restaurant review:
SEASONS 52

>>Health conscious, palate aware, and ever changing fresh and local cuisine

October marks the official onset of Autumn, a season resounding with pumpkins and squash, figs and apples, prolific oranges and golds, and a brief, but epic culinary period. And that’s not even counting all the Halloween candy.


The newly opened Seasons 52 restaurant in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza shopping complex revolves around such seasonality, adjusting their entire menu four times a year according to what’s local and timely. Likewise, a weekly supplemental menu grows from each seven day period’s freshest and finest produce, meat, and seafood. Nearly half of the available bounty offers the town, farm, or region from which the ingredients originated.


If Seasons 52’s concept sounds homely or quaint, their luxurious surroundings contradict any misconceptions.


The interior projects a modern, professional romanticism with sharp contours from geometric and non-conforming shelves stuffed with wine bottles, contemporary art, and plant filled vases dividing the space instead of walls. Shaded lighting projects downward onto red-brown tables and prominent woodwork, almost illuminating a copper, earthy aura throughout. A jazzy piano wine bar is tucked into the rear, opposite a fire pit filled patio, and private dining room with views of the open kitchen.


The food choices are tantalizing.


The ripe plum tomato flatbread, rich with basil, roasted garlic, and melted parmesan cheese, is one of six courses that never vacate the shifting menu. Though, the grilled steak & cremini mushroom flatbread outdoes the fixture with pungent Wisconsin blue cheese melted into sweet onions and sliced sirloin, over which sprinkled chopped spinach hangs on for dear life. More than a foot long and cut into comfortably sized triangles, both flatbreads were whisked out on cutting boards – balanced by the hands of an intensely passionate, and infectiously enthusiastic staff.


Achieved through wood grills, brick-ovens, and fresh ingredients which require few heavy sauces, the most impressive accomplishment at Seasons 52 is this: “Every single item on the menu is below 475 calories.”

Granted, staying below such a boundary is simple enough with their honest organic baby spinach salad. Assembled as though handpicked from a forest with mixed raspberries, toasted pine nuts, and gorgonzola cheese, its light balsamic vinaigrette may not even be necessary. But one bite of the goat cheese ravioli will have you questioning the restaurant’s caloric claims, right along with your personal faith.


A lone ravioli, the size of a pancake, floats centered amid a tiny pool of oil and tomato broth. And beneath the leafy, garlicky pasta shell, a mound of warm goat cheese, melted and melded into neither solid nor liquid, softly oozes out into chopped tomatoes and sauce. If you’re a fan of goat cheese, it is enchanting.


Wine could claim to own half the restaurant, were there to be a divorce. A walk-in cellar waits on the immediate left inside the entrance, and bottles are scattered throughout in decoration and storage. Their 100-plus selections are internationally focused, and include numerous organics and dessert wines, as well as low alcohol choices.


Seven caramelized, wood grilled sea scallops encircle sundried tomato pearl pasta and roasted asparagus stalks. Autumn hues from the golden-brown pearl pasta blend with the bright crimson sundried tomatoes and gray-green asparagus. Similar to risotto, the pearl pasta is slicker, but almost as creamy. The rustic colored scallops have been brushed with a faint chicken au jus sauce, and are grilled to a firm exterior and gelatinized, smoothly textured inside.


However, nothing speaks more to the Executive Chef Tim Kast’s grasp on seasonality than the quail breast. Served as four cutlets topped with Mission figs, the entrée and accompanying burnt orange mashed sweet potatoes are glazed with a bourbon-chili layer. Mixed beans and broccoli straight from the harvest mingle together at the plate’s far end. Salty, deceptively sweet, and just noticeably spicy, the quail conjectures up fall’s most quixotic moments.

Desserts also fit beneath the 475 calorie threshold, coming in individualized serving dishes similar to extended shot glasses. Key lime pie still has the graham cracker bottom, though its texture and consistency are more like a key lime mousse. Much denser, the carrot cake’s cream cheese icing and overall richness merges perfectly with their coffees and cappuccinos.


Seasons 52 is a small but growing chain, found almost exclusively in Florida. Its focus on regional ingredients, health conscious choices, and changing, customized courses offers an experience as deceptive as their style and service providing a local feel with an eminent professionalism found in everything they do.


Seasons 52
3333 Bristol Avenue, Suite #2802
Costa Mesa
seasons52.com
714.437.5252