The Experience
The Winery Restaurant & Wine Bar operates on a simple and confident premise: if you take the wine program seriously enough, the food will follow. Over two decades in Orange County, this premise has proven correct. The cellar now holds over 7,500 labels. 650 currently by the bottle, more by the glass than most restaurants keep total. Tended by a sommelier team of ten whose depth of knowledge is, frankly, disorienting in the best possible way.
The setting is warm and purposeful: dark wood paneling, a temperature-controlled glass wine room that serves as both storage and theatre, and enough private space to conduct real business. The main dining room is arranged for conversation. Tables spaced for confidentiality, lighting calibrated for extended stays. It is not a restaurant designed for Instagram. It is designed for the meal that matters.
The American menu skews toward the wine-friendly: carefully sourced steaks, seasonal fish, and vegetable preparations that understand their supporting role. The kitchen does not compete with the cellar. It complements it. Signature items include a beautifully marbled dry-aged ribeye and a seared halibut that pairs with half the white Burgundy list. Wednesday cigar dinners at $125 per guest and quarterly vintner events make The Winery a recurring destination for the Orange County dining calendar.
The location in Tustin. Minutes from the Anaheim Convention Center corridor. Positions it squarely in the deal-closing circuit. Conventioneers who have grown tired of Katella Avenue's resort-adjacent options make the short drive and find something that would hold its own in any American city.
Best Occasion: Close a Deal
The client who cares about wine. And there are more of them than you think. Will remember The Winery. The sommelier team can be deployed as an asset: allow them to guide the table through a bottle pairing sequence and the formality of the wine selection itself becomes part of the entertainment. The private dining room accommodates groups of up to 20 with dedicated sommelier service and a menu tailored to the occasion.
For solo dining, the bar counter facing the wine room is one of Orange County's genuinely great single-seat dining experiences. Order the chef's bar menu, defer entirely to the bartender-sommelier on wine selection, and allow two hours. The ritual is its own reward.