Basilic- Newport Beach

I originally discovered Basilic while searching for a nice place to go to dinner with GameBoy’s parents. We found it to be a tiny, cute Swiss-French place with lots of charm, great service, and yummy food. Unfortunately for GameBoy and I, such greatness does not come cheap. On our own, we decided the best time for a return visit was for their Raclette Night, which is held on the first Tuesday of every winter month. We tried to get reservations for last month, but the restaurant is so small that it books up ridiculously fast, and after a bit of a muddle conversation on the phone with the maitre’d, who spoke only heavily-accented French, I managed to get reservations for April’s Raclette Night.

I was running late, and by the time I showed up at the restaurant, GameBoy was calmly sitting by the raclette machine, sipping a beer. Raclette is a type of Swiss cheese that is traditionally melted, and eaten with potatoes and cornichons. Baslic uses an electric device to heat half a wheel at a time. The heat source faces down, against the flat surface of the halved wheel. As the cheese on top melts, it is scraped off onto a plate and whisked away to diners. Unfortunately, this device, similar to ones used in Swiss and French alpine towns, also gets hot if you sit too close to it, so we squeezed onto the banquette side of the table so GameBoy could avoid the heat near his chair.

The waiter, who surprisingly remembered us despite that fact that we had last been there in February, was friendly and helpful as usual. We ordered a glass of Fendant wine each, which is the traditional wine one eats with raclette. We also split an order of raclette, which was all-we-could-eat, and a plate of Swiss charcuterie. The charcuterie plate was not bad, but not spectacular either. Still it was good to have some meat with all that yummy cheese. It’s a bit strong for some people, and definitely makes you breath smell, but for me it was all worth it. I’m glad this place isn’t in LA, because then it would be even more packed than it already is. I can’t wait for next winter already!

Date of Visit: 4/3/07

Basilic

217 Marine Ave
Newport Beach, CA 92662
(949) 673-0570