FIG & OLIVE is a chain of high-end restaurants founded by Laurent Halasz. Mr Halasz grew up in Mougins, in the South of France. With his mother, Francine, they have been inspired by this region and ingredients to create the style of cuisine of FIG & OLIVE. They have done very well catering to the fine-dining foodies. FIG & OLIVES have four locations in New york, one in Chicago, one in LA, and one in Newport Beach, which was the location I dined at.
FIG & OLIVE Newport Beach is located along the Coast of Orange County in the super high-end shopping destinations known as Fashion Island. If you have never been to Fashion Island, you owe it to yourself to visit, if only to see how the 1% lives.
Guests of FIG & OLIVE Newport Beach are transported into a 12,000 square foot French Riviera Oasis that can accommodate up to 330 guests. This has got to be the biggest fine-dining restaurant I have ever been to. The rooms are surrounded by olive trees, gardens and offers a variety of seating options; both indoor and outdoor.
The dinner menu is a simple two-page affair, and features flavors and cuisine from the Riviera and Coastal regions of the South of France, Italy and Spain. As you can guess by the restaurant’s name, FIG & OLIVE stocks a large variety of extra virgin olive oils to be paired with each dish, and to be offered for tasting at the beginning of each meal. They even had a kid’s menu for Sally.
The prices were crazy expensive, but you expect that from a Newport Beach fine-dining restaurant. The question is, does the price match the taste? It came close. The seafood dishes were amazing. The meat dish, not so much. As for Sally’s pizza. Well, let’s just say FIG & OLIVE got nothing on CPK (Sally’s words).
The overall service was quite good. We were greeted quickly, and shown to our table. Our server did forget to bring my wife’s wine with her main course. When my wife asked for it, he brought it over right away and removed the cost from the bill. Very nice. Saving the cost of a glass of wine helped to bring the dinner bill down to only $350. I guess that’s about average for Newport Beach.
