About Sly’s

Sly’s restaurant in Carpinteria, California, features seafood, USDA prime steaks, and classic cocktails. Friendly, professional service, white tablecloth fine dining, a more casual lounge, and truly great food. Extensive list of French and Californian wines, both bottles and by the glass. Scampi, fresh Abalone, Dover Sole, Californian Sand Dabs. Nightly Blue Plate and other specials. Home-made bread and pastries. Everything from a great burger on up.

Sly’s offers a wide selection of fishes, seafood, aged hand-cut USDA prime steaks and local vegetables. Live lobster, oysters, and shellfish share the limelight with Dover sole, sand dabs, and abalone. Sly’s is more than just a little of Chef James Sly’s 50 years of experience in kitchens around the world. Sly’s offers many, daily, fresh and local specials — in a historic building in one of the Central Coast’s finest restaurants. From the crusty bread and rolls, to finely crafted desserts, your food is made at Sly’s. With extensive wines by the glass, Sly’s offers an extraordinary wine list of local, California, and French wines, including a reserve list of rare and notable wines. The bar focuses on classic cocktails, fresh juices, quality liquor, homemade tonic, and talented bartenders. The comfortable dining room features shiny varnished Douglas Fir, exposed yellow brick, glassed-in wine room, white tablecloths, and a fine collection of photographs by the world-famous Jesse Alexander.

Dining Style: Casual Elegant

Cuisine: Steak, Seafood, French

Neighborhood: Santa Barbara

Cross streets: Linden and 7th

Menu: View menus here

Price: $17 to $62

Email: info@slysonline.com

Payment Options: AMEX, MasterCard, Visa

Executive Chef: James Sly

Dress Code: Casual Dress

Accepts Walk-Ins: Yes

Additional Details:

• Banquet/Private Rooms
• Bar Dining
• Bar/Lounge
• Beer
• Cafe
• Farm to Table
• Full Bar
• Non-Smoking Area
• Non-Smoking Restaurant
• Personal wines welcome (corkage fee applies)
• Takeout
• Weekend Brunch
• Wheelchair Access
• Wine
• Wine Bar

Private Party Facilities: Small groups are welcome at Sly’s, in our Monaco Room. Get all the details here.

James Sly

A Chef/owner with fifty-years experience and a passion for the restaurant business.

Long a Santa Barbara Chef, James is proud to be a “dinosaur” of traditional, even old-fashioned cooking. James created Lucky’s in Montecito, and built it into a premiere steak house during its first seven years. He departed from Lucky’s in June of 2007, hatched plans for Sly’s and has been busy on the project ever since.

James’ training is strictly classical; his attitude 100% California. After an apprenticeship in California, James began his formal training in Europe, at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, and continued working with Michel Guèrard at Règine’s in both Paris and New York.

James also spent several years working in private homes, cooking for among others, Her Imperial Highness, Princess Shams Pahlavi, the sister of the Shah of Iran in both Beverly Hills and in Cuernavaca, Mexico. James refined his craft at restaurants like the Summer House on Nantucket, in Washington, DC, at the 1789 and The Watergate Hotel, and in Palm Springs at the Princess in the Desert Princess and at Charlies’ in Grand Champions before coming to Santa Barbara, where he spent four years as Chef for the El Encanto Hotel before pursuing catering, restaurant consulting, and serving as a private chef in Montecito for Herb Simon. Mr. Simon was a partner in Lucky’s, a restaurant that took an often-failed location and made it into a profitable operation.

More now than ever, the value of simplicity in cooking plays an important part in James Sly’s style. As a dinosaur, James’ approach to food features a strong classical base, frankness, and above all integrity. The cuisine is marked by both the use of top-quality ingredients — aged USDA prime steaks, fresh abalone, live Maine lobster and a slew of Farmer’s Market vegetables top the list — and more importantly, an intense respect for those ingredients. Sauces reflect James’ classic training, and bring a dimension to food that more simple approaches simply can’t compete with. An entertaining teacher, James comfortably shares his wealth of knowledge and experience with students and his employees, and concentrates on the basics that make such a big difference in quality food and a quality restaurant experience.

James has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics from California State University at Fullerton, is now reluctantly 65 years old, and is delighted to live — and work — in the sleepy beach town of Carpinteria, California.