4 local eateries get AAA honor

Three Newport Beach restaurants and one hotel were named Wednesday to the 2007 Four Diamond list by the Automobile Assn. of America, Southern California.

The Balboa Bay Club was the only Newport Beach hotel on the list. The four diamond rating left other noteworthy hotels off the list, something Newport Beach Conference and Visitor’s Bureau spokeswoman Jessica Roswell said could be because of all the multimillion-dollar renovations that continued through the summer when the Auto Club was evaluating the properties.

The Balboa Bay Club was doubly honored again this year with its First Cabin restaurant receiving the honors in that category.

“All [the Newport Beach restaurants] are very nice, pleasant restaurants that offer good service, and they have been consistent in their operation from the beginning,” said Charles B. Smith, manager of Southern California Auto Club approved accommodations department. “Even with the First Cabin, which has only been open about three years and has had the four diamond award for three years, even from the beginning it’s been very consistent in their service and quality of food.”

The Pavilion restaurant at the new Island Hotel, Newport Beach, and the Ritz Restaurant and Garden were also named.

The four companies named this year aren’t strangers to the rating.

It’s the Pavilion’s 13th year on the list, but this year marks the first as part of the newly named and independently operated Island Hotel. The restaurant has a new chef and is apparently already making a positive impression on residents and visitors, including Roswell who said chef Bill Bracken’s macaroni and cheese is “the greatest thing in the world.”

“A lot of people forget we have great dining in our hotels and to see both the Pavilion and the First Cabin receive this award really just demonstrates the great dining that we have in Newport Beach and that you can find it in so many different places,” Roswell said.

The Ritz has made the list for 14 consecutive years and has been a staple of fine dining on Newport Center Drive for almost 30 years.

Dan Marcheano, Newport Beach Restaurant Assn. President and owner of the Arches restaurant, said he’s known for decades the importance of Newport Beach as a dining destination.

“You can come to Newport Beach to enjoy the sand, enjoy the bay and the ocean, but when it’s all over, we have a little over 400 restaurants that are without a doubt the best of the best, probably in the whole country in a city with a population of under 75,000,” he said.

Auto Club inspectors make announced and unannounced visits, including an unannounced overnight stay, where prescribed criteria are followed to evaluate each hotel and restaurant that applies for a diamond rating, Smith said. The ratings run from one to five diamonds.

Hotels and restaurants that applied and didn’t make the four diamond list still have a chance to be named on the true best-of-the-best list when the five diamond hotels and restaurants are announced next month.

The ratings are listed in a tour book that’s distributed throughout the U.S. by the Auto Club every year.