“I’m so excited,” said Mehta, who hung out in Fashion Island for two hours before the gates opened. “I was a big fan back in the ’80s, so I have a lot of their music.”
From food and drink to rock ’n’ roll, there was something to satisfy everyone’s palette along Newport Center Drive. Nearly three dozen restaurants from the Newport Beach area set up booths and offered samples to customers, who paid with electronic cards that they purchased up front.
The restaurants themselves took 70% of the proceeds, with the remainder going to the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce and a number of charities.
Former Mayor Dennis O’Neil, who has attended the Taste of Newport every year since its inception, was among the first ones through the gate on Friday. Over the last two decades, he said, he had enjoyed watching the festival expand.
“It’s gotten bigger and better and more expensive,” he said. “It’s just a real happening.”
Some of the restaurants represented — including Maggie Moo’s Ice Cream and Treatery — were new faces, but most had been around for much longer.
Ali Rabbani, the owner of the Marrakesh Restaurant in Costa Mesa, said he had set up a booth every year and always counted on a packed crowd.
“It gets so busy you can’t walk,” he said. “People get off work, and then they come here and party till 11 o’clock.”
Patricia Phillips, the owner of the Tapas Restaurant in Newport Beach, returned for the seventh year Friday. Since Orange County had recently gone through a heat wave, she offered a new dish: gazpacho, or cold tomato soup.
“Just because it’s so warm out and gazpacho is a cold soup, we thought we’d try something new,” she said. “Also, we get a lot of people who are vegetarian.”
