Where to eat now: 10 shining stars of summer
By BRAD A.JOHNSON / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The dining scene in Orange County has reached a tipping point. The bar for entry for new restaurants is set higher than ever.
When I recently set out to compile a list of the most noteworthy restaurants of summer, I thought it would be easy. Wrong. Picking just 10 restaurants that everyone should know right now in Orange County is practically impossible. But as I shuffled and reshuffled the list, 10 places kept rising to the top.
One restaurant that keeps pushing boundaries – and a few buttons – is Playground in downtown Santa Ana. This is a kitchen that pairs summer peaches with hatch chilies and dares to infuse Wagyu beef tartare with mango and toasted coconut – and they nail it almost every time.
Although the chefs clearly covet their reputations as rebels, there’s no denying the passion and ingenuity of this crew, from the guy who assembles the burger to the cook who spends every day thinking about the menu’s next iteration of ramen.
Earlier this year, the restaurant launched Playground 2.0, an adjoining 17-seat counter that hosts visiting chefs and experimental, collaborative pop-ups that allow chefs Jason Quinn, Ryan Carson and others to explore topics like “the ultimate steak experience” or “fish shack.” While some of these 2.0 events are open to the public, others are invitation-only. Don’t call them. They’ll call you.
While Playground still pushes the most buttons, its new neighbor, Little Sparrow, has quickly established itself as the restaurant to beat in downtown Santa Ana. Occupying the starkly rehabbed shell of a vintage diner, the Sparrow feels wonderfully unpretentious, straddling a fine line that allows it to be current and timeless. And from the handmade tagliatelle with lamb neck ragu to a summer corn risotto with Dungeness crab, chef Eric Samaniego’s cooking shows a practiced maturity that was lacking in Santa Ana before now.
It has been a few months since I declared Arc in Costa Mesa one of the most important openings of this decade, and I’m still holding firm to that. Arc is the first restaurant of its kind in America to completely eschew contemporary kitchen technology and return to the art of cooking with fire. Chef Noah Blom and team cook everything using either the wood-fired grill or a wood-burning hearth, and it’s an absolute revelation. Duck slow-roasting in its own fat tastes even more ethereal when kissed by smoke of smoldering embers. So does calamari. So does a hamburger.
What’s more, I love the intimacy and exclusivity of this place, which feels as if I’m dining in a friend’s kitchen. Befitting a restaurant this size (about 45 seats total), the menu is somewhat limited, with just a few appetizers and entrees each day. When I originally reviewed Arc, I lamented the fact that it refused to serve dessert. Fortunately, it has relented and now bakes cast-iron skillet cookies in that wood-fired oven.
Occupying a judicious middle ground between cutting-edge and tradition are two restaurants a stone’s throw from each other in Laguna Beach: Broadway and 370 Common. If I can’t get into one, I’m just as happy with the other. Both blur the line between proper upscale dining and casual, boisterous gastropub.
At Broadway, chef Amar Santana serves raw hamachi with avocado ice cream and citrus miso dressing and somehow makes it feel familiar. He offers a plate of shaved ham that, even if you don’t impulsively close your eyes, will make you feel like you’re in Spain.
At 370 Common, chef Ryan Adams makes the familiar seem exotic, like when he smothers fresh-cut, twice-fried potatoes with hearty short-rib ragu or when he wraps individual meatloaves with bacon and presents them as if they were steaks. But he also serves sashimi-grade kampachi with the reverence and simplicity that I’ve come to expect from lifelong sushi chefs.
Broadway and 370 excel not just in what’s happening in their kitchens but also in their dining rooms. They champion old-fashioned hospitality and also take incredible pride in their wine programs, which makes dining at either place an even greater joy.
I also love the wine programs at Juliette and Old Vine
Café. Juliette is a quaint American bistro in a strip mall on the innermost fringe of Newport Beach, while Old Vine is the elder statesman of the hip collection of restaurants at The Camp in Costa Mesa. Both belong to a new breed of restaurants that operate retail wine boutiques, allowing customers to purchase and take home the same wines they enjoyed with dinner – at prices that are often far below retail.
The real draw at Juliette, though, is the heartfelt cooking of chefs Daniel Hyatt and Erica Choi. There’s a finesse to their work that touches every seemingly minor detail, from the way Hyatt plates charcuterie and even the way he toasts a piece of bread, to the way Choi matches each dessert with just the right freshly baked cookie.
At Old Vine, chef Mark McDonald practices the fine art of overkill, offering as many as seven tasting menus nightly, with each course expertly paired with wine. The chef skillfully jumps from Italy to France to Latin America and Southeast Asia without skipping a beat. On one menu, scallops rest on a bed of wispy fried yucca while at the same time on another menu, prawns are sautéed with soju and splashed with an Indonesian-inspired curry. He clearly has more ideas than he has room for on seven menus, and that’s not counting breakfast and lunch.
Another chef who similarly has no shortage of fresh ideas is Early Bird’s Frank DeLoach. A young chef who previously worked at Playground and Laguna’s Neapolitan Pizzeria, DeLoach took over the kitchen at Early Bird several months ago, but it was only last month that he introduced dinner service.
And while the new nighttime meal hasn’t yet caught on for this Fullerton restaurant still known mostly for breakfast, I suspect that’s about to change. DeLoach is clearly one of the most interesting chefs on the north side right now. Nobody else in this part of the county is pairing grilled octopus with white anchovy salsa, boiled potatoes and egg yolk. And he is just as likely to serve summer squash with preserved lemon and za’tar as he is to stir-fry whole Dungeness crabs in the style of Singapore’s hawker stalls. He doesn’t always nail it, but when he’s on, he’s really on. His unbridled freestyle approach always results in a good time.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I have to include The Ranch and Marché Moderne, both of which set the county’s highest standards of service, atmosphere and cuisine.
The Ranch couldn’t be more oddly located, in an industrial neverland of east Anaheim, but it just goes to show that people will travel anywhere if the cooking is good enough. The extraordinary talents of chefs Michael Rossi and David Rossi have put this place on the map. Part old-school steakhouse, part modern-day epicurean temple, The Ranch is simply one of the finest restaurants in California, where a trio of ceviches and an incredible lamb chop become the perfect expression of time and place.
Meanwhile, chefs Florent and Amelia Marneau’s charming French bistro at South Coast Plaza, Marché Moderne, defies time and place and just keeps getting better with age.
Given the passion and precision of the kitchen at Marché, even when Florent isn’t around, I get the feeling there isn’t much turnover on the staff here. Any young chef who wants to someday make it on his or her own should get a job here first. Pay your dues and see how it’s done. Passion and chutzpah will get you only so far in this business. But a year in the kitchen at Marché, I suspect, could catapult a young chef into another realm altogether.
The Details
Arc
3321 Hyland Avenue, Costa Mesa
949-500-5561
Broadway by Amar Santana
328 Glenneyre St., Laguna Beach
949-715-8234
Early Bird
1000 E. Bastanchury Rd, Fullerton
714-529-4100
Juliette
1000 Bristol Street North, Newport Beach
949-752-5854
Little Sparrow
300 N. Main St., Santa Ana
714-265-7640
Marche Moderne
South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bristol St, 3rd floor, Costa Mesa
714-434-7900
Old Vine Cafe
2937 Bristol (The Camp), Costa Mesa
714-545-1411
Playground and Playground 2.0
220 East 4th Street, Santa Ana
714-560-4444
The Ranch
1025 E. Ball Road, Anaheim
714-817-4200
370 Common
370 Glenneyre Street, Laguna Beach
949-494-8686