Reviews for El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel, Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, CA

The food and the view at the restaurant was superb! Highly recommend for a quiet date night up in the hills.

This property really has to be experienced. It is above the city and the main beachfront shopping areas of Santa Barbara, but... worth at the very least one night of your time in SB. The property is so classic and over the top on staff attention. The views,the cocktails and food were exceptional. I cannot wait to return. I call this relaxed luxury - don't miss it. Read more

Wonderful stay, staff super efficient and friendly. Highly recommend staying here! A short distance from downtown but worth the... views! Truly spectacular! Read more

TOO UNPREDICTABLE ---I have recently enjoyed excellent food and service in the restaurant (weekday lunches). However, I have... also encountered a couple of El Encanto hotel employees who demonstrated such awful customer service skills that it was almostcomical. It only takes a couple of bad employees to ruin a guest's experience and tarnish the reputation of a hotel. Read more

My review while for the Lounge/Bar will also include the parking valet and front desk. We called the day before to reserve the... Lounge, as we wanted a drink and snack before our movie at the Riviera. The person that helped our party of 4 on the phone, said"we don't take reservations in the bar or lounge", only for the restaurant. We then showed up hungry the next day allowing 90minutes for a drink and light dinner in the lounge. As our car door opened the Valet said "Are you checking in? We replied "weare here for a drink and snack in the Lounge. He asked us if we had a reservation. We replied, we called the day before and theysaid we don't need a reservation for the lounge. The Valet then says I can't let you in the Hotel without a reservation. We thenasked to speak to the Front Desk, who reiterated what the Valet said. We then asked to speak to the Manager. The desk personthen left for what seemed like 10 minutes and came back saying the Food and Beverage Manager said, they were short staffed andhe could not serve us. She gave us the option to speak to him if needed. Did I want to speak to a Food/Beverage Manager that isin charge of hiring that doesn't have a handle on it, no. I think that would better be done by their supervisor. This was farfrom a proper luxury hotel experience. Good luck we will never be back nor will I reccommend the El Encanto to anyone. Read more

My husband and I just came back from a week at El Encanto and are torn on how to rate the hotel. It was our second stay on the... property and some aspects of the resort are truly 5 stars. The grounds and the service are both incredible! It is hard to find amore stunning and thoughtful property in California. Additionally, the staff is best in class. Everyone (and especially theirmanager Brendan) goes the extra mile to make sure your stay is perfect. The only down side to the visit is that their food andbar programs are surprisingly mediocre. We ended up picking up food on numerous nights because the menu is so lack lusterespecially at the 5-star price point. In reality they are a 4.5 and they'd be 5 stars if the restaurant was improved. Read more

Dinner absolutely NOT five star restaurant worthy? food really not good. very bad service, also in Bar area you habe to wait... forever for just getting a drink. Hotel is lovely and very nice location and rooms! Read more

UPDATE 2022: we returned with friends in May of 2022 and found the restaurant as good as ever. Because the weather is a bit... fickle we weren't sure if we wanted to sit outside or inside. We started outside at the front edge of the patio in a corner andfound it was too cold for the ladies. So we moved to a table closer to the covered patio. But despite them bringing first twoblankets and then two more it was still too cold. It appeared they had too few heaters and one table had three while we hadnone. Well we understood it would be difficult to ask a table to give up one of their heaters my wife at least found itannoying. So we considered moving into the enclosed dining room but it was empty and it felt like we were out of the swing ofthings. So the staff very kindly seated us on the covered patio with some overhead heaters that was just right. I must say fortolerating our request to move THREE times the staff was very gracious each time. And the food was delicious. The diver scallopswere excellent. ORIGINAL REVIEW: One of the top Santa Barbara restaurants, particularly because of the view. Unfortunately thepatio was closed because of a couple drops of rain and we were forced into the back room. That wasn't much fun. But the food wasdelicious and the service was very very attentive. The whole roasted chicken for two was remarkably well cooked and very tasty.The ice cream desserts from Rori's was outstanding and the bread was a wonderful surprise. The charcoal apricot bread tastedamazing. It doesn't sound good but try it you'll love it. Read more