Just off the 405 freeway at the border of Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, a block down from IKEA and a couple of business parks over, you’ll find Darkroom.
It’s the kind of address where you’d expect to find a dentist’s office or a logistics company — instead, it’s home to some of the most inventive food in Orange County, and arguably beyond, anchored by a formidable wine program featuring small producers.
The location is a deliberate choice by Zach Scherer, Darkroom’s chef-owner, that has turned the restaurant into a growing word-of-mouth destination. For Scherer, hiding in plain sight was never a compromise. It was the plan.
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Inside Darkroom
The interior of the restaurant is a completely different story. Its decor matches that of an angsty teenager who shops at Hot Topic, with an affinity for industrial and goth music, and a bit of new wave mixed in.
Darkroom’s interior leans into its irreverent, gallery-meets-Hot Topic aesthetic.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Your eyes might take a minute to adjust to the low light before a friendly server wearing a tattered band T-shirt greets you and escorts you to your table.
Scherer wears his nonconformist attitude with pride — and intention. “If you’re a little too serious, Orange County won’t love it,” he said, and it shows: the room is built to feel like the opposite of a hushed tasting menu.
Chef Zach Scherer (right) and Drew Adams work the pass together — the same partnership they describe as “like a band.”
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy DARKROOM
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Scherer runs the kitchen with longtime partner Drew Adams — a lifelong Orange County resident — who also oversees the pastry program. The two think of Darkroom’s identity “like a band,” Scherer said: a shared core sound, no matter who’s guesting on a given dish. (Their tasting-menu concept, Chrysalis, runs out of the same kitchen some nights — a five-course tasting menu happening in parallel.)
The menu
Start off with the Scotch olives, fried Castelvetrano olives with anchovy and lamb merguez, served over spiced sumac yogurt. Meanwhile, a couple of slices of their zucchini bread with koji butter, topped with silky jamón serrano, provide some comforting bites.
Grilled and marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers — a short-season ingredient the kitchen deliberately doesn’t overwork.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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From there, seasonal produce takes center stage, with grilled, marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers served with fennel-pollen labneh and sprinkled with walnut dukkah, hitting equal notes of sweet, spicy, nutty, and fresh. Followed by honeynut squash from Weiser Farms — poached in a light broth known as nage, made with bits of country ham and horseradish, topped with rainbow chard, a dish that reads Southern-meets-European.
The Darkroom burger, cut in two — only 10 are made a night.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Cap things off with The Darkroom burger, cut in half, made with dry-aged beef, molten Comté cheese, and gooey caramelized onions, served between soft, glossy brioche-style buns, swimming in a light au poivre bath. It’s a dish that, like the others, exhibits strong technique but still wears its fun on its sleeve — all the makings of a truly memorable meal.
The philosophy
Scherer’s goal is to make the Orange County food scene nationally competitive with San Francisco, New York, and Chicago — and the seasonal fluency on display that night, from summer’s last Jimmy Nardellos to fall’s first honeynut squash, is the technical proof behind that claim.
The fried Scotch olives — Castelvetranos stuffed with anchovy and lamb merguez, set over sumac yogurt.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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The menu’s dynamic approach — its ability to oscillate between cuisines — reflects that same nonconformist identity, reinforcing the idea that the food doesn’t take itself too seriously, just like the space around it.
Scherer’s ambitions don’t stop at Darkroom’s walls; he’s also developing Three Eyed Tiger, a cocktail-forward concept nearby.
“The food we’re making now is the food that I’m the most proud of, because it really shows our identity,” said Scherer.