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Montage’s Studio, Others Get Top Marks for Wine

Wine Spectator Magazine, the bible for wine aficionados, has released its annual list of restaurants around the world that received recognition for their wine lists.

Yes, even in pandemic times, wine has been important to restaurants.

More than two dozen of the recognized restaurants are in Orange County, including a perennial top-tier winner.  

According to Wine Spectator, the Restaurant Awards are judged on three levels. The Award of Excellence recognizes restaurants whose wine lists feature a well-chosen assortment of quality producers. Best of Award of Excellence recipients offer more extensive selections with significant vintage depth and excellent breadth across multiple regions.

The Grand Award, given this year to 97 restaurants around the world, is the program’s highest honor. This elite group comprises the world’s best wine programs, which Wine Spectator says deliver “serious breadth of top producers, outstanding depth in mature vantages, excellent harmony with the menu and superior presentation.”

This year, Studio at the Montage in Laguna Beach has been given a Grand Award, a repeat recognition due to the restaurant’s extensive wine list which boasts top labels from California, Burgundy, Rhône, Bordeaux, Italy, Champagne and Spain.

Studio at the Montage’s wine program is comprised of nearly 2,000 selections with 16,000 bottles in inventory—down from 30,000 in 2019 yet still an impressive list.

Wine Spectator notes 1,141 worldwide winners of the Best of Award of Excellence. Typically offering 350 or more selections, these restaurants are “destinations for serious wine lovers, showing a deep commitment to wine, both in the cellar and through their service team.”

In the Best of Award of Excellence category, local winners include The Winery Restaurant & Wine Bar in Tustin and Newport Beach, Mastro’s Ocean Club and Mastro’s Steakhouse, Anqi, The Hobbit, The Ranch, Selanne Steak Tavern, and Splashes at Surf & Sand Resort.

More than a dozen additional OC restaurants earned the Award of Excellence designation: The Quiet Woman, Eddie V’s Prime Seafood, Canaletto Ristorante Veneto, Twenty Eight, Harley Laguna Beach, Fogo de Chão, Il Fornaio Cucina Italiana, Rusty Pelican, The Capital Grille, Seasons 52, Morton’s Steakhouse (two locations), Del Frisco’s Grille, O’Neill’s Bar & Grill, Watertable, and Haven Craft Kitchen + Bar.

Getting Noticed

So how important are these awards?

“If you are in that magazine, that issue, you are respected in the business that you have a wine list that needs to be noticed,” said William Lewis, partner and sommelier at The Winery Restaurant, a Best of Award of Excellence winner.

Lewis said he has an inventory of cult wines including Screaming Eagle and Scarecrow, but also looks for wines that have a good value and also go with The Winery’s cuisine, which leans toward game and beef.

I perused the wine list while having dinner at The Winery earlier this month, and it is indeed impressive, with varietals from around the world at all price points.

Selanne Steak Tavern’s 425-selection wine list also garnered a Best of Award of Excellence distinction.

“It’s been a difficult year for our industry, and we are happy to report we are fully open again and pushing forward,” said Selanne Steak Tavern owners Teemu Selanne and Kevin Pratt in a statement. “We are highly honored to receive the Best of Award of Excellence 2021 from Wine Spectator. Once again, we salute Certified Advanced Sommelier Vito Pasquale and his team and thank our guests for their continued support and appreciation of our hospitality.”

Locally, The Winery and Selanne Steak Tavern have each won multiple Golden Foodie Awards for “Best Wine List.”

For a complete list of Wine Spectator award winners, visit winespectator.com/restaurants.

Pelican Grill Revamps Menu

One of my favorite Italian restaurants is Andrea at Pelican Hill Resort, which has unfortunately been closed since the pandemic hit last year.

Not only was the menu fabulous, but in January 2019 Chris Simons, Andrea’s former sous-chef, assumed the role of head chef.

Young yet sophisticated with a passion for learning and for teaching, Simons served a serendipitous apprenticeship at Antonello Ristorante under the tutelage of Chef Franco Barone (who went on to open his own restaurant, Il Barone in Newport Beach), which affirmed his aspirations toward a culinary career.

Simons attended and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. He took chef roles with restaurants in Seattle, Washington, and New York before joining the Andrea team at Pelican Hill.

“I like to use what we have available to us and let the ingredients speak for themselves,” Simons told me at a media dinner soon after he was promoted. “I look at cooking as a craft, and I want to be a good craftsman. It takes a long time to perfect the techniques.”

Simons helmed the Andrea kitchen for just over a year before the restaurant closed and he was temporarily jobless. So, he turned to catering and offered his services as a private chef. As lucrative and creative as that endeavor was, Simons missed the hustle and bustle of the restaurant world.

“That’s what I love about our industry—it’s high octane with a sense of finesse and discipline,” he told me last month. “I missed it, that’s what I wanted to go to back to.”

Simons is back, but not at Andrea. Another Pelican Hill restaurant, Pelican Grill,  reopened a few months ago and lured Simons with the prospect of overhauling the Pelican Grill menu and bringing his artistic touches to the dishes.

200-Year-Old Dish

I dined at Pelican Grill recently and talked with Simons about his new menu as he brought out several dishes for me to taste.

Pelican Grill is one of three restaurants at Pelican Hill—“it’s gastropub style, the classics revisited,” explained Simons, who added that the menu is meat driven with bold flavors and smoke and spice.

Pelican Grill is adjacent to Pelican Golf Club, so Simons is balancing creative cuisine with favorites such as burgers and sandwiches and salads for those needing a speedy meal. Still, Simons said he’s trying to transition the restaurant into a new chapter.

“We could have things like carved meats, stuffings, poultry, saddles of lamb, venison, that whole program. It’s something to look forward to while making sure the golf business has quick cuisine for lunch. Where the menu becomes playful is in the lounge. We have 12 to 15 appetizers. We had to jump start from COVID, and now we have a plan of attack: be relevant and have the best food in Orange County.”

To start my lunch, Simons had me try a beautiful pea gazpacho followed by his version of a caprese salad with mini tomatoes on the vine.

Then came a Scotch egg, a dish seldom seen on menus.

“A Scotch egg is a 200-year-old dish for a reason,” Simons said. “It’s a staple, a delicious protein on the go.”

Simons starts with a six-minute egg to achieve a liquidy yolk, encapsulates the egg with homemade fennel sausage and deep fries that so it’s crispy and fatty. The egg is served on a plate reminiscent of an artist’s palette, accompanied by garnishes.

It’s a beautifully composed dish.

Next came a woodfired half Jidori chicken with sweet heat chilies and creamy grits.

“We marinate the chicken in a variety of chilis, sweet and smoky and sour, and smoked paprika,” Simons said. “I played for a week to find a perfect blend. I hate spicy food but this is not overwhelming—I want you to cry because it was delicious. It’s served with creamy polenta, and two-day au jus. I make sure the skin has a heavy caramelization, it seems burned but it’s not. It adds a complex flavor.”

And finally, dessert: beignets stuffed with brie, accompanied by two dipping sauces.

“You get this gooey brie cheese in the center of a homemade doughnut. All it has is powdered sugar on it and a touch of cayenne that gives it a smokey identity. It shows the technique, how simple comfort food can be.”

For Simmons, simple. For me, amazingly creative and delicious.

I was full, but had to ask Simmons about his burger, which I had heard was a must try.

“The burger was a three-week process,” Simmons revealed. “We worked with meat purveyors, got a blend of brisket and short rib. It comes on a homemade rye bun.”

I’ll be going back for the burger, and the crab poutine, and the bacon and eggs pizza, and just about everything else Simmons has added to the menu.

Pelican Grill: 22800 S. Pelican Hill Road, Newport Coast, (844) 443-0022, pelicanhill.com/dining/pelican-grill

Omakase Menu at Sushi Ii is a Culinary Adventure

I’ll be the first to admit I’m no expert when it comes to sushi. I enjoy sitting at a sushi bar watching a sushi master ply his craft, and I stare in wonder at the variety of seafood options contained within the cooled confines of the sushi bar refrigeration area.

Like most people, I have my favorite sushi rolls and other seafood delicacies, although I am open to trying new things alongside familiar dishes.

That’s why I recently said yes to experiencing the omakase menu at Sushi Ii in Newport Beach. Omakase means “I leave it up to you,” and is most commonly used when dining at Japanese restaurants where the customer leaves it up to the chef to select and serve seasonal specialties.

Customers ordering omakase style expect the chef to be innovative and surprising in selecting dishes, and the meal can be likened to an artistic performance.

Artistic and surprising perfectly describes the omakase experience at Sushi Ii, which opened shortly before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020.

The restaurant is named for owner and Master Chef Susumu Ii. According to the restaurant’s marketing material, Sushi Ii is “rooted in centuries of tradition and pays homage to the fading art of Kansai-style pressed sushi, with dishes reflecting Chef Ii’s washoku training in Osaka and decades spent mastering the traditional art of sushi.”

Sweetfish Suprise

I invited fellow sushi lover Shelly Zavala to accompany me to Sushi Ii, where we sat at the sushi counter so we could watch Ii and his expert sushi chefs cut and craft each piece of fish.

Sushi Ii offers three omakase experiences, with menu offerings range in price from $150 to over $200 per person. A la carte options are also available.

We chose five courses for $150, which consisted of a starter, appetizer, 10 nigiri, miso soup and dessert.

Our starter was a crab and cucumber combination that was not only delicious but served to ease our way into the courses to come.

The appetizer was a small platter of several delicacies including eel, scallop, tofu, what appeared to be a tiny squid, and baby sweetfish (a small fish native to East Asia). The sweetfish was cooked and served whole, and upon asking we were told to eat the entire thing. Shelly was a bit squeamish with the sweetfish, but we agreed this was indeed an adventure and dove into the sushi, palates primed for more.

After that came a series of surprises, from familiar fare such as halibut wrapped in kelp, some lovely and delicious tuna and a piece of excellent yellowtail, to sea eel, deep fried sea urchin, and shrimp so fresh that it had been alive moments before it was served sushi-style.

An adventure indeed. Some of these sea creatures were served in forms unfamiliar to us and a couple were unrecognizable, but we did our best and successfully made it through to the satisfying miso soup.

Although we were getting full, we managed to finish our tiramisu and panna cotta desserts.

Shelly and I agreed that this omakase experience was indeed a grand tasting adventure that was more than worth exploring for its uniqueness and the variety of flavors and styles presented to us. We plan to go back for an a la carte experience and see what other surprises Sushi Ii has to offer.

Sushi Ii: 100 West Coast Highway, Ste. 202, Newport Beach, (949) 287-6268, sushi-ii.com

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