The 11 Best Places to Eat in Newport Beach

The dining room looks straight out over the water at Newport Beach, which would be enough for most restaurants to coast on. This modern New American spot holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and earns it by pairing that view with a menu that swings from inventive vegetable dishes to an ambitious slow-roasted porchetta. The crowd comes for the scenery and stays because the food keeps surprising them.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

Red booths, a Rat Pack haze, and martinis that mean business: A Restaurant is the kind of old-school American steakhouse that Newport Beach keeps expecting someone to replace and never does. Niman Ranch pork chops and Mary's organic chicken anchor the menu alongside the steaks, and the chicken pot pie appears only on Mondays and Fridays, which somehow makes regulars plan their week around it.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

An upstairs omakase spot above Pacific Coast Highway where the fish comes from Japan and the menu follows the seasons like it has somewhere to be. The kaiseki-style progression moves from delicate cold bites through sashimi and nigiri to dessert, each course composed with the kind of precision that makes you slow down mid-bite. Newport Beach casual this is not, but the room is chic without being stiff about it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

A strip-mall butcher shop and deli in Newport Beach where the pastrami is cured in-house and the beef for the smash burger gets ground the same day. The Italian sub runs through Genoa, coppa, and soppressata, and the rotating specials board keeps things interesting. Regulars who already know their order fill the counter fast. Cheese, charcuterie, and house-made salads line the cases for the road.

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants
2. Los Angeles Times #91 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. LAist Smashburger · Best Bites

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Low lighting and large paintings set a chic tone at this upscale Italian spot in Newport Beach, where the open kitchen pulls the room's attention without trying too hard. The chef comes from a lineage of cooks and farmers in southern Italy, and the menu moves between wood-fired pizzas and house-made pasta, with tiramisu to close things out. Fine dining prices, but the mood is more candlelit dinner than white-glove occasion.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants