About Pelican Grill
The Resort at Pelican Hill sits on a dramatic bluff in Newport Coast — technically distinct from Newport Beach proper, but within five minutes of the city and operating at a register that makes the distinction largely academic. The resort earned its five-star, five-diamond rating through sustained investment in hospitality infrastructure and genuine commitment to the service ethic that those designations require. Pelican Grill, the resort's primary dining venue, benefits from everything that surround implies.
The restaurant's ocean-view veranda is where Newport's most coveted lunch tables are located. The Pacific visible from those seats is not a suggestion of water between buildings — it is an unobstructed 180-degree panorama that encompasses Catalina Island on clear days and reaches south toward San Diego in good visibility. Sunset dinners here achieve a quality of ambient light that no restaurant designer has yet invented a substitute for.
The kitchen works in the elevated-casual California idiom — fresh, locally sourced, technically accomplished without being theatrically complex. Sea bass from Pacific waters, pasta made in-house, wood-fired preparations that show restraint and confidence in equal measure. The culinary team works with Oak Grove Farms and other hyper-local vendors; the menu reflects the season with genuine conviction rather than marketing copy. Breakfast and lunch are served in a manner calibrated to resort guests who may have arrived from other time zones; dinner has a different register — more focused, more ambitious, more aware that it is competing with serious restaurant options twelve minutes south on Pacific Coast Highway.
The lounge area, with its wood-fired pizza and big screens, serves as a separate proposition entirely — the place that golf foursomes retire to after the back nine and the room where power lunch tips into power happy hour without anyone quite deciding to make the transition. Both contexts are executed with the same impeccable resort standards.
Signature Dishes
The cioppino — San Francisco's great gift to California coastal cuisine — is the dish that earns consistent praise from diners across review platforms. The lobster roll, a concession to East Coast nostalgia, arrives with the West Coast upgrade of better sourcing and less mayo. Fresh oysters and sea bass are the other reliable touchstones, along with wood-fired pizza that would hold its own as a standalone restaurant concept. For dessert, the kitchen does justice to seasonal California fruit in ways that remind diners why food travel to California was worth inventing.
Best Occasion Fit: Impressing Clients
Pelican Grill works for client entertainment precisely because the resort context amplifies every element of the meal. Being picked up at the hotel lobby (if applicable), walking through the rotunda architecture, arriving at a table with those views — the cumulative experience communicates that the host has spared neither thought nor expense. The service team is trained to provide the attentive-without-intrusive hospitality that serious business conversation requires.
For a deal-closing lunch, the midday setting in particular creates a clarity of focus that evening dining sometimes lacks — the views are beautiful without the romance of sunset distorting the professional register. For birthday celebrations, the resort will arrange touches — a discreet dessert presentation, a note from the chef — that make the occasion feel genuinely considered. See the full guide to Newport Beach restaurants for the complete picture.