Newport Beach Restaurant Week puts good tastes on display

Area epicures will have their pick of specials at dozens of local eating establishments starting Monday with the return of Newport Beach Restaurant Week.

It’s more like restaurant weeks, as the event, now in its 14th year, will run 14 days through Jan. 26.

Seventy-three restaurants are taking part, according to the Restaurant Week website. Special prix-fixe menus for a variety of concepts, such as seafood and sushi, casual sandwiches, Mexican, Italian and modern and traditional American cuisine will entice diners for lunch, dinner and, new this year, weekend brunch.

Also new: a charity partner in Second Harvest Food Bank, and about 10 restaurants that are participating for the first time.

Gary Sherwin, president and chief executive of Visit Newport Beach, the city’s marketing contractor, said January typically brings a post-holiday slump in eating out.

But last year, Restaurant Week — a project of the Newport Beach Restaurant Assn. and managed and marketed by Visit Newport Beach — cooked up $3.7 million in combined sales for participating businesses, he said.

Sherwin said Restaurant Week draws locals and visitors who have been curious about at least one of Newport’s hundreds of restaurants.

Prices range from $10 for lunch of a corned beef sandwich with salad and sides at Malarky’s Irish Pub to $50 for a four-course dinner at Farmhouse at Roger’s Gardens, which is “a really popular ticket to get into anyway,” Sherwin said.

Jim Walker, owner of the Bungalow in Corona del Mar and a past president and current board member of the restaurant association, said people get into culinary comfort zones, even though Newport has about 400 restaurants.

“We have enough seats to feed the city of Anaheim,” he said.

Walker has been with Restaurant Week from the beginning. He said the event bumps up sales by 10% to 20% in a usually slow season. In fact, customers are starting to make Restaurant Week reservations before he’s announced his special menus, he said.

This year, the Bungalow is offering dinner at two price points ($40 and $50), along with a $20 three-course lunch menu that has eight chicken, beef and seafood entrée choices.

Carlos Godinez, who manages the recently opened Tavern House Kitchen + Bar, said he saw how Restaurant Week helped diners expand their horizons while he was managing Pizza Nova about a mile down the road.

His current establishment, which opened in July in the former 3-Thirty-3 space at Bayside Drive and East Coast Highway, is another brainchild of longtime area restaurateurs David Wilhelm and Gregg Solomon. It will make its Restaurant Week debut with brunch, lunch and dinner featuring “greatest hits” from Wilhelm’s many Southern California concepts, Godinez said. They include “elevated comfort foods” such as French onion soup, buttermilk fried chicken and prime rib dip.

Restaurant Week will give a sneak peek at a tasting party from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Fashion Island’s Lincoln Experience Center, 139 Newport Center Drive. Several participating restaurants will serve samples, with a portion of the $50 ticket price benefiting Second Harvest.

For a list of all the participating restaurants, plus menus and prices, go to visitnewportbeach.com/restaurant-week.

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