DARKROOM Restaurant and Wine Bar

The restaurant might be dark, but the staff are bright & helpful and the food enlightening. Grated manchego sprinkled like snow on top of the Wagyu tartare adds that nice hint of saltiness. Beef fat in the hollandaise sauce…irresistible! Just wished there was a bigger scallop to soak up all that delicious sauce. The prawn schnitzel was crunchy and not oily or heavy. The maitake mushrooms w/the buckwheat had great textures & flavor but slightly too salty. Finally, you must save room for the donuts. I usually don’t crave mascarpone but adding rhubarb to balance the sweetness is genius. I wish the room was darker so I could like the bowl clean!

I went to eat at the darkroom for my birthday. The food was delicious. My favorite things were the burger, the carrots, and the Scallop tostada oh, and I can’t forget the Nashville hot honey swordfish. The service there was fantastic. The waiters were so kind and caring got to meet Zach and Drew the owners.They were both very kind caring people.

I love the vibe of the restaurant. They made a special birthday significant with their handwritten card and accommodations of the menu. I enjoyed every single dish. My favorite was the squash and the tuna tartar. The drink that wins is #68. I highly recommend this restaurant and to be honest it’s hard to find this kind of treatment and level of excellence in Orange County. I always have to drive to LA but this restaurant has character and is worth trying.

Very overpriced, strange combinations of contrasting flavors, components that did not compliment each other, feels very experimental. Plating and execution was very good. Almost every dish had a strange bitter or spicy component. Tuna Tartar - mixing beet and carrot juice with tuna just overpowers any tuna flavor. Only reason to add beet is to trick ppl to think there is more tuna than there is. Tasted oddly bitter. Very weird. $27 for beets with a splash of tuna is wild. Squash - while cooked very nicely, having a bitter mustard flavor was odd and did not compliment the sweetness of squash. 2 small pieces of squash for $24 is wild. Zucchini bread - wonderfully toasted, texture was thick, buttery, and different than usual bread. $20 for 1 single slice of bread is wild. NY steak - they did not ask how we wanted it cooked. It was served rare. I enjoy a red medium rare steak but this was just surprisingly undercooked. Maybe they need to do that to fake tenderness since it's not a prime cut. They only have vermouth cocktails. Which was not surprising since most of the dishes had this strange bitterness similar to that of vermouth. The chef seems to have a taste for it. Some people seemed to enjoy the place, so can't completely write it off. Just was not for me. They also mischarged us, although service for the most part was impressively good.

Very trendy spot. Definitely excited to go back again for dinner later in the fall and try out their fall dinner items . The decor and vibe is unique. Love the vinyl and the sound system . the service was great. the food and drinks were overall great but I didnt particularly like the fish snitzel . It could have been very well my expectations with it more than the quality of the dish because everything else was amazing . EDIT after second visit - Even better experience than the last time . Tried the smoked maitake dish and prawn snitzel, salad , zucchini bread and the semifredo dessert . All of them were amazing . The maitake reminds you of a texas bbq smokehouse but vegetarian? :)) .

Absolutely phenomenal food - flavors that are just out of this world. If you can get ahold of one of their burgers, do it! Possibly the best burger I’ve ever had. Service was fun & personable without being intrusive. Wine selection is stellar. Super cool ambiance. Can’t imagine a better date night restaurant!

Booked here for our anniversary. This quickly became our new favorite. One of the top restaurants in Orange County for sure! Very personalized greeting for our anniversary; they gave us a nice card signed by the staff! The food was out of this world! We ordered about 6 dishes and they were crazy good. Definitely recommend the wagyu tartare if it's there! The service was wonderful and the gentleman offered to time all the dishes to how he would wants them and it was spot on. We cannot wait to go back here and if you are on the fence, go!