Casual seafood spot O Sea will land in Old Towne Orange this summer

If you think of seafood restaurants as fussy and fancy, restaurateur Mike Flynn would like to change your mind.

Flynn and Chef David Yamaguchi, veterans of King’s Seafood Company restaurants, will bring their expertise to easy going eatery O Sea this summer in Old Towne Orange.

“I want O SEA to push the boundaries of the counter-service experience without actually operating as a full-service restaurant,” said Flynn, who will serve as opening general manager of the restaurant. “I want to ‘wow’ our guests with the quality and inventiveness of our product, the social responsibility that anchors our menu, the attentiveness of our service and the comfort of our setting — all of which are not regularly seen at our price point.”

Farmed British Columbian salmon, wild Mexican white shrimp, wild California white seabass, wild Ecuadorian mahi mahi and other fresh catch will be presented in a space with elevated counter service and entrees priced under $20. Classics such as crab cakes, lobster rolls and fish tacos will also be served.

Yamaguchi, a graduate of the Le Cordon Bleu program at the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena (2009), spent time mastering the art of sushi before joining the King’s Seafood Company in 2012. He served at Water Grill locations in Santa Monica, San Diego and South Coast Plaza. He also worked at Bottlefish in Brentwood, Tocaya Organica and as the consulting chef of Chulita in Venice.

Yamaguchi will be drawing on his Mexican and Japanese heritage to create dishes that include Ceviche with Coconut Leche de Tigre and Tuna Poke with White Miso, Watermelon and Furikake.

Flynn, a former assistant general manager of Water Grill South Coast Plaza and general manager of Water Grill Los Angeles, calls the service, “fine casual.”

He’s also emphasizing responsibly sourced seafood which he says goes beyond sustainable. “I think sustainable is a really overused word. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I like responsibility and responsible better,  they speak to a certain sense of accountability,” he said.

Chicken will be served but there are no plans for steak. Flynn is also eager to introduce his wine program to diners, which will include out-of-the-box selections such as a dry Tokaji, a carbonic sangiovese and a rosé of vinho verde from Portugal. There will be beer but no cocktails.

So with Chapman University just down the street, will this restaurant be a student hangout or the place to go when mom and dad visit? “Well, I don’t think they should necessarily be mutually exclusive,” he said, noting that although there’s a concentration of millennials and Generation Z folks, all ages dine out in Old Towne.

“You see a lot of first-time homeowners with young kids, which is wonderful, but at the same time, you also see that their parents and their grandparents live two, three blocks away. So it’s just very much becoming a community gathering place for all sorts of generations. I could not think of a better place to open a restaurant in Orange County right now.”

Find it: 109 S. Glassell St., Orange, eatosea.com.

Open: This summer

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