Ironwood Brings Great Cuisine and a Killer Chicken Schnitzel to Laguna Hills

I did a double-take when the Jidori chicken schnitzel at Ironwood landed on our table with a thud. It's covered end-to-end in golden-brown breading and has a surface area so large you could pick it up and wear it as a scarf. “Do chickens have...

Russ Bendel, the restaurateur behind the excellent Vine in San Clemente and sublime Ironwood in Laguna Hills, uses the three-worded slogan “Cellar. Craft. Cook” to describe his wine-country-cuisine concept. But as he debuts Olea in Newport Beach,...

We all seem to think we know how to run a restaurant regardless of whether we've ever owned or operated one. So when you find yourself in a restaurant that deviates from this ideal, even just a little, you start playing the role of an armchair...

Have you been to Long Beach's so-called Retro Row, a strip of Fourth Street between Junipero and Cherry avenues? It's home to vintage-clothing shops, a handful of hip restaurants and the Art Theatre, which is currently playing Richard Linklater's...

On its website, the Gypsy Den advertises itself as “Orange County's Original Alt Café,” and no one save for maybe Alta Coffee in Newport Beach would argue. It's a legend–never necessarily cutting-edge, but always comforting to the hipsters and...