrace my feminine.” She walked into the 1926 building that now houses Xuntos and immediately had a vision of red leather banquettes and the shell wall. She leaned into the era with circa-1920s chandeliers, some from the Waldorf Astoria in New York. The furniture and artwork are eclectic pieces Cordero has collected from flea markets, including her favorite, the Topanga Vintage Market. We dined below a painting of women working the shoreline, carrying heavy baskets and fishing gear, skirts hiked up to their knees.
Both the bar and main dining room are designed for sobremesa
The restaurant has two halves. The front has bar seats and high tops, where Bikini Nights occur every other Thursday. (The bikini is a toastie named for the legendary Bikini Club, the 1950s live music venue in Barcelona.) No matter which night, the bar is an ideal spot to grab a glass of wine, Cava, or vermouth, plus a couple of small plates, and spend as many hours as your heart desires. Over in the dining room, my cousin and I blinked and had spent over three hours eating, drinking, and laughing.
Cordero named the restaurant Xuntos, which means “together,” very intentionally. “I love when tables start talking to each other and become friends,” she says. “The world needs more of that. And L.A., specifically.”
