Lake Forest is Orange County’s under-the-radar dining destination

The great divide of Orange County dining has long been its north-south schism. Northern neighborhoods like Little Saigon and Little Arabia are rich with fantastic international restaurants, offering some of Southern California's best, most hyper-regional cooking. To the south, Orange County’s tony, beachfront enclaves tend toward high-end dining and upscale chain restaurants.

Irvine has long served as a demarcation, the last place in the county with a wealth of international options and its share of finer dining. Anywhere further south is often lumped in with the sleepy suburbs that merely fly by en route to San Diego.

But there’s one place that’s almost always overlooked: Lake Forest. There, you can find Korean kimbap specialists, South Asian pizza joints, Mexican tortillerias, and more. The small city has a fascinating concentration of unique international offerings, some of which you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in Orange County.

Here are just a few.

Chili Chutney

Chili Chutney has undergone several incarnations, first changing locations and, more recently, changing ownership. But one constant remains: the restaurant’s Afghan cooking. The restaurant was the county’s only purveyor of Afghan recipes for years. While the restaurant has expanded its menu, its most beloved dishes remain.

An order of mantu is a must. The small, spiced beef dumplings are about the size of tortellini, boiled and topped with a yogurt-mint sauce and tomato-lentil sauce. A whole plate will be gone before your table can catch its breath. Banjan borani is easily shared, and it is a caramelized eggplant dip with tomato, bell pepper, onion, sour cream, and dried mint.

Chili Chutney in Lake Forrest .

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The Chili Chutney signature dish, Kabuli Pulao, in Lake Forrest on Oct. 8, 2024, is served with rice, lamb, spices and garnished with raisins and carrots.

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Kabuli pulao is Afghanistan’s national dish, a massive pilaf of steamed basmati rice studded with caramelized carrots, raisins, and hunks of tender lamb. It’s a mountain of a meal that blurs the line between slightly sweet and decadently savory.

The restaurant has undergone a banquet-focused remodel recently and the dessert options have been updated as well. But there’s still the Afghan favorite firnee, a cardamom- and rose water-scented pudding.

Brio Brio Cafe & Bakery

Every neighborhood needs a restaurant like Brio Brio. The Japanese bakery is the quintessential community destination, a do-it-all restaurant where scratch-made is a foundational principle rather than just a buzzword.

The Milk Cream Bun from Brio Brio Bakery & Cafe in Lake Forrest

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On weekends, young families and groups of friends stream in looking for perfectly burnished slices of matcha Basque cheesecake and warm, gooey mochi anpan. Cyclists make pit stops to top up with toasty hojicha-espresso lattes.

There’s an excellent Japanese-style egg salad sandwich on housemade shokupan for lunch. Meanwhile, the mammoth tuna salad sandwich arrives on a stout, rustic roll loaded with tuna, oven-roasted tomatoes, and slices of hardboiled egg.

Naoko Saiode, and her husband own the Japanese bakery Brio Brio Bakery & Cafe. Saiode is the chef behind the dishes.

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Brio Brio is even more special because the restaurant also does dinner. On Wednesday through Sunday evenings, Brio Brio dons a nighttime alter ego and turns into izakaya-inspired Bri Baru. Okonomiyaki is here reimagined as a toast, loaded onto a slab of that housemade shokupan. Prime beef curry is a hearty favorite. Most interesting is the roster of fusion-minded tacos on, of course, housemade tortillas. You may never find anything else like the fried aji mackerel taco with a egg salad dollop.

Las Delicias Guatemalan Food

Early risers are rewarded at Las Delicias. The Guatemalan restaurant is a bonafide breakfast destination, serving hearty, traditional plates that will power you through the day.

The desayuno chapín is as typical as it gets: two eggs, beans, caramelized plantains, and a slab of cheese. Chuchitos are small Guatemalan tamales filled with chicken, beef, or pork, tomato salsa, and cheese. Order a few for a hearty morning meal, one that’s made all the better if paired with a cup of steaming atol de plátano, the masa-thickened beverage sweetened with banana.

Guatemalan restaurant, Las Delicias, in Lake Forrest on Oct. 8, 2024.

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Desayuno "breakfast" Chapin dish from Guatemalan restaurant, Las Delicias, in Lake Forrest on Oct. 8, 2024.

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Las Delicias occupies the same strip mall space that was once home to local favorite Renzo’s A Taste of Peru. The colorful dining room has undergone only modest changes, a design decision that is sure to stir the memories of the neighbors who have found their way to Las Delicias. But a plate of pepián de gallina is all anyone needs to be converted to a regular, tender chicken bathed in a mole-like sauce of sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried chilies, tomato, and spices.

Sana’a Cafe

Gamal Alaqel, waits for the Adenai Chai to come to a boiling point Sana'a Cafe in Lake Forrest.

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Yemen lays claim to one of the world’s oldest coffee cultures. Historical records present evidence of coffee cultivation as far back as the 12th century, when coffee began its spread from Yemen to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. Sana’a Cafe, one of the newest members of Lake Forest’s dining scene, is a coffee shop dedicated to those Yemeni traditions.

The common characteristic of most Yemeni coffee drinks is spice. Ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon are often added to the coffee grounds during brewing, resulting in aromatic drinks that are uniquely complex. Beyond the usual lattes and espressos are drinks like qisher, a traditional Yemeni beverage that steeps the husks of coffee beans as if they were tea. Here, it’s also prepared with cinnamon and ginger–an ideal winter warmer. Adeni chai is popular as well, scented with cardamom and tempered with cream.

The exterior of Sana's Cafe in Lake Forrest.

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Naturally, you’ll want something sweet, too. Go with a slice of moist rose milk cake topped with candied rose petals or warm knafeh, the Arabian answer to cheesecake topped with crisp, shredded filo dough and soaked with simple syrup.