Cocktail hour
Find Condesa at condesabarslo.com, at 1491 Monterey St. in SLO, and on Instagram @condesabarslo. Hours are Monday through Sunday from 4 to 11 p.m. with happy hour, meals past 9 p.m., and party brunches coming soon.
A Bohemian neighborhood in Mexico City—dotted with a mix of colonial, art deco, and modern architecture; named for the Countess of Miravalle; and filled with all the things that produce a vibrant nightlife—serves as inspiration for San Luis Obispo’s newest hot spot: Condesa.
“The avenues, the cuisine, the architecture, … it’s just a really romantic place in Mexico City,” Brandon Ristaino said. “It just made so much sense.”
Ristaino and his wife, Misty Orman, took a trip to Mexico City in 2022 expecting it to be the food and beverage city that it has a reputation for being. They were still blown away. He said there was just so much world-class food and beverages.
“We just ate our faces off. We were full the entire time,” Ristaino said. “For me, I think the surprising thing was I couldn’t believe how much great food there was.”
The pair owns Good Lion Hospitality, which operates bars and restaurants in Santa Barbara and Ventura. Condesa is their latest bar and restaurant concept, and it’s their first in San Luis Obispo, opening in July on Monterey Street where Splash Café once was.
The pair purchased Petit Soleil, the bed and breakfast operated on the same block, at the tail end of 2022. It was their first foray into lodging, and gave them a foothold in a place they’d long dreamed of opening a business in.
“We tried a few times to get into a project; it’s a tough market to get into,” Ristaino said. “We just kind of discovered it on a trip.”
“We actually stayed at the Petit Soleil and met the owners,” Orman added. “I made a joke and said, ‘Hey if you ever retire, give us a call.'”
In 2022, Splash Café was still operating in the building that Condesa now fills. They were sister properties, sharing the block together. Orman said it just made sense to be able to gain more rooms for Petit Soleil and open a bar and restaurant beneath it.
When Joanne Currie, who owns Splash with her husband, Ross Currie, suggested that it might be a possibility, Ristaino said they jumped on the opportunity.
“We love this neighborhood, the proximity to downtown,” he said.
“We always wanted to have a bar,” Orman said. “We wanted to be able to treat the locals and be part of the community and not just the travelers coming.”
As part of that bar atmosphere, Ristaino said, they wanted to lean into the vibrant nightlife of Mexico City and the vibes of the La Condesa neighborhood with modern, chef-driven Mexican cuisine and an agave-infused cocktail menu.
Mexico City has some of the best bars in the world, Ristaino said. In 2024, one of the city’s bars—Handshake Speakeasy—placed first on the list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
“There’s a lot of things to be gleaned right now from what’s doing well in Mexico City,” he said, noting that their specialty is “on the cocktail side of things. … We feel really good about the program right now.”
That menu includes classics like the margarita and paloma; an añejo Manhattan (añejo tequila, vermouth blend, xtabentún, marschino, and coffee essence); the Hanky Palenque (reposado tequila, cognac, Italian vermouth, pineapple, Mexican fernet, and mezcal); and the Oaxacan Dead (mezcal, reposado tequila, lime, grapefruit, pomegranate, rum, and cinnamon).
Ristaino said it was his 28th year in the industry, and he got involved in crafting cocktails in the early 2000s when the trend started its slow spread out of New York City.
“I just went as deep as I could diving into books,” he said, adding that there wasn’t really a formal training process for bartending at the time. “Over the years, we just started playing more with pairing relationships … playing more with seasonal ingredients. … Having more of a chef’s mindset, playing with flavor and texture and layers … things like that.”
In 2014, he and Orman started a small cocktail bar in Santa Barbara. They scraped together a bunch of investors’ funds and opened up their first spot.
“We literally just worked 20 hours a day,” Ristaino said. “At the end of the day, we’re creative people, … always tinkering with ideas.”
Their biggest passions are travel, food, and drink—and they’re able to incorporate all three into the hot spots they’ve opened. The Bank of Italy Cocktail Trust in downtown Ventura, for instance, is partially inspired by coastal Italy. Strange Beast in Santa Barbara celebrates Japanese flavors.
They’re all stand-alones, he said.
Including Condesa, which dishes up a short menu of Mexican-inspired dishes with a twist. The Quesadilla de Champiñones includes oyster mushrooms from Mighty Cap Mushrooms out of Templeton, quesillo Oaxaca, fresh epazote, roasted salsa verde, black beans, and housemade corn tortillas. The Aquachile Verde de Pulpo is octopus served with aguachile verde, jicama, cucumber, cilantro, radish, and tostadas.
“We love mezcal, first and foremost, and we love Mexican cuisine,” Ristaino said. Δ
Editor Camillia Lanham is ready for pulpo and a paloma. Send some to clanham@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 14-24, 2025.