Nirvana Grille - Laguna Beach

We arrived at 5:25 for 5:30 reservations. Only one table of 4 in restaurant but 3 servers standing around at the bar with their back to us. It took our server 12 min to visit us. Not even..greeting can I get you water or drink. This was one of our favorites but overall service with 4 total tables/10 people in restaurant you would think it would have been great meal great service.

Enjoyed the ambience; service was excellent; food was very good, however the noise level was quite high. We loved that the menu included small plates along with 1/2 order of various entrees. We plan to return and will encourage our friends to make a visit.

Excellent food with a nice variety on the menu. The appetizers were especially tasty. Great service from Kyle. We sat on the patio which was nice and quiet and casual. The dining room looked very nice, classy and comfortable.

Fine dining without the pretentious crustiness of some Laguna Beach establishments.

We were attending an event at the Laguna Playhouse, so we relied on Yelp to suggest a good place to eat before the show. We made a last minute reservation and chose Nirvana for their "clean" menu, meaning they use locally sourced organic ingredients, free from antibiotics. Some items on their menu change daily based on the local ingredients available. We were greeted by the hostess who was very pleasant and seated us quickly. The waitress was outstanding, friendly and attentive, and the ambiance was quiet and enjoyable.
We started off with fresh rolls right out of the oven, which were to die for. My husband is a vegetarian so he ordered the Nirvana Organic Vegetable plate. Oh my gosh!! It was fabulous and more food than he could eat. It is a combination of glazed organic heirloom carrots, mushroom ragout, caramelized onions, asparagus with lemon oil, sautéed vegetable medley with herb butter, wilted rainbow chard, roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, organic baby daikon & baby garbanzo jasmine rice, sautéed french lentils with leeks & fresh herbs i the center. It was flavorful and plentiful! I ordered an off menu special of the evening, Lamb chops, 4 chops, with a encrusted season coating, which came with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed broccoli. The entire meal and experience with enjoyable and we will DEFINITELY be going back to this fabulous restaurant!

I wanted to like this restaurant, but the food was very poor. I had the pork loin which was so tough, I could hardly cut it with my knife, let alone chew it. My husband said the same about his NY steak. Service started out fine, but then we were ignored for the second half and had to ask the manager to find our waiter for the check. Most of the restaurant had cleared out by then. We were trying to get to the Pageant of the Masters in time to walk around and enjoy the art prior to the show, but sadly, we couldn't get the waiter to our table in time. I would not recommend this restaurant.

We enjoyed a lovely, tasty and wonderful meal prior to walking to the Pageant.
One stop Parking was a breeze next door.
The waiter most pleasant and efficient and the Filet so tender you could cut it with a fork.
The 4 oz sampler (clever idea) Rockfish was piping hot with our meal.
We will be back I am sure.

Great place for pre Pageant of the Masters dinner.

Food was very good and priced very reasonably. Service was great

Miley was our server and she was great! very helpful with food choices and quick with whatever this party of 6 wanted.. we were celebrating a birthday and she was very attentive..
and GEORGE, IS MY FAVORITE... He remembered us from a few nights before and was very good and happily served us his hot bread and butter.. YUMMMMMMM!!!
Cudos Team Nirvana.. we will be back..

August 4, 2019 (Sunday) dining experience. Dark chocolate molten cake and affogato desserts were mouthwatering! We ordered chicken wontons, pulled pork crisps, grilled romaine salad and 1/2 loup de mer sea bass. Nice presentation as well as delectable. Loved the chipotle cream sauce for the chicken wontons. The server tried her best to serve food fast in order for us to make it on time for the Pageant of the Masters. We were seated 6:30 p.m. as reserved and we were out by 7:40 p.m. It was our first time dining in this place and it certainly will not be our last. Thank you for granting our request to sit near a window!

Food was excellent as always! I guess a server called in sick, so they were understaffed and service was very slow... Luckily we weren't in a rush, so it was no problem for us and the food was worth the wait!!

Food took an hour to come out even though we made early reservations and the restaurant was less than half full. Server disappeared for long chunks of time.

A real gem. Had never been but decided to try it when going to Pageant of the Masters. Within walking distance of the Pageant. Comfortable seating, pleasant ambiance and great food. Service was great. Will definitely visit again.

Had reservations. Place was very busy when we arrived, so we were asked to wait at the bar. Couldn’t get us seated inside, so asked if we would mind eating on the rooftop. Rooftop was nice and much quieter than inside (very loud!).

Server was very nice, but scrambling. The food was excellent! Got the veggie plate. A little high priced ($24) for what you get, but everything tasted wonderful.

Food and service are always exceptional.

Best food we've had in a long time. Very tasty.
It was noisy, but then it's summer in Laguna Beach.

Food was incredible
highly recommend the tostados, wow
and the grilled romaine!! loved it

Rude manager/hostess...gave me a table shoved in the back corner, with barely enough room for two people. When I asked for a better table she actually gave excuses as to why she couldn’t give me one. Huh? Like I was not worthy of one of her “good” tables. I made reservations weeks prior!! My daughter and I were nicely dressed, ready for a pleasant evening out. She tried to shove me upstairs with a large party, and then a table near the bathroom. All the while she had lovely tables in the main room open. Finally, she hesitantly gave me a good table but with a snide remark that she hoped someone else wouln’t mind sitting in the “tight” table. Really? Like I was suppose to feel badly that I, who was there first, and on time, was given the better table? To make it worse, the service was horrible. The server was never around, and our food came out slowly. The guy who cleaned up the plates was more helpful. Got us water, bread, asked if we needed anything and had a lovely attitude. The main server was nice, just never around. Will never, ever eat there again, and will tell everyone to go somewhere else. There are plenty of other places to dine!

Nirvana Grille never disappoints. Although we had a 'new' (to this restaurant) waiter, service was impeccable as always. New vegetarian options have been added- a nice touch. Our food was excellent.

We went before the Pageant of the Masters show starting at 8:30 pm (much of the crowd seemed to be doing similar as it was quite crowded at 6:15 when we arrived and had largely cleared out by 7:30). The starter salad I had was good--could have been a little less soaked in balsamic vinaigrette (which would have let the heirloom tomatoes show more of their true--delicious--flavor) but completely fine. Main (steak) was prepared nicely and overall quite tasty. But somewhere along the line our server just seemed to disappear. Dinner was cleared by the bus-person but what happened to our waiter? Eventually dessert was offered and cappuccinos were ordered but again, what happened? Eventually served with the excuse the machine was not working properly (perhaps true but you couldn't tell us?) and they were nice enough to comp the cappuccinos. But we left shaking our heads.

We were only in Laguna for the weekend so can't truly compare to all the restaurants in the area but Nirvana cannot hold a candle to Nick's or South of Nick's both of which we raved about and wished were near our home. Perhaps Nirvana is the next best but its a bit of a drop off from our experience.

Great food. Only complaint is the runner brought out our mussels appetizer and salads at the same and didn't understand why we asked her to bring the salads back after we finished our appetizer. So I would say management is poor at training and supervision.

I recommend Nirvana Grille to anyone who visits Laguna Beach, and it’s always the restaurant where I take clients before going to Pageant of the Masters. This visit was the 4th year in a row for my party of 5.
We love the additions to the menu and cocktail menu!

Always a wonderful experience at Nirvana. It has everything you want in a restaurant.

Excellent flavors in all dishes the table ordered. Excellent desserts, with appropriate sizing.

We waited a long time for our food after order. Finally had to ask server about our order we had to gulp down our food and leave to get to playhouse in time. Asked for separate checks but server forgot

A lovely place to dine with very friendly wait staff, excellent menu choices, delicious food and appealing decor. Very convenient for attending the Art Festival and Pageant of the Masters.
I highly recommend Nirvana Grille.

Nirvana has the mist delicious vegetable entree I’ve ever eaten.... I usually feel sorry for myself when I stick to a vegetarian diet in a good restaurant. But not here! It’s fabulous!

We both ordered steaks medium rare. My New York was cooked medium rare but the filet was overcooked a little, more like medium. Otherwise the salads were excellent and so was the service.

Love this place! So many good things. Must have the corn and the stuffed chili. Drinks are great too!

The food and atmosphere was fabulous

Staff were efficient, courteous and friendly. Food was great and delivered promptly.

Very nice, but not amazing experience. Service was attentive, but still had to ask for bread and more tea and coffee more than once. Food was excellent (especially mud pie!) and pretty close to market price. Inside ambiance very cozy and warm, but probably wouldn't have ventured in based on street exterior had it not been found on Open Table. Great location for a good meal if you're headed to Pageant, Playhouse or just a walk around downtown Laguna. All in all, a positive experience for the four of us, but not committed to a repeat performance.

Nirvana had a great menu. We had a vegan and vegetarian pescatarian in a normal person. Nirvana had a lovely meal for all our various requirements.

The food was excellent. Perfectly prepared salmon dish. The bread was fresh, warm and had a lovely texture. The service and all personnel were gracious and practiced.
My only regret is that the majority of the seating is extremely close. Only a couple of tables allowed for a reasonably intimate dining experience.

Slow service due to lack of personnel. Food, wine and drinks were very good.

Great experience! The food was delicious and the service was excellent!

Everything from the location, service, food and ambience were fantastic.

We have always been happy with everything at Nirvana. Our 52 year old son who was born and still lives in Laguna come with friends and business dinners. Thanks for being here.

We were seated by the kitchen and there were a couple of the staff that were continuously using curse words. They were speaking Spanish so I guess they didn’t think we would understand what they were saying. A table was added directly behind us which left very little room for staff to walk to the kitchen so I got accidentally hit in the head. The furniture and interior of the restaurant were really worn out. We had the romaine salad which was good, but it had too much dressing. We also had four small plates which were excellent.