Eateries offer last night out

Alicia Robinson

For those who want to usher in 2004 with gastronomic fanfare, many

area restaurants are offering New Year’s Eve champagne toasts with

hors d’oeuvres, dinners and, in some cases, music and dancing.

Several restaurant employees said they’re planning for huge crowds

on the last night of the year, which can be one of the busiest nights

because seemingly everyone goes out.

Roy’s in Newport Beach expects to serve more than 500 dinners,

mostly to people who come in before heading to a club or hotel for

dancing, Roy’s General Manager Barry Pierce said.

“It’s actually one of our heaviest nights of the year in terms of

that 6 o’clock to 10 o’clock time period,” he said.

There won’t be live music, but “we decorate big time,” he said.

Menu items for the evening are still being finalized, but in the

past, Roy’s has served a surf and turf dinner and a fish fillet with

shellfish, and caviar appetizers and Dom Perignon by the glass are

New Year’s Eve standards, Pierce said.

Diners at Roy’s are expected to partake of high-end wines and

champagnes that cost at least $100 a bottle.

In terms of food, the last dinner of this year won’t be much

different than any of the preceding ones at Scott’s Seafood in Costa

Mesa, general managing partner Mark Kuehn said.

“I have a different theory about New Year’s Eve, and that is to

run the same menu that we normally do and not surprise anyone with

either price point or food that they’re unfamiliar or uncomfortable

with,” he said.

Kuehn took a lesson from New Year’s Eve 1999, when he saw other

restaurants offering special menus with sky-high prices because it

was “the millennium.”

“I think it was a gross abuse of the hospitality industry to

overcharge everyone like that,” he said.

So Scott’s is serving its usual beef and fish entrees as well as

its seafood cioppino, an herbed tomato soup with crab, mussels, clams

and fresh fish.

Because the restaurant is near the Orange County Performing Arts

Center, Kuehn plans on a first dinner seating between 6 and 7:30 p.m.

for people attending shows. Later in the evening, a dance floor will

be cleared, and guitarist and vocalist Mike Kelsen and his band will

provide music.

As well as the traditional New Year’s champagne, Kuehn said

patrons will be drinking classic cocktails such as cosmopolitans,

martinis and old fashioneds made with high-quality bourbon.

“People like that big, showy martini glass that they can sip,” he

said. “It’s very stylish.”

The last day of 2003 will be the end of the line for Chimayo

Grill, a southwestern-style eatery that restaurateur David Wilhelm

opened about nine years ago in Fashion Island. Wilhelm will

completely remodel the space and reopen it in April as Rouge, a more

casual take on the French fare he’s become known for at Costa Mesa’s

Chat Noir and French 75 in Laguna Beach.

Although it will be the restaurant’s last night in its current

form, Wilhelm said, New Year’s Eve won’t be a blowout event.

“Actually we’re going to keep it very low profile,” he said.

“We’re going to do an open house. We’re just going to invite people

to stop by.”

No dinner will be served, but guests can stop in between 5:30 and

9:30 p.m. for champagne, hors d’oeuvres and margaritas before heading

to later celebrations.

Chat Noir, another Wilhelm venture that opened in October, is

inaugurating a “black cat ball” for New Year’s Eve, complete with a

four-course menu, a five-piece band and dancing.

Dinner selections will include onion-crusted sea bass on lobster

pomme puree, a seared foie gras with roasted duck breast and duck leg

and thigh confit in an orange sauce.

Guests will get black cat paw fake tattoos, and women are

encouraged to dress in the black cat theme, with a prize offered for

the best outfit.

Wilhelm said this year’s black cat ball may be the first of many.

“You have to start a tradition someplace, so this is what we’re

doing the first year,” he said. The later of the two dinner seatings

already has a waiting list, but Wilhelm said there may be space left

in the earlier seating.

For reservations at Roy’s, call (949)640-7697. To reserve a table

at Scott’s Seafood, call (714)979-2400. Space may still be available

at Chat Noir, which can be reached at (714)557-6647.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.