Late last month Corona del Mar’s historic Five Crowns and SideDoor (part of the Lawry’s family of fine-dining restaurants) reopened the spacious backyard of the expansive property for open-air dining in the charming setting reminiscent of an English country garden. Set with thoughtfully spaced tables and accented by fire pits, the backyard of the beloved, dining establishment offers the same gracious hospitality for which the restaurants are known. Guests sip on specialty cocktails under the twinkling lights and experience signature dishes from both Five Crowns and SideDoor offered on a single menu available for backyard dining and to-go. Tracy Nelsen Five Crowns’ and SideDoor’s Restaurant Manager, Cheesemonger, Sommelier and Cicerone joins us with a tempting overview of what’s now on the menu.
Angelina’s Pizzeria Napoletana is a fine-casual Italian restaurant located in Irvine in the Los Olivos Marketplace. At Angelina’s, guests dine on authentic Italian food made with only the finest ingredients imported from Italy and fresh produce from local farms. From one-of-a-kind artwork to hand-picked fixtures, the modern, upscale interior redefines the concept of a pizzeria.
Their specialty is authentic Neapolitan-style pizza (pizza Napoletana). Each pizza is made using traditional techniques and cooked in their twin, high-end Ferrara wood-burning pizza ovens, making Angelina’s one of the few restaurants in the United States to hold a VPN Certification (Vera Pizza Napoletana). Angelina’s Managing Partner, Filippo Fusco, is our guest, pizza peel at the ready.
3rd generation restaurateur Ron Salisbury has been running successful, high-volume restaurants for sixty-six years, a period of time in which most people are born and retire. He grew up working after school as a dish sorter, busser, and steam table expediter in his parents’ Los Angeles restaurant, El Cholo. Salisbury is not one for utilizing voluminous operating manuals but over the years has acquired a bushel of practical morsels of wisdom for operating a successful restaurant. Starting with “Our Seven Pillars” Ron has collected all these short vignettes of incredibly useful advice into the very easy-to-read volume, What They Don’t Teach You at the C.I.A. (That’s the Culinary Institute of America by-the-way.) It’s truly an essential and valuable read for all aspiring restaurateurs. Ron Salisbury is with us to generously share a sampling of the practical wisdom from What They Don’t Teach You at the C.I.A.
Winemakers and life partners Mireia Tena and Tara Gomez are the creative forces at Camins 2 Deams in Lompoc, their dream boutique winery. The grapes are sourced exclusively from select vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills, a unique appellation in Santa Barbara County. Their philosophy is to make hand-crafted, terroir-driven wines that are fermented with natural yeast and use minimal intervention in the winery. Camins 2 Dreams believes wine is made in the vineyard and desires to showcase the typicity of each site where the grapes originate.
Current releases include Gruner Veltliner, Rose of Syrah, and three vineyard specific Syrahs. Grenache and Graciano are in their future. Winemakers Tara and Mireia join us to pull the cork on all that is Camins 2 Dreams.
“DTLA Pizza is a new Takeout and Delivery concept from Chef Michael Hung of Faith & Flower. The goal for Chef Michael’s new DTLA Pizza concept is to serve meat lovers and vegans alike, quality and comfort food driven dishes prepared with house-made sourdough crusts, toppings such as Impossible beef, locally grown produce, along with Burgers that are made with American Kobe beef and burst with flavor.” “As the world is today, I find myself craving comfort foods. The menu for DTLA Pizza reflects my time growing up in New Jersey eating at such institutions such as Star Tavern in Orange, NJ. These dishes and flavors remind me of home and the joyful times I spent with my friends and family as a kid.” Chef Michael Hung joins us to artfully toss & stretch the from-scratch pizza dough.
Our own Chef Andrew Gruel of the Slapfish Restaurant Group provides another timely and informative “Ask the Chef” segment where Chef Andrew responds to listeners thoughtful inquiries. Chef Andrew is regularly updating us on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis in the hospitality field and what we, as diners, can do to support the very survival of restaurants. Dine-in is slowly, with multiple hiccups, starting to come back but with a lot of new rules that restrict guest counts. Alternately take-out/delivery when you can surely helps… National Oyster Day was August 5th. We started the conversation last week about fully appreciating oysters. Chef Andrew is our resident authority on these bivalve mollusks enjoyed since ancient times. We’ll resume with tips about cooking with oysters. Oyster stew anyone ?
All of this and heaping helpings of extra deliciousness (with proper Social Distancing) on this week’s not-to-miss show!
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