Getting Our Fill at Filomena's

Filomena's Italian Kitchen

2400 Newport Blvd. 

Costa Mesa, CA 92627

I guess you never truly know where you are going to end up when you head out your front door. Katie and I were headed out for long-overdue date night down in Newport on a recent Saturday. I had made reservations at a restaurant I have wanted to try forever. We even got all the way down there and were trying to find parking when my cell phone rang.

It was the restaurant we were going to, and they informed us that they had lost power due to a transformer blowing up, and they were not sure when they were going to be up and running. I was pretty surprised that they had taken the time to call us and let us know, a very nice touch. Now the question was where to eat now? We were quickly getting off the very busy Balboa Penninsula when it hit me that we should try another spot on my restaurant wishlist, Filomena's Italian Kitchen.

We had run across the food at Filoomena's many times at food and wine festivals we had attended. Their food that they were passing out was always very tasty, almost a rarity at these food festivals. It shouldn't be shocking that Filomena's food was so great when you consider the accolades that they have achieved in their six-plus years of being in business.

They have named one of the 75 best places to eat in OC by Brad Johnson, the notoriously tough restaurant critic of the Orange County Register three times in the last four years. Filomena's has also gotten rave reviews for their pizza, as they were listed as number four on the Orange Coast Magazine's list of best pizzas in OC. Their customers have even gotten into the act, bestowing a very respectable four-star rating on Yelp with over 500 reviews written.

The woman behind this restaurant is Chef Linda Johnsen. She grew up in South Philly, loved going to the Italian Market, and learned to make the perfect pasta and sauce from her aunt Rosemary and this restaurants' namesake, her grandmother, Filomena. In 2017, Chef Linda expanded to incorporate a true Italian deli and market as well. Here they sell imported meat and cheeses, salads, pre-packaged dinners, gelato, cookies, pastries, and more. Since we had about a fifteen-minute wait before the OC Fair concert-goers headed out to catch their show, we had plenty to keep us occupied in the market until a table was made available to us.

The menu at Filomena's is just what you'd expect from an Italian restaurant in OC. There are a good amount of starters, salads, a varied selection of pasta dishes, five seafood offerings, more hefty entree options, and their award-winning pizzas to round things out. Prices for entrees and pasta dishes range between $13 to $25, very reasonable. Let's see if our unexpected change of plans turned out to be a blessing.

Just like in almost all Italian restaurants in OC, bread service was our first stop at Filomena's on this evening. They use a crusty Italian style bread in their breadbasket. It had a thick crust, while the inside was light and airy. This came with very nice garlic butter, which was easily spreadable, a big plus in my book. The garlic was not too overwhelming, more on the subtle side, but not lacking in flavor. A difficult balance to achieve with an ingredient as strong as garlic.

From the starter section of the menu, I convinced Katie that we needed to try the Sausage and Meatballs ($12). This iron skillet contained two golf ball-sized meatballs and two sausages topped with melted mozzarella and light and fluffy ricotta cheese perched on top like whipped cream. I liked the well-crafted sausage between the two portions of meat here. The meatball needed to be a tad more tender and flavored a bit more, which the cheeses and sauce definitely helped with. A solid, heavy starter for big eaters. 

When a salad is listed on a menu as going for less than $10, it usually entices me into ordering it, even if we were already having an appetizer. It must have gotten Katie as well since she tried the House Salad ($8). This salad came with iceberg lettuce as its base and then is enhanced with tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, sweet peppers, and carrots with a house vinaigrette serving as the dressing. Katie felt this was a very good starter salad, with its fresh ingredients and very good vinaigrette. Way better than the much-ballyhooed salad at Olive Garden. Why do people still eat there?

I'm always game for a Caesar Salad ($7) as many of you long-time readers know from my probably hundreds that I've eaten in the last ten years. This one at Filomena's had an excellent parmesan cheese, but fell flat when it came to the croutons, which were hard and flavorless. The dressing also needed to be a bit more present. Definitely not the worst I've had, but room for improvement. 

Katie zeroed in on her meal very quickly at Filomena's. She went with the very popular Pappardelle Bolognese ($18). Reading the online reviews, this gets a lot of love from the regulars here. They got this one right. This was pretty much a perfect plate of pasta. The pappardelle pasta was fresh and cooked just right. The meaty ragu was absolutely delicious. Just the right amount of meat and sauce in this to keep us interested throughout the very short time the food was on this plate. She ate this very quickly, with some assistance from me.

Definitely not one of the most photogenic of dishes, but I wanted to give their Veal Saltimbocca ($25) a try on this evening. I've had a pretty average streak of veal in Italian restaurants lately. I always think if you are going to pay the extra money for veal, it should be exceptionally tender. Lately, that has not been the case when I've ordered it in Italian restaurants, including this trip to Filomena's. This veal was not as tender as I hoped it would be, and the prosciutto really overwhelmed with a very salty taste to it. The sauce was good, and this really mellowed when I had it for lunch the next day. Definitely better the day after. I'm still in search of a veal dish that can rival the one I had at Pina's Bistro in Tustin four years ago.

Even though there were a few minor hiccups during our visit to Filomena's, both Katie and I left here wishing that we had an Italian restaurant like this in our neighborhood. With a menu as varied as this, it will probably take a few more visits to come up with my perfect meal here, even though that bolognese was fantastic and I've thought about it a number of times since our trip to Filomena's. The garlic bread, pizzas, lasagna, and other pasta dishes are in my sights for future visits. Another thing this restaurant has going for it is their hospitality. We had two servers during our stay, and they provided some of the best service we have received in a restaurant in quite some time. They met our every need and answered all of our queries seamlessly. Even though we had not originally intended to eat at Filomena's on this evening, we are very happy we ended up here, and look forward to coming back again soon.

Out of five miracles, (because the night of our visit was also the night when Smokey Robinson was playing at the OC Fair, and his former band was called The Miracles), five being best to zero being worst, Filomena's Italian Kitchen gets 3 miracles.

For more information about Filomena's Italian Kitchen, head to their website here: http://filomenasoc.com/