For five years, the walking path that links the thirteen homes of Montage Ocean Estate to Treasure Island Beach passed a building that never turned its dining room lights on. The bluff-top restaurant sat inside Montage Laguna Beach, visible from the same trail residents use to reach the tide pools at Goff Island, closed since the pandemic shutdowns of 2020. Anyone who has lived in the enclave that long knows the shape of that absence better than any list of new amenities could describe it. In 2025, the lights came back on, and what actually reopened is more specific, and more scheduled, than most write-ups of the news have bothered to explain.
What the five-year gap actually was
The restaurant in question was Studio, long considered one of Orange County's better fine-dining rooms and housed in its own 9,641-square-foot Craftsman-style building on the resort's bluff, separate from the main hotel structure. It closed when dining rooms shut down statewide in 2020 and stayed dark through a change in ownership. Tilman Fertitta's group acquired the Montage property in late 2022, and the renovation that eventually reopened the space, new kitchen, new furnishings, updated patio, followed from that acquisition rather than arriving alongside it. In other words, the building sat empty for roughly two more years after new ownership took over before construction even began. That lag is the part most coverage skips past on the way to the ribbon-cutting.
The reopening happened in two stages, not one
Studio came back as Studio Mediterranean, and it did not simply reopen to the public one day. The restaurant began dinner service to hotel guests only on June 26, 2025, running Wednesday through Sunday from 5 to 10 p.m. It did not open to walk-in reservations from the broader public, including estate residents who are not hotel guests, until October 10, 2025. That roughly three-and-a-half-month gap between the soft launch and the public opening is worth knowing if you assumed the whole thing happened at once.
Managing director Victorio Gonzalez, who first worked at Montage as director of restaurants when the hotel opened in 2003 under founder Alan Fuerstman, framed the reopening as a matter of staying current rather than simply refreshing a menu. As he told the Orange County Business Journal, "if we are to remain that kind of iconic, legendary hotel, you need to reinvent yourself." The name change from Studio to Studio Mediterranean signals more than marketing. The kitchen is now built around a different culinary point of view entirely.
Who is actually cooking and running the room
The credentials behind the reopening explain why this reads as a genuine upgrade rather than a reheated version of what closed in 2020.
- Executive chef Dennis Efthymiou is a Greek native whose career took him through kitchens in Athens, Peru, the United Kingdom, and San Francisco before landing at Montage. He has described the new menu as a direct extension of his own background: "Studio Mediterranean is a personal expression of my Greek heritage, enhanced by California's seasonal bounty."
- General manager Cecil Kepner arrives from a run through Auberge Resorts Collection properties, Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica, Otium in Los Angeles, and most recently the Michelin-starred Knife Pleat in Costa Mesa.
- Managing director Victorio Gonzalez brings two decades of history with the property itself, plus earlier stints at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and The Phoenician in Scottsdale, both under Fuerstman before Montage existed.
That combination, a chef whose personal culinary identity anchors the menu and a leadership team pulled from some of the region's most decorated dining rooms, is the reason this reopening carries different weight than a routine restaurant refresh.
What it actually costs to eat there
The menu structure at Studio Mediterranean makes clear this is not a casual stop on the way back from the beach. Whole Daily Catch, which includes line-caught branzino and dorado from Greece, Dover sole from Spain, and red trout and Maine lobster sourced domestically, runs from $54 to $185 depending on the fish and preparation. Raw and chilled items span an even wider range, $28 to $290, reflecting market pricing on items like whole fish sold by weight. Meze runs $16 to $190. Desserts sit at $18 to $24.
Dinner is served Wednesday through Sunday only, from 5 to 10 p.m., with no lunch service listed. The dress code rules out anything beach-adjacent: the restaurant asks guests to avoid athletic wear, flip-flops, and shorts in favor of smart casual or resort chic. For residents accustomed to walking the trail straight from Treasure Island Beach, that means a change of clothes before dinner, not just a change of scenery. Parking guests receive validation covering the first three hours for $15, or complimentary if the dining or spa charge reaches $350 or more.
The daytime gap that Bouchée actually fills
Studio Mediterranean's schedule leaves mornings and most weekdays without a resort dining option, which is where the second opening matters. Bouchée Patisserie, a French-inspired pastry shop led by head pastry chef Lee Smith, opened near the resort's porte-cochère in 2025 offering house-baked pastries, gelato, French macarons, fruit tarts, sandwiches, and coffee. Unlike Studio Mediterranean, Bouchée is positioned to welcome both hotel guests and locals from morning through evening, seven days a week in spirit if not by posted restriction.
Put the two together and the actual daily rhythm becomes clear. Coffee and a croissant at Bouchée any morning. A midday walk to the tide pools. Dinner at Studio Mediterranean on five specific nights, with a reservation and smart casual attire rather than whatever you wore to the beach. That is a genuinely different pattern than the one that existed for the previous five years, when the only walkable food option next door was whatever the main hotel's other outlets happened to be serving.
The trail runs on its own clock too
The dining schedule is not the only thing that governs when the space between the estates and the water is actually usable. Treasure Island Beach, reached by a long concrete ramp on the resort's southwest side, is one of the few wheelchair-accessible beaches in Orange County, and the walking paths above it wind past views of Treasure Island, Goff Island, and Christmas Cove. West of the main platform, a natural rock arch leads to Middle Man Cove and Goff Cove beyond it, but that route is only passable at low tide. Skimboarding is confined to the south end of the beach.
Dogs are barred from the sand between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. from June 15 through September 10, though leashed dogs are permitted outside those hours and dates. None of this changed in 2025. What changed is that the trail now leads somewhere worth timing a walk around, rather than past a dark building with a for-lease sign in spirit if not in fact.
What actually changed here
The proximity itself was never the story. Montage Ocean Estate has always bordered these trails, this bluff, and this restaurant building. What changed between 2020 and October 2025 is that the resort finally gave residents a reason to build a schedule around what sits at the property line: a five-night dinner window staffed by a chef with real Mediterranean credentials, a morning patisserie that fills the rest of the week, and a beach access point that still runs on tides rather than convenience. For anyone who has lived here through the quiet years, that is worth knowing before the next dinner reservation gets made.
If you are weighing what a home in this enclave is actually worth given how the resort next door has changed, Jacqueline Thompson Group offers a confidential market valuation or private consultation grounded in exactly this kind of neighborhood-level detail.
