KTLA: Enjoy Coastal California Cuisine at Lorea in Huntington Beach
By JESSICA HOLMES, KTLA
Within the Paséa Hotel in Huntington Beach, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, sits Lōrea, a coastal California restaurant that focuses on local ingredients and hand-crafted cocktails.
“When you walk into Lōrea, the first thing you see is the ocean,” explained Chef Scott Rackliff. “You can look straight through the restaurant and see the ocean on the backside and then as you’re walking through, you start to smell it and you feel that ocean breeze. Then as you work your way, you get out to the patio, and it’s truly just an amazing space. You just look straight over Pacific Coast Highway and onto the beach. In the water, you see the waves crashing while you’re eating your breakfast. It’s a pretty amazing way to start your day.”
After opening in May of 2024, Rackliff says the restaurant has received a “really great response” from customers.
“People are really enjoying the food,” he continued. “It’s kind of breathing a little life into the area. It’s a fresh take on the local California cuisine, and then we have this beautiful view.”
The restaurant attracts a mix of locals and hotel guests, with a strong local following, especially for breakfast and lunch.
“The majority of our clientele is a lot of the locals for breakfast and lunch. We are more hotel-driven on the brunch weekends; we have a great local following,” he explained. “Then as dinner comes in, it’s probably about a 50/50 mix of having a local clientele along with the hotel guests.”
Rackliff found that many of the locals came to Lōrea to celebrate a special occasion, like a birthday or a date night.
As for the restaurant’s concept, the chef explained that he wanted to highlight the use of local ingredients.
“You’ll find that we utilize a full ingredient in a lot of dishes in several different ways, while still trying to bring it to an upscale level,” Rackliff said.
Telling a story with food has been his thing since he was a teenager.
“I started cooking when I was in high school, truly just to make money, but then I ended up really loving it,” he said. I love creating experiences for guests and kind of building memories for people and really connecting to them through food.”
To keep the menu fresh, Rackliff visits the local farmers’ markets every couple of weeks and stays in contact with fish purveyors from San Diego and Santa Monica to guarantee fresh fish.
Notable dishes include a play on sushi called OSHA sushi, a filet mignon with creamy peppercorn sauce, a spicy Caesar salad, and signature desserts like carrot cake and peach cobbler.
“One of the tough parts on sushi is, if you don’t eat a fast enough, your nori gets soggy. In order to prevent that, we have the nori on the side,” he explained. and oshizushi is kind of like nigiri, but with toppings on top of it. So we curated a lot of different flavor components that would really work well together.”
The restaurant’s carrot cake stems from Rackliff’s family recipe.
While focusing on their locally sourced food and amazing libations, Rackliff touted Lōrea’s “show factor,” for setting it apart from the others.
“We have a few dishes that are really over the top. (We have the) peach cobbler, the sushi, we do a table-size strawberry shortcake or a chocolate cake. So there’s lots of dishes that we really try and have that tableside wow factor.”
Another popular item is Lōrea’s popular bread service, which is their Parker house rolls. Rackliff gave us a first-hand look on how to whip these up and provided to recipe so you can try it at home.
