Laguna Beachers might already know Ryan Adams. He was the executive chef at Sorrento Grille until it folded a month ago, after 23 years in business. Sorrento Grille may be gone, but Adams is staying put. As well he should. He bought the place and is building a new restaurant on the spot called Three Seventy Common that he plans to open in October.
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Adams says a majority of Sorrento's staff will stay on, but the food will be reinvented. Instead of a basket of bread, tables will be furnished with popcorn flavored with maple bacon. For main courses, he has in mind oysters Rockefeller; wild-mushroom stew; salmon with radish, turnip, country mash, niçoise butter and winter herbs; butcher steak with bone marrow and bordelaise; and poutine with veal, gravy, leek, peas, Cheddar, bacon and horseradish crema.
And here's something interesting: Adams will host a special, reasonably priced dinner with supper staples such as roast chicken, pot roast and meatloaf on Sundays. He will call it “Sunday Night Social,” and as part of the covenant between cook and eater, he will ask his customers to “abandon” cell phones and other electronic devices during dinner “to bring back the Sunday dinnertime tradition.” I think he's on to something here.
370 Glenneyre St., Laguna Beach, (949) 494-8686; www.370common.com.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.