Landmark Steakhouse
Find out what makes this Corona del Mar restaurant's steaks so special.
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| The Night Scene :: On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, Landmark the Steakhouse turns into Landmark the Night Club with an after-dinner DJ, bottle service and bouncers at the door. Get there early; the line stretches down the block most weekends. Contact the restaurant’s VIP host, to reserve a table. 949.675.5556 :: landmarknewport.com |
A more ancient culinary pair than meat and fire there is not. Which is why, frankly, it’s so perplexing that it’s as hard as it is to find a good steak in the 21st century. One would think that, after mankind has spent millennia cooking meat over pits, coals, wood, and (lately) gas, we would have perfected the art of the steak: meaty and juicy, cooked to perfection, with just the right ratio of flavor to tenderness. But instead, it’s a haphazard business, one prone to a seemingly endless array of errors and mishaps, overdoing and under-doing, that lead one to wonder: Is it impossible to find a great steak?
After several not-so-memorable experiences around town, we went to Landmark, a recently renovated Corona del Mar steakhouse that went from dated and under-the-radar to one of OC’s hottest destinations after adding not only an updated California-contemporary-meets-island-exotic menu by Executive Chef Sabre Kennedy but also a lounge, patio and weekend after-hours club scene. While generally the words “VIP bottle service” and “fine dining” do not belong in the same sentence, Landmark has managed to keep the two sufficiently separate so that the quality of the restaurant does not suffer, even while the main dining room is being converted into a dance floor and a DJ materializes out of a back seating area.
We were here, however, not to fight our way past the bouncer, but to try Landmark’s steaks, which are broiled at the blisteringly high temperature of 1,800 degrees. There was, however, other business to attend to first – namely, the starter menu, a fairly lengthy list of everything from seared yellowtail jalapeño carpaccio to grilled artichokes with Yukon potato chips and garlic aioli. We went with the salmon bruschetta, which looked colorful and exciting on the plate, but sadly, fell apart into a food version of schizophrenia: crunchy crostini topped with sundried tomato relish, smoked Norwegian salmon and capers, all accompanied by an Asian slaw with wasabi dressing. There were far too many flavors to execute successfully in one dish, not to mention so many geographic proveniences that the United Nations could have been assembled right there on the plate. Next up was the artisan cheese plate, a safe standby, which came with four cheeses – triple cream brie, smoked gouda, Humboldt Fog goat cheese, and goat cheese covered with a mixture of spices – that was a pleasant and appetite-whetting segue for our foray into steak.
We went with the classics: a bone-in filet with sautéed spinach and a bone-in ribeye with grilled asparagus. The filet was enormous, and a cursory glance revealed several positive signs: a good width, nice color and just the right amount of char on the outside to form a kind of crust. The true test, however, took place when knife went to meat. Cutting into the filet was effortless, as it should be with such a prime cut of meat. But that was not all; actually tasting the filet revealed that it was not only melt-in-your-mouth tender, but also nicely seasoned on the outside – something often ignored at even the “best” steakhouses. A common complaint with filets is that they lack the flavor of cuts like the New York or the ribeye, but this filet didn’t falter on that count, making it close to the ideal steak, especially since it was cooked to a perfect medium-rare. The ribeye was similarly large, but for a steak known for its heightened taste compared to “blander” cuts like the filet, it wasn’t as toothsome as we had hoped. Perfect cooking temperature aside, it still ranked above average.
Although Landmark is known as a steakhouse, it turns out that one of its most popular and universally loved dishes is the Chilean seabass, a giant filet of white, flaky, moist fish marinated in miso-ginger soy sauce and served over julienned vegetables. The first bite did prove tantalizing – a mixture of sweet and salty that never fails to grab onto your tastebuds and light up pleasure centers in your brain – and the julienned vegetables retained a good amount of crunch while also managing to be coated in the sauce dripping down from the fish. If there was one correction to be made, it might be to tone down the sweetness a bit to allow the underlying flavors to come out more.
A steakhouse is not complete without a menu dedicated to side dishes, and Landmark is no exception. We recommend trying the creamed corn, which could almost double as dessert. Also don’t miss the mac n’ cheese, which, when topped with crunchy bacon, became not just a comfort food blob of carbs and cheese, but a comfort food blob of carbs and cheese with some texture. Sautéed mushrooms were also very good and well-seasoned, with a mixture of varieties that added some soft and chewy dimension.
Dessert presented us with the Chambord lava cake, which was truly one of the best versions of the now-ubiquitous after-dinner treat. The chocolate cake dome was not too large, and when cut into, issued forth a river of steamy chocolate “lava.” It helped that the cake was not too spongy, but rather had a firmer consistency and a nice chew to it that complemented the liquid chocolate. Add vanilla ice cream and a hint of black raspberry from the Chambord and it’s an unrivaled dessert for chocolate lovers.
So did we find the best steak in town? Maybe. But Landmark is more than a steakhouse, and it wears its multitasking well.
