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Best Eats in Irvine (2025): Must-Try Dishes & Hidden Food Gems Nearby
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items Discover Irvine’s foodie side — from sizzling Korean BBQ and Brazilian steakhouses to artisan bakeries and secret dessert spots. Whether you’re a local or visiting OC, these dishes are the ones worth driving for.
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Sections
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Savory
Sweets
Savory
Savory restaurants from a variety of cuisines full of flavor. With an expansive menu, these spots keeps me coming back for more.
My go-to is The Carmen Combo. The dish consists of grilled salmon, grilled shrimp, and grilled vegetable medley soaked in a lemon garlic sauce. To enjoy it as a light weight dish, make it all salad.
Bravo Avo Greek & Mediterranean Restaurant
I’ve tried the location in Cerritos and remembered the Macadamia pancakes were bland and dry. They also have the Loco Moco of you’re craving Hawaiian food. The Ube pancakes is a treat if you love Ube.
Aloha Stacks
They have the cheese wheel pasta I’ve been seeing on social media; can’t wait to try
Zesty Olives - Laguna Niguel
Another restaurant by the Chubby Group. Meat quality and service should be consistent with their other restaurants. So happy to see them open a restaurant in this area.
WAGYU FACTORY
Artisan sourdough pizzas with airy crust. Seems like the Bianca pizza is popular since it was brought back.
Folks Pizzeria
Based on Trip Advisor they had Montanara pizza fritta (fried pizza) but other than that they have unique pizzas and pastas on the menu. Pistachio pizza sounds like an interesting dish.
IL DOLCE PIZZERIA
Korean-Chinese fusion food by Celebrity Chef Paik. I loved his KBBQ in Buena Park so I’m excited to try black bean noodle here since I’ve haven’t tried it anywhere else yet.
Paik's Noodle | Korean-Chinese Food
A late night Korean Gastropub by Celebrity Chef Paik
Hanshin Pocha Irvine
I’m sure you’ve heard of Fogo De Chao. I prefer Galpao over the Fogo De Chao location now in aspects where Galpao has more quality meat offerings. The Fogo De Chao seems to come short from the Vegas location and even the Beverly Hills location based ...
Galpão Gaucho Brazilian Steakhouse
Izakaya (grilled skewers), Butter Mentai Udon, Kamameshi beef tongue rice
IZAKAYA OKAN
Authentic Italian Neapolitan Pizzas
Angelina's Pizzeria Napoletana
Casual Brazilian food: Picanha steak, beef stroganoff , pastels hot pockets with beef, chicken, Nutella strawberry or cheese
Brazuca Café
The best empanada for snacks!
Empanada Man
The House Special Soup is so delightful, especially during winter. I’m eyeing the Sauerkraut Fish Soup next!
Frank’s dumplings & noodles / Sheung Shui 上水面馆
Must try dishes that I always recommend:
1) Dan Dan Noodles: The iconic spicy Sichuan noodles, a flavour explosion with slippery noodles tossed in an intense spicy sesame sauce and pork.
2) Pan fried dumplings: the crunchy texture adds to the experie...
Sunny Dumpling House
Get the Choripan. Just get it and thank me later. Grilled chorizo sausage inside a crisp white baguette-type roll with Serano sauce. It is filling since it does come with French fries.
MAMON
Sweets
I love the coffees and pastries especially the spots with unique offerings. Most of these spots will have dynamic menus that keeps up with the trend.
The Lemon Brioche was fluffy and had a good balance of lemon tart flavor. The Hojicha Latte tastes like a toasted matcha latte, a little twist for the adventurous type. Mentai Grilled Cheese Sando is next level grilled cheese, there was a good amount...
Brio Brio Bakery & Café
I tried the Matcha Latte and a buttery croissant. They also had the trendy Coconut Cloud Matcha when it was trending last summer!
Redshift Coffee Roasters
Delicious drinks, pastries, and food. Ideal place to do some work/study. There are Tesla Supercharging station in this plaza too.
Kona Coffee District
I’ve been looking everywhere for the honey cake to try ! The Pate Choux looks scrumptious too!
Vanilla Street Bakery
A bakery that specializes in croissants, Kouign Amann, and other pastries. They also offer classes on making Puff Pastries on their website!
Diotima Bakehouse
Argentinian style ice cream. I’m curious to try the Maicenitas, mascarpone and berries ice cream, flan with caramel, guava, Dulce de leche, coffee with cognac
Pampas Helados Argentinos
Gelato with rotating rich flavors in a Nutella-coated cones.
Bacio di Latte
Offers Turkish coffee, danishes, varieties of croissants, Napoleon cakes and more
Saffron Bakery
Filipino bakery offers Pork Asado Siopao, chicken empanada, ube roll, ube hopia, Buko pandan espasol, hopia ube/baboy, cheese pimiento, ube halaya, ensaymada, cheese bombs, bonette
SAN HONORE PANADERIA
I’ve bought some cookies here before while I was in the area and they didn’t disappoint! I like that they update the selections depending on seasons as well. In addition, I’ve also found that they enlisted themselves on the “TooGoodToGo” app where th...
Cookie Co.