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EXECUTIVE DINING
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Pinot Provence in Costa Mesa always ranks high on my list of fine dining restaurants.
It's a blessing for Orange County to have an extraordinary chef, Florent Marneau, who has kept the French menu authentic while managing to make his dishes jump off the menu.
Sometimes restaurant menus have lots of items that sound good when you have a first read, but as you narrow down what you'd actually order, there's nothing at all that screams out for your palate.
That's certainly not the case at Pinot Provence-and that's the restaurant's greatest draw of all.
Pinot Provence's menu offers dish after dish that is truly French and sounds so good. And after trying out the new winter menu, I want to order one of everything on each visit.
It is wonderful to dine amid the excellent mood that Pinot Provence offers. In this lingering warm weather, we've been enjoying the two French garden patios that front the restaurant. They are a bit of perfection-like dining on the terrace of a chateau.
With imported statuary and fountains from the South of France, Pinot Provence has the feel of a European sojourn.
Even though the restaurant is 7 years old, it seems as fresh and inviting as ever with the inside amenities also owing a lot to the operators' French heritage. Example: A central stone table holding a massive bouquet of fresh flowers came from overseas.
The restaurant's founders, well-known chef and restaurateur Joachim Splichal and his wife Christine, also wandered through France selecting chandeliers, the old barn boards that became Pinot Provence's ceiling, the utterly tall and stately doors that mark entrances to separate, private dining spaces, and even a ton or so of limestone blocks that outline the grand arch to the main dining room.
This is an elegantly clad restaurant.
There are staples on the menu that Pinot Provence...