Decadent dinners for New Year’s Eve in Orange County
Why not celebrate the last day of the year with a decadent dinner from one of Orange County’s lauded restaurants? As 2024 winds down, there is no better time to visit a favorite local haunt like Newport Beach’s Fable & Spirit or a new addition like Darkroom in Santa Ana or La Vaquera in San Juan Capistrano. All three restaurants are offering indulgent menus that are sure to send you into 2025 with a full belly. Reservations recommended.
La Vaquera
31904 Paseo Adelanto, San Juan Capistrano
(949) 749-4200
lavaquerasjc.com
La Vaquera is one of the many dining options at the recently opened River Street Marketplace in San Juan Capistrano. Drawing inspiration from California’s ranchero lifestyle, the restaurant from Santa Barbara-based Acme Hospitality Group focuses on live-fire cooking, and executive chef Aaron Zimmer has prepared an especially festive menu for New Year’s Eve.
Choice of starters includes crispy pork belly with winter-spiced apple, a root vegetable barbacoa consommé with blue corn masa dumplings or Spanish octopus, served with salt crusted potatoes and mojo verde. For entrees, the menu features lamb shank birria, achiote-glazed back cod, a surf ‘n’ turf of Angus beef tenderloin with prawns and Jerusalem artichokes in salsa verde or a vegetable dish of winter squash with rainbow chard and aged Monterey Jack cheese. A classic poached pear dessert with eggnog ice cream finishes off the meal.
The New Year’s Eve menu is priced at $85 per person and will be served from 4 until close at 10 p.m. The regular dinner menu will not be available, but children can order from the restaurant’s kids menu.
Chrysalis at Darkroom
3751 S. Harbor Blvd. Suite C, Santa Ana
(657) 777-3275
wearedarkroom.com
Chrysalis is the chef’s tasting menu experience at Darkroom in Santa Ana, which opened earlier this year. It began as a pop-up and has continued to live on in a private dining room at Darkroom. Chef/partners Zach Scherer and Drew Adams have decided “to blow the doors off in 2025” with a new 14-course menu of mainly seafood focused small bites that will launch on New Year’s Eve. Seating begins at 7 p.m., with tickets priced at $325 and including a premium wine pairing.
Separately, in the main dining room, Darkroom will offer a six-course wine dinner designed around some of the favorites poured this year. Guests can look forward smoked mushroom tarts with sun-choke sausage paired with a 2022 Julien Cruchandeau Ladoix Pinot Noir and dry aged beef, black garlic fudge and Amaro cola sauce served with a smoked potato paired with a 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon from Aperture Cellars Soil Specific. Tickets for this experience are priced at $175 with the first seating at 6:30 and the second at 8:15 p.m.
Fable & Spirit
3441 Via Lido, Newport Beach
(949) 409-9913
fableandspirit.com
This sophisticated Irish pub in Newport Beach is as favored for its updated classics, like fish and chips with crushed peas and warm Guinness brown bread, as it is for its thoughtful wine list.
For New Year’s Eve, the Michelin-recognized restaurant has put together a three-course feast. For the first course, diners choose from Maine lobster agnolotti, served in a sweet corn emulsion with English peas, pancetta and truffle air or white Peking duck confit, over beluga lentils with lardons, rocket and glaze de veau. The second course offers a choice between Chilean sea bass in beurre noisette, served with roasted sprouting cauliflower and charred onion soubise or Mishima Reserve wagyu barrel-cut ribeye with fondant potatoes and butter-poached asparagus.
All dinners end on a sweet note of warm butter cake with strawberry champagne compote and vanilla bean butter cream. The New Year’s Eve menu is priced at $130 per person and available alongside the regular dinner menu from 5 to 9:30 p.m.
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