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  • 10 minutes ago
2026 Food & Wine Best New Chef Melissa López has created the neighborhood restaurant everyone wishes they had nearby. Already planning your visit? Here’s what to order. Get to know the chef behind it all in this video.
Transcript
00:00This is Melissa Lopez here, and this is my perfect order.
00:02This is our Rhode Island squid toast.
00:04This is one of my favorite appetizers here.
00:06The bread soaks up all the flavor
00:07from the chili oil sofrito and the calamari.
00:10These are our New Caledonian prawns with a cracked chili.
00:13This is also one of my favorite bites here.
00:15Toast a little bit of what we call chile quebrado,
00:18which is a mix of dehydrated tomato,
00:20dehydrated garlic, maresh pepper, and hume salt.
00:22This is our endive salad.
00:24When we were opening the restaurant,
00:25I didn't have a salad for the menu,
00:26and I was thinking about traveling to Spain
00:29and to Valencia specifically.
00:30And one of my favorite things about this salad
00:31is that you can eat it with your hands,
00:33and every bite's a little bit different.
00:34So this is one of my favorite snacks.
00:36Marinated roasted peppers that we marinate
00:38in red wine vinegar and some fish sauce.
00:39Salty, smoky, in all good ways.
00:42So this is our tuna crudo.
00:43It's bluefin tuna from Baja, California.
00:45This is one of my favorite things on the menu.
00:47Super light, refreshing.
00:48So this is our grilled piri piri chicken.
00:50Very Portuguese, one of my favorite things on the menu.
00:52We brine the chicken for 12 hours,
00:54marinate it with a little bit of our house-made piri piri sauce.
00:56Get it with some fries with a little bit of tomato powder
00:59and parsley, and then a little bit of a lemon parsley aioli
01:02to kind of cut the heat of the piri piri sauce.
01:05So these are our pastels and natas,
01:06the perfect way to end your meal at Barra Santos.
01:09They're super Portuguese, additional egg custard tarts.
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