“I want to create a menu that doesn’t just reflect what I like to eat and cook, but carries the values and ideas of Bad Animal, as a brand, a space, an ambiance,” says Nick Hahn, who worked there as CDC for Hanloh Thai, even when coping with skateboarding injuries that put him on a leg scooter (right).
Dec. 23, 2025—Pop quiz: You’re asked to spotlight an eatery to represent Santa Cruz to the world.
What leaps to mind?
Here’s a candidate: Bad Animal, which would be a curveball—and a contender—in part because it goes so far beyond food.
This is a Valhalla for used and rare books, with a special emphasis on what its website describes as “the wild side of the human animal—the excessive, psychedelic, revolutionary, fierce, transgressive, uncanny, and uncivilized.”
This is also a wine bar with its own library of boundary-pushing entries, a natural vino nerd’s fever dream of selections that also prove accessible, especially with a splash of guidance from the sommelier squad.
So for my surprise world epicurean nominee, food is the third factor in its three-word slogan (“Books. Wine. Food.”).
The food isn’t the singular goal, but it has become an undeniable gravitational pull.
Which makes a recent update that much more intriguing.
The book-wine-food formula at Bad Animal seems straightforward enough to do well. It’s not. And it’s that much harder to do in a way that reflects a city like Santa Cruz. (Photo: Mark C. Anderson)
One of the subtler things that makes Bad Animal so Santa Cruz is what it’s done for the city’s food scene more widely.
BA’s first chef was Todd Parker, who now produces some of the region’s best pies at Bookie’s Pizza.
By introducing its culinary-artist-in-residence program after that, the bookstore-wine bar then helped cultivate two of the most exciting restaurant projects Surf City has seen this decade.
That sounds lofty, but is born out by both of its partners so far.
“Our space really does say ‘bistro,’” co-owner Andrew Sivak says. “That was our point of origin.” (Photo: Mark C. Anderson)
Inaugural resident Katherine Stern drew from her celebrated work as chef at La Posta, and viral popularity at Santa Cruz Community Farmers Markets, to make Bad Animal required visiting for more than bookworms and oenophiles.
She leapt from that trampoline to her own space on Soquel Avenue, next to the Rio Theatre, starting at the end of 2023, where seasonal, well-sourced and comforting elements rule the day, with hits like this winter’s chanterelle-Brussels sprout-ricotta papparedelle or local black cod with potato and beet borscht.
From there Hanloh Thai promptly made the Cedar Street spot that much more of a destination.
Chef Lalita Kaewsawang’s worldly takes on gai tod double-fried boneless chicken thighs and vegetable-stuffed roti earned nods on KQED’s popular dining show Check, Please! and a spot on L.A. Times’ best 101 restaurants in the state.
On top of its vast digital inventory, Bad Animal stocks roughly 12,000 used books at its Cedar Street spot, and also lists thousands more rare books on abebooks.com. (Photo: Mark C. Anderson)
With those chapters in place, and in the rearview—with Hanloh engineering its own next iteration in the coming months—Bad Animal’s Instagram feed describes a remixed return to the pre-residency times, when their original concept was punctuated by COVID.
Bad Animal is reclaiming the kitchen in 2026.
The move is less a new chapter and more a journey back to the future, as it marks a return to the place we started when we first opened our doors on Cedar Street in 2019 serving elevated bistro fare.
The concept is similar this time around: a very Santa Cruz take on the current Parisian bistro scene, which is increasingly being shaped by the diverse backgrounds of a younger generation of chefs drawing on their own ethnic culinary experiences to push the boundaries of modern French cuisine.
And in truth, we’ve always considered ourselves something of a Left Bank institution, but left of the mighty San Lorenzo, not the Seine.
The Vadouvan curry-brown butter popcorn was a hit pre-pandemic at Bad Animal, and provides a hint at the intercontinental flavorscape that awaits with BA Bistro. (Photo: Mark C. Anderson)
Nick Hahn will direct the kitchen.
That comes after a year spent at Michelin-starred n/naka in Los Angeles, a similar time window working with Hanloh at Bad Animal as chef de cuisine, and a collection of training grounds in food-obsessed Chicago, Illinois.
“I feel grateful for all the chefs I’ve worked for, and who [often] had backgrounds in fine dining” Hahn says. “What I got was a way of working, organizing restaurants, relationships to guests, valuing quality, that kind of thing.
“At Bad Animal, it is a very casual restaurant, done in a way that’s very personal…but it still captures that special touch.”
He describes how interesting and fun it’s been to work with co-owners Andrew Sivak (who leads on the book front) and master chef Jess LoPrete (who directs wine and restaurant affairs) on how to talk about the concept.
“Yes, it is French, and we’re very much inspired by bistro scene in Paris, but part of what we want to capture is how food culture is very dynamic,” he says. “It constantly changes. As much as it’s rooted in tradition, it absorbs the interests and contributions of other creative people.”
The fact that he grew up in a Korean-Brazilian home in Los Angeles, where holiday spreads often had sushi, American classics, kimchi, South American-style steaks and Sao Paolo stews represented, feeds that flavor.
“My world of food has always been sort of a world of mixing,” he says. “There’s a way to do that that’s thoughtful and feels intuitive, and I think the people of Santa Cruz are looking for something like that too.”
The Bad Animal IG announcement picks it up from there.
“His approach to the Parisian bistro concept will be grounded in a deep love for his native California and his own Korean heritage,” it reads. “Does it matter that he’s a U [of] Chicago alum with an arts background who can nail a kick-flip with a lit dart hanging off his lip? Maybe not, but it can’t hurt…”
One of the best seats in the house in all of Santa Cruz’s gastro-landscape would be on a stool at Bad Animal’s wine bar-bistro-book portal. “We like to highlight the work of small producers, without being too orthodox in our definition of ‘natural,’” co-owner Andrew Savik says. “As few edits as possible—nothing added, nothing taken away.” (Photo: Mark C. Anderson)
When pressed to cite a dish he’s working on that might bring that somewhat abstract vision to life, he outlines a classic French plate he recently tested on Savik and LoPrete.
His mussels come sizzled in shallot, thyme, pancetta and dry white wine, but instead of regular butter, he deploys a compound with kimchi, gochujang chili paste and mirin that glazes the shellfish and makes for great dipping with accompanying grilled bread.
“It’s familiar, but has that twist to it,” he says. “Where are those flavors coming from? Kimchi for some might seem loud, funky and aggressive, because of the butter it rounds out the edges a little bit.”
In other words, Bad Animal’s getting something worthy of a planet-spanning palate, which also happens to be ripped straight from the pages of Santa Cruz.
The new Bad Animal Bistro opens Friday, Jan. 9, after a winter “hibernation” from now until then. More at badanimalbooks.com and Bad Animal’s Instagram page.
Mark C. Anderson thinks jump ropes and frisbee are underrated as multi-use travel items. He also serves as EMB’s managing editor. Message him via [email protected].
Dining and Cooking