THE DUTCHESS
The Dutchess is an all-day place and a fun collaboration amongst friends and family. Kelsey Brito runs the bakery, Saw Naing is the chef, while Zoe Nathan wraps her arms around the whole restaurant. It’s a place to come in the morning for a cappuccino and a croissant, take home a loaf of bread, meet friends for sandwiches and salads at lunch, and come back for great drinks and Burmese-Californian flavors at night. The majority of ingredients come from farmers, ranchers, fishermen and winemakers within 50 miles, and who are focused on the health of the land and water. It’s a love letter to Ojai from a team that cares deeply about what they do and about the community itself.
When Zoe and Josh moved their family to a 3.5 acre farm in Ojai a couple of years ago, they had no intention of opening another restaurant. They met so many talented farmers, artists, fishermen and local business owners whose reverence for the land and nearby waters ended up inspiring Zoe to open a restaurant and bakery as a way to work with them. Saw Naing wanted to open a restaurant centered around the food that his Indian grandmother taught him to cook as a child in Burma. Kelsey Brito, who had managed the bakeries at Josh and Zoe’s Milo + Olive and Huckleberry Bakery & Cafe at different times, wanted to work closer to home since she had moved to Ventura.
The group all gathered on Zoe’s porch one morning, ate scrambled egg tacos, and started to hatch a plan. They would create a place that was a bakery and cafe during the day, and that turned into a Burmese restaurant at night with epic cocktails, wines and beers. A place that was loud, bustling, chaotic, and joyful. A place they could unapologetically be themselves, source from the bounty of what was locally grown and harvested, and turn that into food and drinks that nourished both the community and the people who came to visit. The team came across the space on Ojai Avenue that had previously been Azu, but had been built originally by Bill Baker in 1927 as Ojai’s bakery. When they discovered that Laurel Moore and her daughter Liz were ready to move on so they could focus on opening a brewery and taproom with Liz’s husband Jeremy, it was clear that The Dutchess was ready to be born.