It’s time to review the Bistango Restaurant located in Irvine California. According to the Bistango website, this fine dining, elegant restaurant offers an artful New American Cuisine. They have an extensive bar and an award-winning wine list with over 400 varieties of wine. The ambiance is further enhanced with a full-service patio, comfortable furniture, and heat lamps. They also have nightly live entertainment and a dance floor. Their menu includes, soups/salads/appetizers, large entree salads, risotto/burgers/pastas/rice, many entrees, and Desserts.

How did I hear about the Bistango? I was searching for fine dining restaurant to celebrate our anniversary dinner. I googled the word soufflé in my area. A few restaurants popped up on the list. Some were still closed because of covid, but this one restaurant caught my eye. I opened their website and looked at their menu. They not only had chocolate soufflé, but they also had Grand Marnier soufflé. Some other great dessert choices were whiskey-raisin bread pudding, tiramisu, and strawberry swirl. By the time we got to Bistango, each of us had already chosen the meals we wanted to try.

The Bistango restaurant was easy to find when using google maps. What we didn’t know, was that we had to take a ticket to enter the parking area. I took the ticket into the restaurant to see if they would validate, and they did. Happily, parking was free.

Our dinner reservations were to be at 6:00pm, but we arrived at 5:40, a little early. Even though Bistango opens at 5:00pm, the restaurant was fairly empty, so we were lucky to be able to get a good seat. I asked if they had a booth available, we were offered to choose the place we would like to sit. A very nice two-seater booth, with just enough space for our food service.

From the time we arrived and were seated, until the time we left Bistango, service was impeccable. First a young man brought us water and our bread. Soon after, our server arrived to ask us for our drink requests. Everything went smoothly without a hitch. I had read some reviews saying that service was slow. But I am glad to tell everyone, that was not in our case. Service was right on time. First with our drink order, we had the peach-lemon vodka drink, which was a nice refreshing pre-dinner cocktail.

For our appetizer, we ordered the Gazpacho Chilled Tomato Soup with cucumber, avocado, olive oil and the Organic Greens Salad with blackberries, onions, tomato, almonds, goat cheese, accompanied by the house vinaigrette, which we will order again next time we go back. For our entree we had the Oven-Roasted Chilean Sea Bass, served with exotic mushroom risotto, asparagus, concord grape sauce and also, Prime Angus Rib Eye Steak, with garlic-herbs shoestring fries, and a red wine reduction. The other steak they offered had a green peppercorn sauce, we asked if we could have that sauce on the steak and they said that we could.

Hats off to their chef. We had two very well-cooked meals. We did make sure when we ordered our food to let the server know that we did want soufflé. Being soufflé veterans, we do know it takes time for those soufflés to be made and each restaurants loves advance notice for their soufflé creation.

Before the dessert arrived, we decided to take a little break from eating and listen to the soft piano music playing in the background, making the whole experience a lovely way to spend a meal. We looked around and noticed how full the restaurant had become. Guest were enjoying their time together inside the restaurant as well as on the covered patio. We wondered had most of these people been regulars of the Bistango or was it they were also craving the soufflé that we were about to have? Our table was cleared, and it was time for dessert.

For our dessert, first came the cappuccino we ordered. The froth had just enough nutmeg to make it smell and taste delicious. Then came the chocolate soufflé. This soufflé was just the right size for sharing. Our server placed the hot chocolate dish in front of us and began pouring the chocolate sauce inside the middle of the airy soufflé cake. Then he added the light, fluffy cream. My spoon broke open the crisp chocolate top of the cake and found it’s way to the creamy bottom. I had to wait for a few seconds before I was able to put it into my mouth. It was fresh out of the oven and very hot. A few blows to the spoon and the mouthwatering, explosion of flavor reached the taste buds. The experience was mmm, mmm, heavenly.

Both of us have decided not to wait until our next special occasion to go back to the Bistango. We were impressed by not only the service, but also by the food, drinks, and dessert we had. We are already planning our next visit and hoping to become regulars at this fine dining restaurant.