Retirement from one’s occupation is expected eventually, and I’ve been thinking for a while about mine. Lucky is the person who has had the opportunity to work for decades for a company that has an extremely high moral stance and a happy “family” of employees. That’s been my experience writing the Executive Dining columns for the Orange County Business Journal for the past 26 ½ years, the best dining years in Orange County’s history. I have so many personal things—a book perhaps—to write about life events leading to my decision to step down.
It has been my good fortune to have been in the prime time of Orange County dining. Memories flood in. Three and four decades ago, we had only a handful of decent restaurants, a sort of pseudo-sophisticated lot against a canvas of very common fast food. Anybody remember Chez Cary, Villa Fontana, Ambrosia?
Since 1990, more and more interesting and fine-tasting food has emerged. Some restaurateurs have become icons. A new kind of anticipatory dining excitement has permeated our county.
The modern-day stage was set by restaurateurs like Louis Laulhere and Edmond Sarfatis, who flattered us with superb French food. One of the most influential and sophisticated restaurateurs was the acclaimed Hans Prager, who gave us The Ritz. Alan Greeley opened his Golden Truffle 37 years ago; it closed two months ago.
Fifi Favorites
In our latest round of restaurants, all on my favorites list are: Marche Moderne in Newport Beach, serving the epitome of French cuisine in beautiful surroundings by owners Florent and Amelia Marneau; TAPS in Brea and Irvine, the perfect balance of fine food and casual, friendly service; Anaheim White House, fantastic Italian food brought to us by our acclaimed humanitarian/owner Sir Bruno Serato, who serves thousands of underprivileged children every night through his Caterina’s Club and its offshoots across the country; Ironwood in Laguna Hills, which started the trend toward midlevel-priced fine dining and is one of the most popular restaurants in the county; Vine in San Clemente, same owner and concept as Ironwood; Antonello in South Coast Plaza Village, still one of the most Italian of the Italian restaurants in decor and superb food; Phoenix Food Boutique in Garden Grove, with a nice but casual atmosphere and plenty of authentic Chinese dishes; Il Barone in Newport Beach, with its food exactly as you’d have it in Southern Italy, delicious in every way; Taco Maria in Costa Mesa, which gained fans from afar, and garnered along with its chef nationwide publicity for modern Mexican food that speaks volumes; Break of Dawn in Laguna Hills, which has the most eclectic, sometimes exotic menu and regular pop-up dinners in Orange County that explore the best of various cultures.
Seeds of Career
My fans of many years know a lot about me, but for those who don’t know about my eclectic, serendipitous life and my restaurant and travel experiences, here’s a quick rundown.
I like to laugh at life, and I like honesty. I have always referred to myself as a French hayseed from Kansas—my parents immigrated from France. I was raised in a region loaded with French and Italian immigrants where everyone fished and hunted and grew and canned their own fruits and vegetables.
I segued westward to attend college, but a job was offered to me troubleshooting for Bank of America. That experience kept me and co-workers going to a great little Chinese restaurant for lunches. There, I met my husband, Patrick, who immigrated from Shanghai. He was working on his master’s degree.
I began my writing career 40 years ago as the first restaurant and wine columnist for Orange Coast Magazine. My phone rang one day, and voila, out of the blue, I was offered the job and instantaneously became a writer with no training whatsoever. They were influenced by the fact that I had been teaching a lot of international cooking classes—my cooking career that was launched by an offer from the Garden Grove School District and grew into a full-time profession teaching all over Orange County.
On another front during this time, I was asked if I would be interested in the position of editor for President Gerald Ford’s magazine connected to his celebrity golf tournament in Park City, Utah. Yes, I met him while spending ample time in Park City.
The Daily Pilot offered me a job writing four columns a week, and I did that for a year before it became something I did not want to sustain. KPZE, the radio station in Anaheim with a strong signal throughout Southern California, called, and I found myself walking through the door for two years of a five-day-a-week broadcasting stint. Easy and fun. In 1976, a cooking student of mine, an attorney, decided I needed a company name and came up with Chao’s Dinesty, which I still use—restaurant and wine newsletter, culinary trips, and dinners with the chefs. That was the same year Mike Grgich stunned the world of wine by winning the best chardonnay in the world at a blind tasting in Paris. It was Mike who introduced me to the top winemakers in Napa when Orange Coast offered me the column, and I scrambled to meet the movers and shakers in at least Napa Valley as a starting point.
In the midst of all this culinary stimulation, I somehow developed an itch to learn to fly, and carved out the time to get my pilot’s license, spending many hours in complex planes, plus several hours of aerobatics. I had the good fortune to have a retired Marine pilot as my instructor.
Elite Encounters
During the years, so many times my phone has rung, and it was some foreign government official or dignitary on the other end asking me if I’d care to experience part of his or her culture. One double-down experience was when France’s most famous restaurant critic, Christian Millau, whom I’d been introduced to on my first trip to France, called and told me he’d be in Los Angeles in a few weeks and would like to invite me to dinner with him and his wife at Dinah Shore’s home. At the time, Shore was dating Wayne Rogers, and from a guest list of about 20, my table of eight included the Millaus, Rogers, restaurateur Bernard Jacoupy and—big surprise—Gregory Peck, whose wife, Veronique, was part of the party but seated with others—Angie Dickinson, Billy and Audrey Wilder among them.
A few weeks before, I’d gotten a call from the Swiss consulate inviting me to travel to Lausanne and audit classes for a week at arguably the world’s most famous culinary school. I’d be staying at one of Lausanne’s most famous hotels, the Beau-Rivage. In a couple of the most serendipitous of moments, it turned out to be the wedding weekend of Diana Ross to Arne Naess Jr. The reception, for which Ross had flown in a planeload of celebrity friends from the U.S., was held at the Beau-Rivage the day after I arrived. None other came strolling down a hallway toward me than Gregory Peck. He slowed down and stopped and said, “Didn’t we just have dinner together in L.A.?”
Then, there was the government invite I got from Thai authorities. My military driver got me to the best of Thailand—such a gorgeous country—near central Thailand, and planes took us to other exotic regions.
Now you know how I’ve been spending my time when you weren’t reading.
Keeping in Touch
Some of my readers keep in touch via email, and I would like to continue that with those who are tried and true foodies and those of you who just want a bit of dining input. You can always catch me at chaothyme@aol.com. I am also on Facebook. And please keep up via the Orange County Business Journal. It will continue to honestly inform you of what’s happening at Orange County’s restaurant tables.
Finally, I would most sincerely like to thank all of the Business Journal’s readers who have taken time to peek at my columns along the way. It’s been the highlight of my life, having an association with such a prestigious publication. And remember, I am only an email away if I can help with anything culinary.
Wishing everyone the very best food experiences as the interesting restaurant scene continues to evolve.
