Ojai Restaurant Review: Rory’s Place
Ojai’s latest restaurant comes from two sisters, who have hospitality running through their blood. It may have taken a long time to finally open but some things are worth the wait.
The interior at Rory’s Place was created by Rory and LA-based design consultancy Dusk.Work.
Some things are worth waiting for. This old adage doesn’t usually apply to getting a table at a restaurant in Ojai, but Rory’s Place appears to redefine the norm. After optimistically walking up twice only to be turned away (albeit very nicely), it took me a whole week to secure a reservation at this new eatery.
It turns out though that me waiting a week to snatch a table at Rory’s Place isn’t nearly as long as sisters Meave and Rory McAuliffe, the blonde duo behind the restaurant, waited to open it. Drawn to Ojai by the bounty of the local farming community and the abundance of nature, the sisters moved here pre-Covid to launch the place, which due to the pandemic took an almost unconscionable amount of time to finally open its doors in late February.
Food and service apparently run through the sisters’ blood. They grew up in their parents’ bakery in Santa Monica and went on to hone their hospitality skills at a variety of bars and restaurants, with chef Meave donning the whites in renowned kitchens such as Gjelina in Venice and Saltwater Oyster Depot in Marin County.
Walk into Rory’s Place today and you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve left Ojai and been magically transported to Venice or Silver Lake. The place is abuzz with chatty customers and gorgeous young, tattooed servers flittering around the dining room, nineties classics like Daft Punk’s Around the World playing in the background. The space, designed by Rory with the help of LA-based design consultancy Dusk.Work, is gorgeous too, featuring beamed ceilings, hanging pendants, custom woodwork, and banquettes along the wall facing an imposing concrete bar. At the back is a cute patio with potted plants and string lights.
The central, elongated bar is stocked up on one side with baker Corban Fairbanks’ crusty sourdough boules and on the other occupied by a busy chef intently focused on shucking oysters and arranging Channel Island fruits de mer (mussels, shrimp and lobster) for the signature seafood tower ($80/145).
We kick off our meal from the raw bar and receive our only disappointment of the night: a snapper aguachile served with shrimp chips ($17). It’s not a bad dish. It’s fresh and beautifully spiced, but it’s let down by a passion fruit marinade so overpowering, it completely kills the poor fish.
Otherwise, it’s delight after delight. A crisp salad of local lettuce, orange, kumquat and avocado, drizzled with a yogurt and poppy seed dressing ($15) firmly reminds us that we’re in Ojai; a creamy pasta dish with chanterelle mushrooms and minty peas ($26) tastes like spring in a bowl; and charred cabbage from the grill with bottarga ($12) is so deliciously sweet and salty, I could eat two. Meanwhile slices of hanger steak with confit spring onion, a creamy, oniony soubise sauce and a punchy chimichurri salsa verde ($27), are so tender, we wonder whether Meave cooks the meat sous vide before searing it over the fire.
The dessert menu is short and sweet, listing scoops of house-made ice cream ($4 each), chocolate mousse, lemon posset, and a sticky toffee pudding ($12 each) that is not just wonderfully sticky but also fluffy and light and not at all stodgy as it so often can be.
Now a word on the wine list. Put together by Roni Ginach, a Los Angeles-based importer and distributor of natural wines, she has curated an impressive selection of biodynamic and organic wines from around the world. By the glass you can try a Portuguese blend of Bical and Arinto, a dry white wine with the kind of minerality that’s a perfect match for oysters; or a quaffable black muscat from Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico’s prominent wine growing region.
Rory’s Place is a carefully considered and excellently executed restaurant that the McAuliffe sisters have clearly poured their hearts and souls into. Some things are worth waiting for and while it’s early days, it seems their patience is paying off. I look forward to seeing how things evolve and will be sure to make a reservation.
Rory’s Place
139 E Ojai Ave, Ojai
This review was first published by the Ojai Valley News.
