The Cannery Restaurant

LOVE LOVE LOVE the sushi here! I’ve never had anything bad. Amazing quality fish. If you’re looking for a cute date night with a pretty view, this is a great spot. Happy hour has great prices too!

I’ve been eating at The Cannery off and on for the past 40 years. Seen many changes. The present Cannery is by far the best. The service is good. A little pricey but then what isn’t. The food is truly unsurpassed. If you want to impress your out-​of-​town friends, you can’t go wrong with the Cannery.

I don’t understand the reviews on Unilocal for this place? This place is by far so much better then rated– as well, much better then the blue water next door which has higher reviews.
Not only is the ambiance nicer, with a lounge option upstairs. The waiters are excellent and the food is delicious. Did I mention they offer 50% off on selected wine bottles, a steal for such great wines.

Yumm-ooooh…I had sushi (salmon roll) and the chocolate lava cake … FAAAABULOUS… great service too

Nice location, nice décor. Met here with family for a special occasion. We sat outside and had a nice view of the boats and the water. Service was good and attentive, Food was excellent and very gourmet. Real true chefs that know what they are doing. I didn’t try anything I didn’t like. Oh, and a nice selection of craft beer, too.
I would give them a 4 or 5 star rating, but the lady who is either a hostess or a manager (blonde lady, heavy-​set, 40ish?) was rude and unpleasant, and that took away from the whole experience.

Went here for brunch. Loved the burger and fries. I requested med rare and they got it right. Seasoned well and the fries were so tasty. We sat outside which provided a great relaxing view. Service was spot on. Cost was $ 18, which was worth every cent. Got the unlimited mimosas as well for $ 15. Hubby and Mom got fish and chips… which they loved

My server Jamie was top drawer. Obviously he had a professional background. Knows how to engage his guests and anticipate needs
Swordfish was amazing — best I ever had. Moist and delicious.
Alvino the busser on point
Jamie came through with wine recommendation.
Upstairs seemed to be a shxt show — takes away from the fine dining vibe I was trying to enjoy downstairs.
Host was delightful. She was really nice.
Thanks.

Food was fine… WORST SERVICE EVER!!! The below is an email I sent the cannery directly and I got zero response from them… not surprised.
I was dinning at the Cannery on Friday night and had the worst dinning experience I have ever had in my life. I left feeling mistreated. The hostess and lady who sat us down where the only decent people.
Our waiter started out fine but as our food started to take a ridiculous amount of time to come out he started to lose his patience and was not apologetic at all. People around us who got there after us all got their food before us. He tried to say «It’s coming right out» a few times but after about 20 minutes when we asked how much longer he said «Well we are busy and I put it in when you ordered it»… At one point he even tried to blame me and said «Well didn’t you order the pot pie» Which I didn’t and when I said no I ordered the chicken breast he looked at his tab and just walked away. There was no offer for an appetizer or free desert to make up for it or a round of drinks. NOTHING. The saddest part is the food was great once it came out but entire experience was ruined by the waiter.
After dinner we were meeting friends for drinks upstairs. The bar area was packed. Now not sure what the policy is on fire hazards/​amount of people allowed but the wait staff was beyond rude shouting at us to move out of their way and clear a path to get through… It’s a crowed bar not sure what they expected. It was tight quarters for everyone. Me and another girl actually got shoved by the wait staff trying to get by. IF it was that bad of an issue suggest not allowing that many people in that area.
Hopefully this note serves as a heads up and can help your wait staff improve on how they treat paying customers. Your restaurant is in my mind considered high end for the Newport area and the service should be first class and when it’s not it’s a real shame.

It was my first time here and we sat in the patio. I had a really good experience with Cory being our server! He was very attentive and accommodating. The food was amazing! Loved the ceviche.

This is a beautiful restaurant with great food. So why 4 stars instead of 5? It is very overpriced in my opinion. I get that it’s a restaurant in Newport Beach with a great view, but the prices are sky high and the portions are not very big for the prices that the Cannery is charging.
I came here with my family for Easter dinner. First, we started with the seafood cocktail for an appetizer. It was so good, but so small! It was $ 27 and so not worth that price. My dad and my brother ordered the house-​made pasta. This dish comes with carbonara sauce and lobster. They both really liked it. My mom ordered the Chilean sea bass and she really liked it. I ordered the caesar salad and the spicy brussel sprouts. The caesar salad was really good. The spicy brussel sprouts came with a sunny side egg on top. They were good but I wasn’t blown away.
For dessert, my family ordered a pistachio sundae which they all loved. I am not a huge fan of pistachio ice cream but my family LOVED it.
Overall, it was a lovely dinner with my family. I really enjoyed the view. If you are looking for an upscale restaurant for a special occasion, then I would give this place a try.

Happy Hour review:
I’ve been wanting to go to the Cannery for SO long and finally did tonight. Was surprised to see that happy hour is seat yourself (kind of like bar style) and you’re super lucky if you get a spot — which after scoping out the whole place for about 15minutes — we finally did (this is 3 people).
Ordered happy hour sushi & snacks. Ahi tacos are honestly amazing! Never had anything like that. Got the Balboa roll thinking it was all fish & it turned out to be a regular rainbow roll with imitation crab (I have allergies to imitation crab) so we had to inform the waitress once she brought it out because it DOES NOT state that there is any crab in it on the menu. That’s the ONLY reason I gave 4 stars, also the waitress seemed a bit off at first speaking with her. Although once I told her my allergy and that I would have to order something else since the menu doesn’t state that there is ANY crab in the balboa roll, she was very agreeable and kind and traded it for a spicy tuna roll (super tasty & SPICY). Gave her a nice little extra on the tip for being so nice about having to send something back because I hate to do that. Edamame was $ 3 so why not? Would have gotten the miso soup but we honestly ordered more than we ate so good thing I didn’t.
Don’t sit on the couch by the window unless you want the AC blowing you into frostbite.
My friend told me the Pinot noir is good, but we ended up just sticking with water.
Would order much more next time and I would still love to go back for a real dinner sometime! Overall, all the food was fantastic and service was pretty good. Would recommend getting there on the earlier side of happy hour, though and ordering as soon as possible. Yum!

I imagine this place was opened years ago, by a couple starting a Cannery. As the years went on I see the family branching off and everyone wanted to claim stake in the family buisness. Traditionally probably started just as a bayside restaurant with traditional taste. The son was probably a big sports fan, which explains all the local jerseys on the wall. He likely married A Japanese girl which explains the sushi bar upstairs. And the other sibling must have liked to be secluded which explains the non open air patio and awkward 6 table room upstairs.
I don’t know how they put this restaurant together but you get a taste of everything walking through it. The food is fair and the brunch prices are good. But I have no idea who picked the champagne for brunch, they need to take a few somm classes or something because even Andre taste better.
Service is fair to good, and food is good to fair. Worth trying, when you’ve ran out of places to try.

From the moment we contacted The Cannery regarding the planning of our celebration to the final guest leaving on the night of the event, our experience with them could not have been any more outstanding. Not only were my wife and I delighted, we received raves reviews during our event and days afterward. Everyone was simply blown away with every aspect of the food, service and ambiance. Were it possible to post six stars we would do so gladly.
Though many restaurants were available for our celebration, none compared to quality, kindness and genuineness extended to us by the Cannery. You can pay any venue to put on a good dinner but you cannot put a price tag on people who go out of their way to ensure every detail was attended to. Our guests, family and friends, young and old alike, were treated with the utmost care. Several our guests even asked us if I was friends with the owner and staff… that’s how remarkable they were.
As to the event, it may be of interest to note it was a celebration of the lives of my mother and father, who had recently passed. We scattered their ashes at sea and afterward docked at The Cannery, where The Cannery then made our day most memorable. My parents loved the ocean and moved our family of nine from Ohio to California so we could be near it. We could think of no better place to say our final goodbyes than at a location they so loved. I cannot imagine how our day could have been made more special.
Thank you everyone at The Cannery — we owe you such huge debt of gratitude!

I think I will give this place another chance during dinner or happy hour since I wasn’t too impressed with their lunch options/​food.
I came here with a few coworkers for a lunch meeting and everyone was mostly seated outside on the patio. The view was awesome! Seeing the boats on the water and watching the ships go was quite a view. If you want to have a nice view of the harbor and have a meal outside, this is the place to go! Once it hit around 2:30 the cold breeze and fog started to come in, so be cautious of that. They have blankets they can provide you as well.
The service was great, they took our orders quickly and refilled our drinks in a timely manner.
I did my homework and saw pictures on Unilocal of ahi tacos with a crunchy shell and they looked great but I could not find them on the menu?! Maybe they are a happy hour or dinner menu item. We all shared an order of 12 oysters which were very good especially if you like oysters. They were served on ice in half of their shell which made it easy to eat and put condiments on. I would’ve liked to have tried the crab cake which looked good in the pictures, save that for next time.
For the entrees, two of us ordered the Mediterranean Seafood Salad and two of us ordered the Kale Salad with Salmon. I was told that they salmon was great but the kale salad had too much dressing and was not crunchy. For the Mediterranean salad, it had a ton of seafood in it — crab, lobster, shrimp, scallops — so if you want a lot of seafood, this is the salad to get! It was good, the seafood was very fresh but had zero seasoning on it. It could’ve used just a little lemon or something, it was totally plain. I like plain foods, but this was a little too plain. There also wasn’t enough lettuce in the salad. I ended up at the end with a whole scallop left, a shrimp and some crab which I ate by themselves.
We did not go for dessert as we were full from the entrees, but pretty good meal overall. I don’t think I would come here for lunch again like I said maybe happy hour would be nice during sunset since the view is so nice.
As for parking — we valeted and it was free. We got our dropped off the car with no problems and to get our car back took maybe a minute.

I find myself going here more and more frequent — it’s the happy hour 4 – 6:30pm.
It really is the best — beautiful sushi, sashimi, garlic fries etc half price. Combined with a laid back atmosphere in the bar area and friendly welcoming staff — yah!

Pretty disappointed — this place has gone down. Came here with a group of 14 girls and not one of us was excited about our meals… That says something
To start the Caesar salad is so over priced for what it is. You’re paying for the white anchovy that everyone avoids like the plague.
I had the diver scallops and they were gritty and the phở broth was so un-​flavorful it was disappointing. Wouldn’t recommend :(
I had a bite of the lobster pasta — flavorful but it was like partially melted cheese with a tablespoon of sauce– not at all what I imagine based off the description.
Then the swordfish– this was DRY!!! Poor fish died to be over cooked and masked in a spicy sauce.
I would be giving this 2 stars but our server was great with dealing with 14 girls and had a fun personality. Just wish the food was what it used to be before

This place is realllllly good. Valet was simple and when you walk in the place there’s a host stand and then an upstairs and a downstairs. The upstairs is open seating with a bar while downstairs is the restaurant that you usually make a reservation for. We had made a reservation but chose to sit upstairs. It’s really spacious up there which makes me wonder how the servers notice new people sitting down since it’s first come first serve. It gives off a loungey vibe and some tables were accompanied with couch style seating. We sat down for a bit before our waitress came by to give us menus. It’s pretty great because you can order off the restaurant menu as well as the bar menu up there.
We ordered all of our food dish by dish and our waitress was very patient with us because we couldn’t decide on what to order. We ended up getting the crudo, poutine, steamed clams, foie, and scallops.
I thought everything tasted amazing. The tuna crudo was a little spicy for me and it had a ton of avocado so I just ate around that stuff. The clams had awesome flavor and the waitress said it was her favorite dish.
I really really really enjoyed the tator tot poutine. It comes with clam chowder gravy and it’s entrée sized.
The foie was also really good and comes with rare duck breast and red cabbage. There were pistachio thingies in there that were good.
They also try their best to accommodate drink orders. Which is great!
There were so many other things I wanted to try but my stomach would not allow it.

My boyfriend took me here for their Valentine’s Day dinner. Although I understand they had limited options to make it easier for the staff, it was disappointing that there weren’t many options to choose from.
We were first served the lobster bisque soup. I don’t like lobster very much so I didn’t like it. Then we were served with crab cake, which was absolutely delicious! For the main entrée I had the salmon which had some green stuff on it which made it spicy. Then we were served champagne, which was ok. Not my favorite champagne. The dessert was very tasty.
The atmosphere was my favorite restaurant. I’d like to come back on a normal day to see what their everyday menu is like, but all in all I wasn’t overwhelmed with their food.

Hadn’t been here in a long time and I don’t know why!!! The food is amazing and the service is pretty damn good!
My favorite is the ceviche, the lobster pasta and the salted caramel pudding ;)
Great ambiance if your seated on the patio at night, or you can just chill at the bar upstairs for a more laid back kind of night.

Nice restaurant, but food was just ok, 3.5 stars!
The restaurant has an elegant but still casual atmosphere. We went at night so we couldn’t really see the water. I bet the daytime view is great.
It was pretty packed on a Friday night, so the food took forever. Servers were not attentive to refill water, etc.
My $ 36 Black cod was a lil tangy with beans and sweetbreads. It was pretty good though not melt on your mouth good.
The Bouillabaisse was a disappointment for $ 44. It had big chunks of lobster without their shell, scallops, and other, but taste was just ok and the dish was smaller than expected.
We ordered a Salted caramel pudding which was free because it was my bday and the server also gave me a small box with a toffee which was a very nice touch.