Chefs Put Best Food Forward at Taste of Newport

Allen and Marti Leonard couldn’t wait for the gates to open Saturday at this year’s Taste of Newport, the second of a three-day food festival at Fashion Island Newport Beach.

“We come to Newport only once or twice a year, and this is one of the main reasons,” said Allen Leonard, who is visiting with his wife from Phoenix.

Taste of Newport, which continues from noon to 8 p.m. today and costs $8 admission, is like a high-class food court where the city’s best bistros set up their kitchens side by side on a street between palm trees and high-rise bank buildings.

The fair offers the complex, rich sauces of some the most posh restaurants in town to the simplest, flip-it-on-the-grill-and-it’s-done diner meals, from $3 on up.

The Leonards, formerly of Newport Beach, wanted a head start to the seven-hour event. They were the first two to arrive.

“We are trying to convince Five Crowns to open in Phoenix,” said Marti Leonard, who was savoring a wine from one of the four wineries at the fair. Five Crowns is one of the 32 restaurants represented.

From the smoke clouds billowing from the grills of Sabatino’s sausages to the tangy perfume of sauteed vegetables at the Royal Thai Cuisine, the air was filled Saturday with tantalizing smells.

And then there were the sights.

“Mmm. Look at that meat,” said Anaheim resident Cheryl Woods, pointing at a skewer with barbecued lamb at Hassan’s Cafe booth. She later indulged, saying: “I had to have some.”

Hassan Hassan, owner and chef of the Lebanese restaurant, noted that the fair “is a good place to take advantage and sample foods.”

Two booths away stood the phoenix of Newport Beach restaurants, the Villa Nova, which burned down a week after last year’s Taste of Newport and reopened just last month.

“We’re back!” said a jovial Sonny Mergenthaler, the Italian restaurant’s longtime executive chef, who prepared a pasta dish with grilled chicken. For the restaurateurs, it’s a chance to show off and hopefully gain some new customers. This is the eighth consecutive year it’s been held.

Taste of Newport is one of the most profitable days of the year for the local restaurant industry, said Bill Hamilton, owner of the Cannery at the Cannery Village. “We don’t look at providing quantity here. We are more about quality.”

Allen Leonard put it simply: “This is the best way to eat around the entire city. If we had the time, we would.”

Marti Leonard agreed. “If we had the capacity in our stomachs, we would today,” she said.