Breakfast (and tea) at Tiffany’s: Blue Box Café opens at South Coast Plaza

The restaurant replaces the former Petrossian, which was limited to caviar and Champagne service and a small menu of French-inspired offerings.

The all-day dining destination from the Dinex Group draws influence from the flagship Blue Box Café, located at Tiffany & Co.’s 5th Avenue store in New York City, also helmed by Boulud.

The South Coast Plaza location is the first West Coast outpost for Blue Box Café.

Daniel Boulud helms Blue Box Café at South Coast Plaza, a new dining destination connected to the new Tiffany & Co. (Courtesy of Blue Box Café) “We are thrilled to open our first California restaurant with our partner Tiffany & Co.,” said Sebastien Silvestri, Dinex Group chief executive officer, in a news release. “The Blue Box Café specializes in creating precious moments throughout the day, and I believe our light yet elegant cuisine and ambiance will be a perfect fit for Southern California.”

Boulud founded the Dinex Group in 1993, with his one Michelin-starred New York restaurant, Daniel. Since then, the restaurant group has grown to multiple venues around the world and Boulud’s fine dining background and French influences are evident at Blue Box Café.

“Blue Box Café celebrates the pleasure of coming together over beautiful food in a refined setting,” Boulud stated in the news release. “At South Coast Plaza, we are excited to preserve the distinctive charm and elegance guests know from New York while creating a menu that reflects the freshness, seasonality, and vibrant culinary spirit of California.”

Tucked away at the back of the Tiffany & Co. showroom, Blue Box Café at South Coast Plaza features an elegant dining room that honors the legacy jewelers’ heritage with Art Deco mirrors and seating upholstered in Tiffany blue.

Above the dining room, a installation of Tiffany & Co. jewelry boxes, which first debuted in the mid-19th century and inspired the cafe’s name, are suspended from the ceiling.

A Breakfast at Tiffany’s set menu is priced at $72 with brunch items that include croissants, apricot danish, parfait framboise with Hampton’s Grocer granola, raspberry coulis and choice of organic yogurt or chia pudding and oeuf et caviar; a soft scrambled egg served in its shell and topped with Ossetra caviar. Guests don’t have to wake up early to enjoy the menu either; Breakfast at Tiffany’s is served all day.

Holly’s Favorites, however, a menu inspired by the fictional Holly Golightly, is only available until noon. Modeled after the coffee and croissant Audrey Hepburn’s character eats each morning while window shopping at Tiffany & Co., the menu is a light meal of a croissant and Madeleine, butter and jam, fresh juice and choice of coffee, hot tea or hot chocolate for $35.

While the morning meal may have made Tiffany’s famous, Blue Box Café isn’t just for breakfast.

Tea at Tiffany’s at Blue Box Café (Courtesy of Blue Box Cafe) The seasonal à la carte menu offers familiar items such as salade cesar, with little gem lettuce, chicken paillard, parmesan cheese and crispy bacon; feuillete a l’avocat, or avocado toast, on a brioche roll with grilled peaches and cherry tomatoes; and a cheeseburger made with black Angus beef.

There more elaborate dishes too, for example asperge a l’oeuf dore, asparagus with poached gold leaf egg in a crispy potato nest and Boulud’s signature spaghettini au caviar, a lemon glazed pasta served with Ossetra caviar.

Tea at Tiffany’s is a classic high tea service, complete with such sweet treats as traditional scones, chocolate caramel tart and blackberry cheesecake along with savory bites like smoked salmon bagel, lobster roll and cucumber, dill and cream cheese tea sandwiches. Some cakes and pastries are coated in Tiffany blue icing.

That luxury branding extends from the food to the flatware. Ossetra caviar is scooped with a dainty sterling silver spoon. Tea is poured from a bone china tea pot from the Tiffany T True collection, featuring a hand-painted platinum rim. Champagne bubbles rise in Tiffany Home Essentials crystal flutes and mouths are dabbed with Frette fine linen napkins.

While the Costa Mesa location menus are similar to those available at the New York flagship restaurant, executive chef Alberto Ragoni said Blue Box Café at South Coast Plaza leans into local seasonality and California’s bountiful produce.

“Ninety percent of the ingredients come from California,” Ragoni said. “Daniel is very famous for the seasonality of ingredients and here, we approach the menu the same way.”

Even the bread is sourced from Orange County-based Bread Artisan Bakery. The bakery owned by Jonnie LoFranco and French baker Yannick Guegan produces everything from baguettes and sourdough loaves for some of Southern California’s most popular restaurants, all baked at its facilities in Santa Ana.

Blue Box Café sources mini baguettes, petit pain multigrain, mini croissants and more from the local bakery. Even the bun for the signature cheeseburger, a French brioche burger bun that gets stamped with the Blue Box Cafe logo to be exact, comes from Bread Artisan.

“They deliver everything to us at 9 a.m. every morning, fresh,” said Ragoni.

Coeur de Saumon and Croque a la Truffe at Blue Box Café at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. (Courtesy of Blue Box Cafe) As the seasons change, so will the menu.

“We had California salmon the past couple of weeks but the California King salmon season is ending,” Ragoni said. “Unfortunately, asparagus season is ending now too, so we will switch to a different version of that dish with potato and truffle, for truffle season.”

Guests can expect the seasonal menu to change about every 45 days, so there will always be a new a gem to discover.

Blue Box Café by Daniel Boulud within Tiffany & Co. at South Coast Plaza at 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa. For reservations, visit blueboxcafescp.com.

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Sarah Mosqueda covers Orange County food, art and culture for TimesOC. She previously worked as a staff writer in Food for the Los Angeles Times. She also has several years of experience in the restaurant industry, including as a proprietor. Mosqueda earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Cal State Fullerton.