I’m joining the list of those doling out accolades to The Winery Restaurant & Wine Bar by naming it the Business Journal’s Restaurant of the Year.
A long list of businesses, media and various organizations have preceded me in their acclaim, and there’s no denying this restaurant sets the standard for how to do it right. A sense of great hospitality permeates every facet of the operation, as the marvelous food, the enticing wines and the sophisticated atmosphere unfold into a memorable dining experience.
The Winery is the most finely tuned dining establishment in the county because the four partners—each a pro in a certain in-house discipline—are in the restaurant full time, operating it and getting to know customers. They are just celebrating their fifth anniversary, and I’m sure the list of customers who have become friends is tremendously long.
JC Clow, William Lewis and Patrick “Irish” Quinn—three of the partners—worked together for more than 12 years at the second-highest grossing Morton’s in the U.S. at South Coast Plaza before embarking on their own journey, according to The Winery’s website. But The Winery, the restaurant said, strays from their steak house past, as the menu here focuses on contemporary California regional cuisine at its finest, with Executive Chef and partner Yvon Goetz directing a team that delivers a culinary experience straight from wine country.
The four, sharing mutual high respect, made a decision to build a restaurant like no other.
Winning Ways
Anyone who knows these partners will tell you that each of them is thoroughly warm and charming, and as down to earth as one could imagine. These four know what really matters in life. Their resolute work ethic—and their sense of wanting to share knowledge with people and provide moments in life that are quite special—sets them apart.
Each of them is a highly focused pro providing a part of the whole and thoroughly knowing the business side of running a tight-knit operation.
We don’t get to see the endless meetings, the ordering of food and wines and liquor, the collaboration that makes it all work so well.
Clow is the managing partner, going from table to table and engaging in food and wine conversation with customers, surveying everything all the time, going to the kitchen to check on something and then back at customer tables again.
He’s a bundle of positive energy like the other three. Customers call and want to talk with him personally, and he tries to make himself available.
Lewis—who oversees wine menu development—is the suave, passionate managing partner and certified sommelier.
He’s also busy at tables, helping customers choose wines. He’s usually got a wine list or bottle of wine in his hands, sometimes both, and he can tell you absolutely fascinating little tidbits about unique worldwide wines or vineyards. Lewis oversees maintenance of a multimillion-dollar wine program, according to The Winery.
Quinn is the master mixologist partner behind the gorgeous marble bar whose warmth and wit are delivered with his lilting Irish accent. We sip signature cocktails and like having him guide us to great-tasting wines at value-driven prices. All wines offered by the glass are stored in a built-in temperature-controlled unit to ensure their quality.
We also love eating in the lounge at the bar or at one of the tall cocktail tables.
Goetz, who brought acclaim to three Ritz-Carlton dining rooms after coming to the U.S. in 1991, hails from Strasbourg, France. He’s been cooking since he was a youth, attended culinary school in France and worked at Michelin three-star Le Crocodile and some Relais & Chateaux properties, according to The Winery.
Clow says running a restaurant is uniquely challenging, as there is an inherently smaller profit margin. That’s because restaurants focus, first and foremost, on the quality of their product but need to keep prices down.
Exciting dishes that have appeared on menus at The Winery include pheasant, quail, Hawaiian seafood, veal cheeks, foie gras before the California ban on that delicacy, buffalo and a variety of wild game. The majority of items on the menu come from small boutique farms, which are mostly organic and support sustainable items.
The chef describes his menu as seasonal and cutting-edge with a fresh farm-to-fork mentality.
A key ingredient in the kitchen: “Love! In all seriousness, when you start with the best ingredients you don’t have to work hard to bring out great flavors in every dish.”
I would advise everyone to have the Alsatian pizza, the essence of the chef’s Strasbourg roots. It’s a crisp crust covered with crème fraîche, apple wood-smoked bacon, gruyere and onion.
Elsewhere on the menu, jumbo scallops join wild white shrimp atop a marvelous roasted pepper and fava bean risotto. A charcuterie board is resplendent with an array of artisan cold cuts. Buffalo carpaccio is another work of art waiting to be devoured.
Wait till you hit the lump crab meat ravioli. Skuna Bay salmon also beckons to me.
The Winery is such a beautifully designed restaurant.
In the lounge a long marble-top bar invites us to pull up one of the ultraplush velvet bar stools, while two chef’s tables (which seat up to 20 guests) allow great views of the strikingly designed open-air kitchen and enables diners to watch Goetz in action! Lavish wood accents add to the hip, vibrant and sophisticated theme.
Patios, Private Rooms
Two convivial patios with custom furnishings and two private rooms saturated with good looks offer more alternative seating.
For good measure, there’s live entertainment Saturday and Sunday evenings, with contemporary jazz and R&B.
The large wine cellar with stone and mahogany wood accents is visible from the restaurant, and guests can have a tour. It houses about 7,000 bottles.
There are about 650 selections on the wine list with many that you won’t find in other restaurants.
Those include South African wines, a Cabernet Franc section and German pinot noirs.
Specialty varietals from global regions are featured—for example, Argentinian Malbec, Australian Shiraz and German Riesling.
Any component of this savory place is a pleasure, but it’s really about four partners who all say they love going to work every day and sharing in such a wonderful venture.
It’s about a restaurant built on quality and value for customers that has four strong cornerstone partners sharing with the public wonderful dining served with the best attitude.
Here’s a toast to a little more praise for The Winery. I think this is one of the best choices I’ve ever made as Restaurant of the Year.
