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Editor’s Note: This week, the dining column is launching a series focusing on Orange County’s top business lunch standouts—spots where C-suite executives, managing partners, entrepreneurs and philanthropists conduct business outside the board room.
Whether they’re closing deals or simply escaping the office, OC leaders have made these restaurants go-to destinations for dealmaking over meals. Do you have a favorite business lunch spot? Send suggestions to dining editor Nancy Luna at luna@ocbj.com and dining reporter Chris Trela at ctrela@offthemenuoc.com.
NEWPORT BEACH—When Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar underwent a major refresh in 2017, it sought to capture the local office crowds from the towers circling Newport Center.
But there was one problem back then: Fleming’s wasn’t open for lunch.
As part of a $4 million makeover, the Fashion Island restaurant back in 2017 added lunch service, expanded its outdoor patio and overhauled its main and private dining rooms. To further appeal to the business community, Fleming’s made tech enhancements to its private dining rooms to better accommodate meetings and presentations.
“We’re surrounded by office buildings, and it’s a market we haven’t tapped into yet,” then-operating partner Sanjiv Gupta told the Register’s restaurant writer Nancy Luna at the time. (Luna is now the executive editor of the Business Journal, and Gupta is the restaurant GM at The Pendry.)
Those changes are paying off, as the steak house now caters to local companies occupying nearby office towers including executives at the Irvine Company.
Fleming’s says menu favorites for daytime business meetings include its line of sandwiches “if you want something quick.” That menu features the famed prime steakhouse burger, a signature beef blend patty topped with Wisconsin cheddar cheese, bacon, red onion confit, campari tomato, iceberg lettuce and Fleming’s butter pickles.
If you’re looking for hassle-free ordering during your meeting, the lunch prix fixe is also popular. The two-course meal features a choice of a mushroom brie soup or Fleming’s salad and an entrée choice of a 6-ounce filet topped with Danish blue cheese butter over cabernet demi-glace, sauteed spinach and Campari tomato; or barbecue salmon with shaved brussels sprouts; or steak frites. Prices range from $29 to $34.
Fleming’s opens for lunch at 11 a.m. Monday through Friday.
Fleming’s, 455 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, (949) 720-9633, flemingssteakhouse.com.
—Nancy Luna and Christopher Trela