Darkroom, Orange County’s most ambitious restaurant this year, opens in Santa Ana – Orange County Register

“To make interesting food, the space doesn’t have to be exclusive and it doesn’t need to be snooty,” says chef Zach Scherer.

No truer than in Orange County, where fine dining too often coincides with unapproachable. To disrupt this standard, Scherer, along with chef Drew Adams, founded Darkroom, Orange County’s latest and most aurally exciting restaurant to date this year.

Billed as “everyday fine dining,” Darkroom, which opens on Thursday, Sept. 12, offers an elevated gastronomic experience in a playful setting reminiscent of an after-hours fete. A bar backed by an illuminated perforated grill sets the vibe. Vinyl records spin over a percussion of a cocktail shaking. Pink graffiti emblazons the bathroom walls. While such mood-setting style brings Scherer and Adams’ spot down to earth, the leading star at Darkroom is the food.

“I call it California-Scandinavian,” said Scherer. “Which doesn’t mean I’m serving pickled fish or anything like that, but instead I serve a cuisine that really follows and respects the seasons.” He points to places like Norma or other restaurants in glacial environs where chefs routinely change their menus based off of seasonality.

Scherer, who spent several years at Playground in Santa Ana, and Adams, who served as executive chef at Outpost Kitchen, have created a menu consisting of smaller shared plates and larger entree-ish dishes that are as full of eye-catching pluck as they are complex flavors.

Menu highlights include a fort of chips made with nori and colored with squid ink concealing a bright mound of wagyu steak tartare. A whole grilled trout, ideal for one person, topped with a nest of mandolined cucumbers. A roasted cabbage wedge with gorgeously charred edges paired with a beef hollandaise. And a hand-held caesar salad, which can be picked up and enjoyed with your hand, comes with comte cheese, lacto tomatillos and a veritable garden of dill on top.

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The dessert part of the evening offers a handful of equally thoughtful dishes, like the seasonal ice cream that arrives at the table with classic sundae vibes; ricotta doughnuts; or a dark chocolate mousse, which has a near ganache-like texture, comes topped with a dollop of briny caviar, offering a refreshing spin on a salty-sweet combo.

Scherer says that a hamburger will be available exclusively at the bar. “This is something I drew from The Loyalist in Chicago where we’re going to do a steakhouse- burger that’s only served at the bar. There will only be 10 of them available each night. It will be somewhere between a steakhouse burger and a smashburger.” The burger will feature fermented onions cooked in the meat and Jimmy Nardello peppers.

Darkroom’s wine program will eschew the industrial wine giants that take up space on many a wine menu. “What we want to do is celebrate people that are making wine the artisan way, makers who are touching the soil themselves, touching the grapes themselves and making it into wine — you know, that’s what we believe in.” Headliners will include California makers, like a Les Miserables Rose from Victor Hugo Winery in Paso Robles, as well as international players, like a Montepulciano D’abruzzo from Rocca dei Butteri in Central Italy.

Darkroom’s creative bent also extends to its bar program, which Scherer and Adams have designed together.

“A lot of the time in previous jobs, I’d be playing around and would come up with an element and I’d think that it would be great in a cocktail, “ explained Adams in a written statement. “Of course, I didn’t run the bar so that never happened. Now the creative output of the kitchen can be leveraged to make the bar world class as well.”

Shaken drinks might include clarified pineapple juice and coconut with a float of amontillado sherry or a vermouth cocktail tinged with red seaweed. In lieu of names, cocktails are christened with numbers. The No. 3, for example, is a Bordiga Rosso sour, and the No. 5 is a Negroni Sbagliato with prosecco.

Zach notes that the goal isn’t to get his guests inebriated, which is why many of the boozy concoctions are low alcohol. “They are all designed with low alcohol and to work well with the food,” he said.

While Darkroom’s fare is reason enough to pay a visit to this Santa Ana spot (located inside the former Beyond the Baguette Vietnamese fusion eatery), the ambience adds an extra nudge.

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Adams and Scherer conceived the decor for Dark Room’s sprawling space. Predominantly black with low lighting and a smattering of mid-century furniture, a lounge area with a working turntable allows guests to choose from a Pitchfork 10-worthy library of vinyl records (think Sade, AC/DC, Billie Holiday, Fiona Apple and Kendrick Lamar, to name a few) to play while they dine.

“We were trying to capture this middle ground between a Japanese listening bar and a dark, Scandinavian, mid-century room,” said Scherer.

In stark contrast to the main dining area is the chef’s-table room, a dedicated space painted white with a handful of communal tables and serving area inspired by San Francisco’s Lazy Bear, a two-star Michelin sparkler noted for its playful dining where guests sit elbow to elbow and form personal connections while they dine.