Orange County Register

Dining: Fine dining fine-tuned
Le Quai offers intimate ambience and delivers subtle improvements on the usual upscale cuisine.

By ELIZABETH EVANS
Special to the Register.

There are few places that have the same combination of special-occasion glamour and intimacy as Le Quai. This micro-sized eatery, which is wedged into a crowded neighborhood in Newport Beach right near the water, reopened early this summer after a gentle renovation.

On a recent evening, we enter the tiny wine-locker-lined lobby, taking a peek inside the equally compact kitchen, which is a blur of white and steam.

Once we're seated, menus, bread and butter arrive in short order. The bread is worth noting; it's a fat roll, deeply rustic with a fragrant sweet interior studded with sharp bits of black olive. I can also say that the high quality of service doesn't change through the night.

There is nothing on the well-edited menu that I haven't seen before. It's a sort of greatest hits of upscale dining, but chef Chris Gielen, who is new to the restaurant since the reopening, gives each a subtle modern twist that in most cases improves upon a classic.

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