Darkroom in Santa Ana develops a new kind of dining experience
Chef Zach Scherer is passionate about two things: food and music, which explains why his new Santa Ana restaurant, conceived with business partner and chef Drew Adams, is lit like a concert venue.
“Everybody has a favorite song and everybody has a favorite dish,” said Scherer. “If a song comes on that I used to love, I can remember exactly what I was doing when I first heard it, and I feel like food is like that too. We wanted to create a place that celebrates that.”
Scherer would like to see Darkroom become a place where Orange County diners can experience a new kind of dining that involves quality, chef-driven food without the stuffiness of white tablecloths and a nearly silent dining room. While he said he can appreciate those experiences, they don’t always work for everyday eating.
“The problem is that I don’t always want to sit in a formal setting and have to whisper to my wife all night,” Scherer said. “I want to be in a place where people are having great, interesting food but also listening to cool music and having a good time.”
The space at 751 S. Harbor Blvd. is located in a strip mall, but once inside it is easy to forget you are next door to a Tommy Pastrami. Darkened windows and moody lighting with pops of red and purple feel like a place you might come to for live music rather than a seasonal menu. A lounge area with leather couches and twin turntables is situated near an extensive vinyl record collection where guests can pull LPs from the stacks and set them in the pile to be played next. Art that incorporates rock stars like David Bowie line the walls, but at Darkroom the food is the headliner.
Scherer honed his craft at Santa Ana’s Playground and most recently worked at Bello in Newport Beach, while Adams was executive chef at Outpost Kitchen in Costa Mesa before moving on to 370 Common and eventually also Bello. The bar program has an esoteric wine list and low-alcohol cocktails designed to pair with the food, rather than get diners hammered, and the partners are working together to create the weekly revolving menu.
“It is going to be what we feel like making, first and foremost,” said Scherer.
The menu takes cues from California seasonality, new Nordic restaurants and the chefs’ personal tastes.
“If we keep it personal, we can’t do it wrong,” Scherer reasons.
The result is a menu that includes dishes like sweet hunks of Hokkaido scallops, or Japanese scallops, crowned on a light, crispy tostada and drizzled with marigold vinaigrette or steak tartare spliced with smoked onion and served with crackly black nori chips to craft a balanced bite. Entrees include soft and flaky grilled trout and a hanger steak topped with a chili crunch and served with creamy shisito peppers, a dish that reads as Asian-inspired but somehow also tastes vaguely reminiscent of a chile relleno. It is a blend of flavors Scherer chalks up to California sensibilities.
“We have big Asian cultures here, we have big Hispanic cultures here. That is something I grew up with and that is like soul food for me,” said Scherer.
Scherer notes that the steak dish is very “now” in the sense that the shisito peppers are in season and the ones used at Darkroom are sourced locally from the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano.
Darkroom will also be a home for Crysilis, the roving pop-up dinners Scherer spent the better part of last year hosting. A private dining room to the side of the front entrance will serve as a space for the ticketed events, a backstage pass if you will, to a whole other dining experience separate from Darkroom. Tickets start at $215, and the first available date is Oct. 3.
Either way, Scherer said he wants guests to feel like they get “a slice of today,” meaning a unique experience that could only be achieved with today’s ingredients, a currentness that he likens to live music.
“I always say when you go dine with chefs that really know what they are doing, it is like going to a concert. If you want to listen to music you have a CD, or at this point an MP3, that you could put on in your car,” said Scherer. “But if you want to see a performer play then you go to a concert … and it is special because you were there that one time.”
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