Best of Laguna Beach

By: Diane Armitage
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  • Summary

  • From 25-year Laguna Beach Resident Diane Armitage enjoy fun, engaging interviews of our international chefs and the town's most creative people + my recommendations for THE best places to dine, drink and play in our famous SoCal seaside town.

    Also enjoy the monthly series, "Revenue Recipes: Cooking Up Profits for Restaurants" with me and my special guest, award-winning Restaurant Developer Bruce Russo.

    The Best of Laguna Beach™ podcasts are uploaded on Wednesdays every week by 12 p.m. PST/3 p.m. EST
    2024, Best of Laguna Beach™
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Episodes
  • Inside Evan’s Gourmet: New Spring Menu, Wine Picks & Unique Group Dining

    Inside Evan’s Gourmet: New Spring Menu, Wine Picks & Unique Group Dining
    Feb 23 2025
    On Monday, Feb 17th, it was a fun, fast-moving interview with Chef Evan Lewis of the year-old restaurant, Evan’s Gourmet, my most favorite restaurant find this year!

    860 Glenneyre Street (Thalia and Glenneyre)
    Open Wed, Thurs, Fri & Sat evenings, 5 pm - 9 pm
    Sunday Brunch, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. with live music
    Reservations: Call or text: (949) 388-1568
    (I always recommend sitting at the Chef’s Counter/Bar)

    Show Notes:
    • Chef Evan explains her “eclectic/fusion” menu, a compilation of her favorite catering items.
    • We talk about the ONE stellar moment that got her into catering and her subsequent 30 years of catering (that she still does), including long-time clients that she cooks for 3 days a week for 24 years!
    • Chef Evan has also been a well-loved fixture at Sawdust for 10 years (both summer and Winter Fantasy festivals). She talks about how she prepared to win the coveted spot and the unique issues of hiring help for her Sawdust location.
    • We talk about favorite margaritas in preparation for National Margarita Day this Saturday, Feb. 22nd. Where’s Chef Evan’s favorite? We then toss back into her menu as she serves best-selling margaritas, mimosas, espresso martinis and more from her saké-based spirits menu. Then, it’s a review of how she selects her wines to specifically pair with her menus
    • 😋 Then it's Chef Evan’s NEW Spring Menu, arriving the first week of March. She’s tested it ALL on her catering clients, even a party she catered the evening previous!
    • Chef Evan talks about her live musicians in the restaurant and that the 3rd Thursday of the month is an open mic event with “Story Time with Mijo”
    • The learning curves Chef Evan dealt with as a first-year full-service restaurant owner. We discuss the issue of restaurant owners paying for EVERY reservation people make, even if they don’t bother to show up and cancel the reservation. People! Be kind about your restaurant reservations! And, we discuss those people who change everything about a menu item and then complain about it in Yelp.
    • Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free menu options at Evan’s Gourmet.
    • When Chef Evan is doing her 48-hour fast, this is what she does to occupy her time …
    • Chef Evan’s group dining bookings is rapidly expanding (for groups up to 35) and this is exactly why …
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    55 mins
  • Grab Tix: "Artiste" Wine Tasting Comes to Laguna

    Grab Tix: "Artiste" Wine Tasting Comes to Laguna
    Feb 17 2025
    Grab Tix: "Artiste" Wine Tasting Comes to Laguna

    On my “Best of Laguna Beach” show, Ruben Flores and I interviewed the Founder of Artiste Wines out of Santa Ynez in Northern Santa Barbara County. Bion Rice, the founder of this truly lovely wine, is a 5th generation winemaker after his great-great-great grandfather first got into the industry in Napa Valley in the 1890s.As we announced in yesterday’s radio show …


    Bion and his Artiste collection of wines is coming to Laguna Beach for a V.I.P. wine tasting event on Sunday, March 9th. It takes place in the first level “Parrot Room” at Mozambique between noon and 3:00.Tickets are just $50. This is NOT going to be a massively large event - it’s truly numerous tastings of Artiste wines, and one-on-one wine discussion and food pairings with one of the most unique wine brands I’ve ever known.

    The link is here:
    https://www.artiste.com/events/laguna-beach-sips-2025-artiste-wine-food-experience/

    IN THE INTERVIEW:
    Bion talks about growing up in a grape growing/winemaking family (Comparatively, Ruben and I talk about our first wine drinking experiences. NOT the same.) He mentions his family’s vineyard and the 1994 moment when he turned his attention away from being an elementary school teacher to actually walking the path of a 5th generation wine maker.We discuss the 200+ “boutique” wineries in Santa Barbara and why the growth was so expansive from the time of his family’s “Sunstone” creation, the 21st winery in the region. Bion then shares the actions he took to eventually own his own winery, “Artiste.com.”The very unusual uniqueness of Artiste wines


    Bion shares his enduring love of Impressonist art and how he’s so uniquely emulated that philosophy into his wines. This is quite an amazing story!

    Bion’s REAL reasons for coming to the art gallery mecca of Laguna Beach


    In his closing, Bion is looking to expand his artist-driven labels specifically with Laguna Beach artists. Listen in as he introduces his ideas.
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    53 mins
  • Rebuild LA’s Restaurants? Our Insights + Regaining Laguna's Mystique

    Rebuild LA’s Restaurants? Our Insights + Regaining Laguna's Mystique
    Jan 25 2025
    In this Monday, Jan 20th’s radio show at KXFM 104.7 (repay above), my guest Bruce Russo (the country’s largest restaurant developer) and I talk about the massive undertaking L.A. retailers and restaurants face in their rebuild. There are SO many layers here that will have to be addressed. All politics aside, this disaster will prove the largest rebuild undertaking in the country. Here’s why …

    And THEN, we talk about the potential for greater (and specific) support for Laguna Beach’s restaurants.
    • The structural and underground difference between buildings destroyed in hurricane or tornadoes vs. buildings destroyed by fire.
    • When communities are put together piece by piece with retrofit, etc., now that chalkboard has been wiped clean. It’s now a huge re-zoning and planning effort along with express and executable building permit processes.
    • The liquor license conundrum that has now appeared for all these ruined restaurants and bars, and all the reasons why. (The same issue is happening with the existing restaurants at the Dana Point Harbor that want to continue operation in a new space while the reconstruction is happening.)
    “The easy part is getting the restaurant built. It’s the headwinds you have to deal with it to get it to the point where you can actually make the building go vertical.” - Bruce Russo
    • Bruce shares what other cities did for businesses in quick rebuild processes after hurricanes and tornadoes. He also mentions better solutions in other large cities to expedite the plan review and approvals process.
    It’s what we call the “quantum leap mindset” where you effectively “wrinkle” the time, and pull the ends of the circumstance together to leap to a faster solution. - Diane Armitage
    • We discuss the expected glut of demolition material and the expected scarcity of new building materials. Bruce offers a time estimate for a single restaurant rebuild from this moment forward. He also offers an opinion on what he’d do if he were these restaurant owners.
    We then switch to Diane’s recent interview with KXFM Radio’s Billy Fried (Jan. 14th on Laguna Talks) about the state of restaurants in Laguna Beach. (His replay has not posted yet, but I’ll keep you in the loop when it does.)
    • Billy and I discussed the “poshness” of Laguna Beach, the mystique that it had 20 years ago and we’re missing that now. Why is that? Is Laguna Beach so far behind that it’s too far behind now? What’s 20, 30 and 40 years old isn’t attracting the 30s to 40s aged demographic.
    • We talk about the Laguna Beach restaurants that still attract the higher revenue clientele. And, even while the hotels are still gathering the higher revenue demographic, that’s not what’s day tripping into our town anymore. How did we end up with such disparity?
    “It’s not like the people don’t exist and that they’re not willing to come to Laguna Beach.” - Diane Armitage“It didn’t happen overnight. The opulence didn’t swim out to sea overnight. It went piece by piece. When the pieces went away, they weren’t replaced with equal to or better.” - Bruce Russo
    • The difference between Newport Coast and Laguna Beach.
    • The importance of having a city restaurant advocate who can hear why these owners and chefs are thinking of leaving before they leave. We also talk about Javier Sosa of Javier’s leaving Laguna Beach and the “long shot” he took to build out the giant he created in Newport Coast.
    • Bruce proffers his opinion of a parking garage in Laguna Beach and retail anchors vs. restaurant anchors.
    • We talk about the new Piatti group coming into the restaurant Bruce designed and built here in Laguna Beach at 222 Ocean Blvd (will they change the scenario?)
    • Then, we make final comments on Dana Point’s recent development solution, and our hopes to get involved in an expansion of restaurant support, not only for the Downtown Corridor but extending through North and South Laguna’s quadrants.
    The expectation is not going to change if nothing is done.” - Bruce Russo
    Media: For interviews, contact Diane@BestofLagunaBeach.com or just hit “reply” on this email.
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    49 mins

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