Gourmet Grill Masters Opens in Irvine

Edwin Goei

​Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold described the chicken at the previously mobile-only Gourmet Grill Masters this way:

"The chicken at Grill Masters stands a cluck or two above the rest: extravagantly seasoned fowl cooked on rotating spits, perfumed with smoke, slow-roasted and glistening with juice, basted in its own fat plus probably a dozen other things, soft enough to eat with a spoon. And the skin! Like a thin sheet of crackly caramel, salty and drippy and saturated with herbs, chewy but taut and crisp enough to give way under your teeth with a magnificent thwack."



Now in its only brick-and-mortar store, the staple of farmers' markets all over LA has finally opened in Irvine next to Kohl's and our 2011 Best Chinese Restaurant winner, Tri-Village.

I went in last Saturday, but I saw no chickens. Perhaps I came too early. What I did see was a spartan room with no one in it (granted it was about 11 in the morning). Two rotating spits had shawarma and tarna meat. But what I'm looking forward to is that vaunted hen and the skin that goes thwack.

Look for a Dueling Dishes post here in the near future.

14141 Jeffrey Rd., Irvine, (949) 988-7553; www.ggmirvine.com.

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