My husband Matt B. and I had a 7:45 reservation at Driftwood Kitchen, and since the sun set before then and we had a good hour and a half to kill, we decided to get a couple drinks at The Deck, the open air bar attached to the restaurant, overlooking the water. We walked in and swiftly turned around--it was loud and crowded with beach party music, not worth even a gorgeous view. When we asked the hostess if there was somewhere else we could drink, she directed us to the Stateroom Bar, the quieter Driftwood Kitchen bar, where we were able to sit inside with a slightly obstructed but still quite lovely ocean view.
The Stateroom Bar is technically part of Driftwood Kitchen--same menu and everything--but since it occupies a discrete space you can visit without committing to a sit-down dinner, I'm giving it its own review (also it has its own Yelp page, and I have crippling Yelp OCD). It's a nice space, with dark leather furniture and wood paneling on pretty much every surface except for the ceiling. You can't sit right at the windows--that area belongs to Driftwood's dining area--but you get the ocean view from the bar stools. We took two of these bar stools and hunkered down for a couple of rounds. The bartenders were friendly and attentive. They even charged my phone for me.
There was a broad selection of beer, wine, and liquor, but we went straight for the cocktails. These were good, if not especially memorable. I get the sense that Laguna Beach has a less developed cocktail scene than say, oh, central/eastside Los Angeles, which is where we spend most of our time. There was a whole menu page offering variations on an Old Fashioned and a Manhattan, and there was an illustrated diagram explaining what goes into these classic drinks. When I asked about the Mexico version of an Old Fashioned, I got a whole spiel about the definition of an Old Fashioned--I chalked it up to the expected base knowledge of Stateroom's clientele, rather than to mansplaining.
We started with drinks from the Liquid Homage section, which was a list of cocktails borrowed from famous bars around the country. The High Tide, from The Royal Hawaiian, was made with Dikel 8 rye, fresh pineapple, ginger, lemon sour, and mint; the Knob Cobbler, from the Boom Boom Room, with Knob Creek smoked maple bourbon, Luxardo float, lemon sour, and coconut water. Both were solid. I got that Mexico Old Fashioned for my second round, and this was good, with some nice heat to it, made with Larceny bourbon and ancho chile liqueur. Matt got the America Manhattan, made with a bourbon called "The Duke."
We were feeling peckish, so we ordered the cured meat and artisanal cheese plates to tide us over until we got our table. These weren't very good. The cheeses were standard, and the meats were oddly dried out and stale. They came with an attractive spread of accompaniments, but there wasn't anything in particular I wanted to eat on either platter.
As it turned out, we were more impressed with Stateroom than Driftwood Kitchen, so it makes sense that the weak point of our visit here was the food. This was our first trip to Laguna Beach, and next time, I'd come back to Stateroom for sunset drinks without the sit-down meal attached. read more