Chef Patrick Powell Opens Stiletto at Santa Monica Airport

On October 21, Ireland-born chef Patrick Powell opened Stiletto at Santa Monica Airport with a live-fire kitchen, Comté gougères filled with Comté custard, and a produce list drawn 70 percent from local farmers markets. The opening gives restaurateur Sean Martin a second food address at the airport only weeks after Matilda’s, his bakery in a restored 1940s administrative building, began service there.

Powell arrives with a London résumé that includes Allegra, Chiltern Firehouse, and One Club Row. Martin’s restaurant is named for the Douglas X-3 Stiletto jet housed at the neighboring airport museum and sits beside a bakery on the same site. Stiletto serves dinner at Santa Monica Airport with fire, market produce, martinis, Guinness, and a steakhouse menu that extends beyond beef.

What Sean Martin’s airport project asks of Powell

The restaurant uses the phrase modern steakhouse, and the opening menu has the expected anchors: New York strip, bone-in rib-eye, prime rib, steak au poivre, a marble bar, and martinis.

The opening pairs a readable steakhouse form with craft work in the crossings. A gilda brings brine before the grill. Melon, cucumber, and mint cool the bluefin tuna. Hispi cabbage takes the fire and then meets Cantabrian chile butter. The opening pairs steakhouse form with craft work in the middle of the menu. Powell intends to use the market, the grill, and the bar in one room.

The 70 percent produce figure puts vegetables and fruit at the center of the kitchen. The prep list arrives twice a week, and the cooks decide what takes fire, what stays raw, what wants lemon, what can hold against butter, and what belongs beside beef.

Stiletto sits at the airport, near the museum reference that gave it a name, and beside Matilda’s. The restaurant is opening in a distinctive setting. Stiletto sits at the airport beside Matilda’s and the museum reference that gave it its name. Stiletto serves bar seats and martinis, steak meals, gougères, and vegetables touched by flame.

Powell’s Live-Fire Bench After London

Powell’s résumé connects Stiletto to London kitchens. Allegra, Chiltern Firehouse, and One Club Row place him in kitchens where the pass has to manage polish, pace, and recognizable food. At Stiletto, those habits meet California produce and a live-fire program.

it s something that s got a lot of finesse to it but then it also kind of tastes like the nacho cheese sauce you get at the cinema on your doritos or nachos or whatever he says i just think it s¹

Patrick Powell, Chef

Live fire changes the work of cooking because heat, distance, and timing all matter. The heat changes by distance and time; the station depends on attention to the coal bed, the grate, the cut, and the vegetable. The live-fire method applies to steak, leek, cabbage, chicken, and prime rib. Barbecued leek with crab, lemon, and hazelnut needs enough fire to soften and mark the vegetable without flattening the crab. Grilled hispi cabbage with Cantabrian chile butter needs heat, fat, and timing. Peri peri chicken with preserved lemon, herbs, and aioli needs seasoning that survives the grill. Live fire makes heat, distance, and timing crucial in the kitchen.

The beef program gives the steakhouse side its own specificity. Stiletto sources beef from Rosewood Ranch in Texas, which raises cattle that are a cross between Black Angus and wagyu. Powell uses that beef for larger steakhouse cuts including New York strip and bone-in rib-eye. Prime rib arrives with braised cabbage, roasted carrots, and crispy potatoes; steak au poivre sits in the same family of familiar dishes that reveal themselves through sauce work, heat, and doneness.

The middle of the menu is the best test because dishes like baked gnocchi with Taleggio, pork schnitzel crowned with gorgonzola and paired with beer-and-mustard sauce, and peri peri chicken with preserved lemon show a chef using the category as a room plan while letting the station list move across cold prep, grill, fry, sauce, and pastry.

The Comté Gougères and the Opening Menu

The pickled jalapeño and Comté gougères give Stiletto an early sensory hook. The gougères have Comté custard inside, heat from pickled jalapeño, and a format meant to be eaten before the heavier plates arrive. The dish gives Stiletto one of its sensory hooks before the fire takes over. The gougères combine cheese, acid, heat, and a small pastry shell.

Stiletto dresses steak tartare with a mayonnaise-based emulsion of ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and Tabasco. Sweetness and acid come from ketchup, depth from Worcestershire, sharpness from mustard, heat from Tabasco, and fat from the emulsion. The dish stays close to a classic structure, then earns its place through proportion.

The cold and opening plates give way to a wider set of mains. Bluefin tuna comes with melon, cucumber, and mint. Barbecued leek comes with crab, lemon, and hazelnut. Pork schnitzel gets gorgonzola and a beer-and-mustard sauce. The dessert side includes sticky toffee pudding, strawberry-topped pavlova, lemon ice with raspberry, and chocolate mousse.

A meal can begin with the gougères and end with sticky toffee pudding. The bar serves martinis, a gilda, and dishes from the steakhouse side. Another can test the vegetable work against the live-fire claim: hispi cabbage with chile butter, leek with crab, roasted carrots beside prime rib.

Sean Martin’s Airport Project, From Matilda’s to Stiletto

Sean Martin is the restaurateur behind Stiletto and Matilda’s, and his other working life gives this opening an uncommon ownership context. Martin is the Donald and Lauren Morel Professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. His research addresses leadership, organizational culture, and how societal contexts affect leaders and followers. He teaches leadership and leadership development in Darden’s residential and executive MBA programs and in executive education programs.

Powell and his kitchen carry that work. He works with executives, managers, and front-line employees on principled leadership, employee voice, social class differences, organizational culture, communication, employee integration, and motivation. Restaurants test those subjects every service, from the host stand to the grill to the bar.

Martin’s education includes a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an MBA from California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, and a Ph.D. from Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management. His published work includes studies on social class transitioners, employee voice, moral disengagement, and leadership. At Stiletto, those interests meet scheduling, service rhythm, menu training, bar pacing, and a dining room built for volume.

Matilda’s operates at the airport for bread and daytime service, and Stiletto operates there with live fire and night service. The restored 1940s administrative building supplies one layer of history; the Douglas X-3 Stiletto jet at the neighboring museum supplies another. Martin’s project now depends on the people inside it: Powell on the pass, the cooks at the live-fire station, the bar team handling martinis and Guinness, and the floor team turning an airport site into a repeat room.

Barbara O’Rourke’s Room and the Bar to Watch

Barbara O’Rourke of Bells and Whistles designed Stiletto. Her previous work includes Providence and San Diego ’s Jeune et Jolie. At the airport, the numbers give her room a clear service load: 100 seats in the main dining room and another 38 at the marble bar.

Those seats matter because Powell has said he wants a room that neighbors can use often, including for a martini and a bar-exclusive burger or a full sit-down dinner. The bar has a separate martini menu and pints of Guinness. They make it one of the restaurant’s working stations, a place where Stiletto can build regulars before every guest commits to prime rib or a full dinner.

The next stage is already dated. An outdoor terrace set to open in summer 2027 will seat another 80 guests. The summer 2027 terrace will add 80 seats and change how the airport location works across seasons. Until then, the room’s pressure points are the dining room, the marble bar, the live-fire station, and the produce coming in from local markets.

How to Read the Opening Weeks

Powell has put the 70 percent farmers market produce figure, Rosewood Ranch beef from Black Angus-wagyu cross cattle, and the Comté gougères filled with Comté custard on the table. They show 70 percent market produce, Rosewood Ranch beef, and Comté custard in the gougères.

The dishes to follow are the ones that show the kitchen’s range across stations: Ortiz anchovy and Gordal olive gilda, steak tartare with its ketchup, Worcestershire, mustard, and Tabasco emulsion, bluefin tuna with melon, cucumber, and mint, barbecued leek with crab, peri peri chicken, pork schnitzel with gorgonzola, and prime rib with braised cabbage. The bar will tell its own story through martinis, Guinness, and the regulars who choose a seat there instead of the dining room.

Stiletto opened with a chef whose London years now meet California markets, an owner building a food campus beside the runway, and a room that will gain 80 terrace seats in summer 2027. Powell’s fire work will change as the market produce changes, and regulars may order gougères before the grill sends out the larger cuts.