The Golden Truffle

I went last night on a date. We had a wonderful time !!! The wait staff is young but they are sweet, courteous and accommodating. I’ve only been once before for Wednesday night soul food which btw was excellent. We received the table we requested. We brought our own champagne but you don’t need to, the wine and bubbles list is impressive. I think every review even the ones with less than 5 stars can’t find fault with the food. It is DELICIOUS !!! My spinach salad with warm bacon dressing was a delight. The fish entrees followed by a heavenly decadent chocolate dessert made for a prefect meal. We stayed about 3 hours. The quiet atmosphere, lovely service and phenomenal food was the ideal backdrop for a romantic dinner. Thanks Golden Truffle :)

I hate to write this given the great love from most everyone else whose reviewed this place but we finally went after hearing about the GT for over 20 years and both the wife and I were amazed by how underwhelmed we both were.
The servers were very young and friendly and fortunately, could devote sufficient attention to us as the place had only two other tables to serve when we arrived Saturday night around 7:30. I’m not sure though that our waiter was old enough to drink wine much less give a recommendation. I was equally surprised by the limited wine selection though fortunately they had a J Lohr cab that was the highlight of the meal.
As for the food, we order the crab cocktail, short rib and caesar salad. Everything was just so surprisingly… okay. The Caesar was good. The crab was served over pickled vegetables with some sauce drizzled over which I’d expect at one of the swedish smorgasbords I used to go to with my grandparents as a kid. The short ribs were not bad but FAR from very good or anything close to the other amazing reviews I’ve read. We went from being super excited to finally try GT out to being amazed by the disconnect between what we’ve heard and our experience.

I used to go to this restaurant often, but hadn’t been in a few years. My brother was in town, and I wanted to take him to what I consider a little gem tucked away in a scruffy neighborhood. The food itself was outstanding, but I will never go there again because of my experience this evening. At the table next to us sat a young couple, and Chef Alan was talking to them throughout most of my time there. The chef was practically yelling his end of the conversation, which was particularly salty, laced with «f*cking this» and «f*cking that». I don’t care how good the food is — that is not my idea of a quiet, elegant meal to have to sit there and listen to that kind of language throughout dinner!

This is a ‘love it or leave it’ restaurant — just look at the reviews. Either great or poor (and few of those). You need an open mind and time to enjoy the cuisine. This is NOT your quick business lunch /​dinner place. I’d say that at lunch when I go, 80% are regulars and we nod at each other as a compliment to our mutual good taste. Alan does ‘push the envelope’ but almost all of the time you’ll have a 3 star Michelin dish without going to France. No corkage Thursday evenings, too.

The rating is a composite of 12 years of eating here, most of it ending about 5 years ago. Maybe 20 times; 3 of these occasions I was hosting a group of 8 – 10. We’ve recently started going there again more regularly.
We’ve had issues before, almost all of them involving hapless staff. The problem is *high turnover*.
Chef Alan is apparently there for lunches, though not in the kitchen, and sometimes on weekends.
Once the dishes, not mentioned as spicy on the menu, were way hot. They were good though. I mentioned it to the server and was told the current chef was new and tended to over-​seasoning. Not much of a reason.
These were anomalies and most meals were exceptionally good, most staff stellar. But it happens: servers come and go, and bitching – to management – is always key.
We were there last night and our server was Cindy. Very attentive and friendly. I asked, and she told me she’d been there 4 months.
I’d recommend the place to everyone who hasn’t been taught to roll over for bad waiters. The menu is always creative.
Going to a place like this for mac-​and-​cheese and a burger is a waste of time money and energy.

My wife hired them to cater my 60^th birthday on the boat for 25 people. The staff, food, and service were simply amazing!
Thanks to the Golden T for making the night so memorable!

I love this place! Good service fantastic food! You hear on those cooking shows how you can taste all different flavored & the complexity, well this is the first time I felt like that’s the kind of food I had! Bravo!

Unbelievable food! Try the tamales. The best I’ve ever had!!! 5 Stars!!!

I absolutely love this place. It’s perfect every time we go and the staff is amazing. The waiter even remembered us from our first visit two years ago and knew we sat at the same spot.
The food is beyond explanation. Not only in presentation but in taste. The chef sources some of his favorite ingredients from other countries especially for his restaurant. It’s very telling of what your experience will be like when the owner /​chef is preparing your dishes.
You’re stupid if you don’t try this place. Let’s not forget their wine list if you’re a fan of the vino.

Amazing food every time we come here. Why isn’t it standing room only! Raspberry Duck was out of bounds tonight.

Bought a glass of wine. Small glass and one of the weakest pours you’ll get anywhere. Heard someone else complaining about the same thing for a shot of tequila. Insult added to injury, 16 samolians for it. Won’t be having drinks there anytime soon.

I have never wrote a review in the years I have been on Unilocal,but this was so bad that I felt it was my duty to stop someone from spending good money on this place.
Worst Experience I can ever remember! 35 minutes for our drinks. 50 minutes after we sat down they brought us a piece of bread each. Well over a hour till we got our food. They never brought our appetizer, but what was worse was the server telling us he just forget about it when we were one of four tables in the restaurant. Then he apologized for the wait saying that they had a large catering order so that just «happens sometimes». To add insult he said he would make up for it by giving us a dessert. He brought a tiny scoop of ice cream in a cup. You really feel like they could care less about you because they don’t.
Also, they were out of the beer we ordered, and when we ordered the swordfish he said it was a typo and it was actually Salmon. After it taking so long we kept asking for the check saying we were late and had plans. He dropped it off and never came back. We had to leave cash just to get out of here. It was worth not having change to leave this place. I can’t believe anyone goes here. The food was actually decent but the service was so overwhelmingly bad that it ruined the whole experience.

To both of you and your amazing staff… we could not say enough about the service, beverages and of course the food at our wedding. People are still sending emails and talking about the food. No one can decide what was their favourite, funny that even though it was FREEZING… people LOVED the sorbet!
From the bottom of our hearts, you made our day complete.

My boyfriend took me here on a surprise date. He told me to get dressed up and he wore a suit. We got there and the restaurant is pretty small but it’s cute. We were overdressed though. No one else was in a suit. The waiter was very nice and helpful with the menu. He offered to take my jacket and hang it on the coat rack so it didn’t drag on the floor. We got the mac and cheese as an appetizer. It was really good though I am glad it wasn’t my my course. I ordered the ribeye scallopini and the bf got the salmon and then we traded half was through. The scallopini was amazing, it was in a rich delicioud sauce and had mashed potatoes underneath. It was a big piece as well. The salmon was also good but much smaller and I didn’t love the sauce as much.
The head chef Allen came out during the meal and greated each table, you could tell many were regulars. When he got to our table he put his hands on my shoulders and was practically giving me a shoulder massage, it was awesome! We didn’t get dessert but I think we will next time. We will definitely be back!

Not super fancy and the only reason I stopped in was because a very good friend (a true foodie) once mentioned that it is one of the best food preparations in this area. True that. Wedge salad with blue cheese dressing was the best I have ever had. The dressing was over the top yum. Was treated to the avocado with lobster and it too was quite good. One of the specials was the monk fish prepared with olives and a lemon butter sauce. All delicious. I will return and recommend to others.

I was very surprised — shocked actually. People raved about this restaurant and its food so I had very high expectations. The food was beautiful but to be honest, it looked much better than it tasted.
The hearts of Palm small bites was lovely. Just the right amount of acid and heat! The macaroni & cheese however was a dud. Despite being beautiful, it had very little flavor and was watery — as in macaroni almost floating. The oxtail was good but the greens were bitter bitter bitter (and not in a good way) and the red bean & rice side was bland and cold. My friend ordered the cheeseburger, which we both thought would be amazing… Eh. No seasoning. And the fries — crispy and just warm.
We were there late, so maybe it was the hour. Chef Alan had left so maybe it was the chef. I’ll go back and try again when Chef Alan is in the kitchen — lunchtime — but I’d be hard pressed to recommend this place.

We didn’t enjoy the food here at all — I had the mac and cheese and my wife had a salad with chicken (add-​on). The salad was $ 10 bucks, reasonable, but we were also charged an additional $ 10 for a few pieces of mushy chicken. That’s outrageous — even if the chicken was good, which it wasn’t.
My mac and cheese was rather flavorless.
Our sever was unable to answer even basic questions about the menu.
Pricing issues aside, we won’t be coming back as there are much better options in the area.

STOP! 1 star? No way. ZERO STARS. Leave. Do not come here. Not sure if it was the mold on the ceiling. The lipstick on the drinking glass. Them telling me 20 minutes after I ordered they were out of filet mignon. Or 10 minutes later they had no beer. WORST FOOD AND RESTAURANT IN NEWPORT BEACH. Worst service. Everything. Do not ever ever come here.
UPDATE: Post review, I got the meanest, berating message from somebody at Golden Truffle. WOW! Not just horrible food and service, but bad people work there, too?
Do yourself a favor. Never come here. Ever.

This is a good place for a decent meal and a nice selection of wine. The wine we got was excellent and very reasonable price for bottle. The service was engaging. I did like my salad especially and the mussels were solid with white wine and herb base.
We had nice conversation and were not rushed so I would go here again for a nice evening meal-​i would also go by myself too and enjoy their wine selection and a small bite.

Saturday night at 8 o’clock and NO ONE but us were in there. Chef Alan is known for having fresh ingredients and innovative food, however this weekend the food was lacking.
The size of the dishes were too large, everything smothered in heavy sauce, the truffles were hard and the deep fried oysters were really briny.
I want to support our local chefs and small restaurants instead of the HUGE italian restaurant next store that had a long wait, for what? I ask… for food that looks like «‘Olive Garden.»
It’s a shame that our dinner wasn’t better. I feel concept of the dishes are great and whoever was excuting themjust wasn’t very good at it. Such a shame.
Corkage 15 — killer wine list btw.