By Chloe Rickert
El Encanto
Amazing offers await guests of El Encanto, the newest luxury resort in Santa Barbara.
After over seven years of painstaking restoration, in March 2013 the Orient-Express Hotels, Ltd. hotel started planning the exceptional dining, spa treatments, and travel activities available this fall.
The Monarch Butterfly Migration Package gives El Encanto visitors the chance to observe the legendary migration of the monarch butterfly at the nearby Goleta Butterfly Preserve. Resort guests who choose this unique experience will enjoy luxury accommodations, ‘Diamond Dusted Monarch’ welcome cocktails, a ‘Healing Cocoon’ spa treatment, and a $60 daily breakfast credit. This package is valid from October 15, 2013 through March 15, 2014 and rates start at $570 per night. All visitors can find in the resort’s lobby renowned artist Damien Hirst’s ‘Psalm print: Verba mea auribu,’ a tribute to the butterflies, made on a silk screen with diamond dust.
The Spa at El Encanto offers an 80-minute ‘Soothing Sage’ restorative treatment using hand-picked sage from El Encanto’s flourishing gardens. Including a body scrub, relaxing massage, and soothing scalp therapy, this $240 session provides a seasonal spa experience and gives guests a new autumn glow.
El Encanto’s Dining Room and Terrace features the original fall menu of Chef Patrice Martineau. His seasonal cuisine combines California-coastal foods with Asian and French touches. Using herbs grown in the on-site garden, local uni and prawns, and Silver Mountain Aged Cheddar from the hotel’s Holstein cow, Ellie, Chef Patrice’s dishes also come with sights of beautiful Santa Barbara.
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With experience overseeing cuisine at The Savoy in London, Chef Patrice Martineau brings the tradition of afternoon tea to El Encanto. Two hundred pounds of California strawberries and sugar are all the five-star chefs at El Encanto need to organize a menu of loose leaf green, white, and black teas served in porcelain artist Lissi Kaplan’s hand-painted china. Gourmet treats like raisin-saffron scones, clotted cream, homemade preserves, egg salad, cucumber sandwiches, and French pastries are also available. Afternoon tea is every day between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. and starts at $20 for the ‘Light Tea’ service. Reservations must be made 24 hours in advance.
Five different multicolored ceramic pigs from the hotel’s sister property, Casa de Sierra Nevada in San Miguel de Allende, hide throughout the seven acres of El Encanto’s land. Guests can conduct their own treasure hunt through the lush resort gardens and try to spot the uniquely handcrafted pigs.
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