Turner New Zealand worth a whirl and more

Stephen Santacroce

We’re all familiar with restaurants featuring cuisines from countries

and subregions around the world. French restaurants are the

granddaddy of all gourmet dining, and today, Italian offerings are

broken into regional variations highlighting northern Italy, southern

Italy, Tuscany, etc.

Here in Orange County, we can find restaurants that allow us to

sample the cuisines of Peru, Vietnam, Argentina and Sweden, to name a

few.

One thing all of these restaurants have in common is that their

specialty is more in the preparation than in the ingredients

themselves. What if a restaurant opened that featured the food

products of a certain country rather than a cooking style?

That question is answered in part by a recent Costa Mesa newcomer,

Turner New Zealand.

Turner is the brainchild of Noel Turner, a New Zealander who

founded the Turner New Zealand company in 1985 to bring quality food

products to the United States. New Zealand is known for the quality

of its meats and fishes, and Turner-brand products, such as mussels

and lamb, show up on the menus of many of the area’s finer

restaurants.

Noel Turner grew up on a farm in New Zealand and also worked as an

independent fisherman before starting his company. As an extension of

his pride in the products his company offered, he started Turner New

Zealand restaurant to offer a menu that only serves Turner products,

eventually to diners all over the United States.

Turner’s first restaurant is on Anton Boulevard in Costa Mesa,

walking distance from the Performing Arts Center, in a site that

formerly housed Il Fornaio and most recently Lugano.

The stately restaurant is long and narrow, with an interior more

reminiscent of a respected bank headquarters than a restaurant.

Dramatic archways and mahogany accents punctuate the 30-foot high

ceilings that loom over the stately tile floors.

Oval creches still sport the Italian pottery of the former tenant.

Turner promises to replace them soon with murals of the New Zealand

countryside. Tables set with crisp white linens line up against the

long, window-lined front wall, while an exhibition kitchen and small

bar provide the restaurant’s backdrop.

Noel Turner is enthusiastic about the restaurant and can be found

dining there often. He’ll eagerly tell you about his humble

beginnings as a farmer and a fisherman, a picture that is hard to

fathom as he glides effortlessly from table to table in expensive

tailored suits polling diners on their experience.

At a recent business lunch, Noel questioned all of us as to our

choice. He started with my friend Rory, who told him she was having

the salmon salad.

“The Turner Salmon Salad,” Turner quickly corrected. This is a man

who takes pride in his product.

All of the sections of the menu are labeled similarly: Turner

beef, Turner venison, Turner fish, etc., I counted the Turner name 27

times on the first page of the dinner menu.

Of course, a Porsche without a driver’s license is just a pretty

piece of metal. Similarly, it takes an experienced chef to coax the

best from fine ingredients.

For that, Turner has turned to self-taught Francisco Carballo, a

Mexico native who has crafted a menu that wisely lets the quality of

Turner’s product speak for itself.

An excellent way to start off at Turner is with some oysters on

the half shell ($12 per half dozen). Six plump oysters are simply

served over a bed of ice with a red wine vinaigrette for dipping, as

well as a more traditional cocktail sauce. Any oyster aficionado

knows that quality is the key, and the mild, tender oysters at Turner

are some of the best I’ve had.

Mussels are, of course, a New Zealand specialty, and another

starter is Turner mussels ($12) steamed in a unique lemongrass and

coconut broth. The Thai-influenced broth has a slightly sweet flavor

to it, which is punctuated by the sharp notes of fresh cilantro and a

judicious sprinkle of jalapeno peppers. There are a lot of different

flavors here, but not too many to hide the mussels themselves.

Fried calamari ($9) is another winner on the appetizer menu. Thin

ringlets of squid (yes, it comes from New Zealand and is Turner

brand), are lightly dusted with flour and quickly fried. They’re

served with a roasted tomato dipping sauce that has an underlying

smokiness provided by some ancho chile peppers, creating more depth

of flavor than the more traditional marinara sauce.

The entree selections are organized by four meat categories (beef,

lamb, venison and veal), fish and shellfish. General Manager Lou Mora

(whom Turner wisely hired from Pinot Provence) pointed out to me that

you won’t find chicken or other poultry on the menu -- they’re not

New Zealand products.

Venison has made something of a comeback on menus, with several

restaurants offering loin medallions as an entree. Turner offers not

one, but three cuts -- the tenderloin, a strip loin (similar to a New

York steak) and a rib chop.

Forgoing the tenderloin, I decided to try the rib chop ($32) on a

recent visit. Venison is a lean meat and has a tendency to get tough

if overcooked. Rib cuts typically have more fat (and consequently

more flavor) than the loin, but still, with venison, is about as lean

as beef filet mignon.

The chops are double cut, which make them easier to cook. Mine was

tender and full of flavor, dressed lightly with a Grand Marnier

butter sauce. Curried potatoes and steamed asparagus finished the

dish.

New Zealand, of course, is as famous for its lamb as it is for its

sailing, and Turner lamb is offered in four cuts. I’ve tried several

of the dishes, including a wonderful rack of lamb ($30) served with a

rosemary demi-glaze and oven-dried tomatoes, and the lamb tenderloin

salad ($11.95) off the lunch menu.

You won’t find any muttony flavor or stringy texture here. The

lamb is young and tender, with a delicate but distinctive taste.

I do have a complaint with the lamb salad: The vinaigrette was too

tart, and I really couldn’t taste the black truffle essence that

supposedly infused the dish.

Quality is evident in all of the offerings at Turner, including

the veal and prime, aged beef and chef Carballo wisely keeps the

sauces to simple reductions for the most part, allowing the fine meat

and seafood to star.

The King salmon ($26) might be one of the few exceptions, the fish

is moist and clean tasting, but the accompanying citrus sauce is too

sweet. Orange roughy ($25) is back on track, the delicate white fish

is prepared with a zesty-roasted tomato, onion and olive ragout in a

classic Mediterranean offering.

Not surprisingly, the wine list at Turner features a strong

offering of New Zealand wines. The principal wine-growing regions of

New Zealand are similar in climate and soil to Burgundy, France, and

the resulting wines are similar in style: clean chardonnays with a

hint of minerals and none of the over-soaked flavor of many American

offerings and subtle pinot noirs.

Sauvignon Blanc is well known as a grape that excels in the New

Zealand climate, and Turner offers a healthy sampling to try out. For

the less adventurous, there’s also a respectable if modest selection

of Californian and French wines. Corkage is $15, if you’d like to

bring something from home.

Turner New Zealand is the first of what Noel Turner hopes will be

a chain of upscale restaurants. Judging by the early success of his

first offering, I think the future of the chain looks promising. Mora

orchestrates service on par with any of the area’s finer restaurants,

and chef Carballo has created a menu that shows off Turner’s

products.

I’ve taken several friends to try out the restaurant, and all of

us are eager for our next return visit.

* STEPHEN SANTACROCE’S restaurant reviews appear every other

Thursday. Send him your comments at sdsanta@oc-dining.com.