A wine-country dinner hiding behind a Laguna Hills parking lot, where the ribeye is serious and the by-the-glass list is longer than the drive home.
Ironwood sits on La Paz Road and puts a genuine wine-country restaurant inside a suburban shopping center. From the parking lot you would never guess. Step inside and it is warm wood, low light, and a serious beverage program: more than twenty-five wines by the glass, ten craft beers on tap, and a full bar of cocktails somebody clearly thought hard about.
More than twenty-five wines by the glass, ten beers on tap, and a grilled bone-in ribeye.
The food keeps the promise the wine list makes. The grilled bone-in ribeye is the headliner, but the Jidori chicken schnitzel with beech mushrooms has a quiet, devoted following, and the duck leg over pasta is the dish regulars steer newcomers toward. Some of the produce comes from the restaurant's own garden, and it shows up on the plate.
The room works two ways at once: date night on one side, a foursome splitting a second bottle on the other. Service is the sleeper feature, attentive without hovering.
Ignore the strip mall. Book a table, order the ribeye or the schnitzel, let someone walk you through the glass pours, and enjoy the fact that the best wine dinner around is nowhere near where you would think to look.
The details
- Where
- 25250 La Paz Rd, Suite 100, Laguna Hills
- Kitchen
- Wine-country American, full cellar and bar
- Website
- ironwoodlagunahills.com
- Go for
- Bone-in ribeye, chicken schnitzel, duck leg pasta
Sources and further reading: Ironwood, OpenTable, She's Cookin'. Photography by Tide & Canyon.
← Back to Where to Eat