Italian restaurant honored with wine award

Luggatti’s Italian Grill, 210 Fifth St., is the only Huntington Beach restaurant to be honored with the Wine Spectator 2008 Award of Excellence.

The grill joins 46 other Orange County restaurants to receive the designation, which honors those who offer more than 100 wines on their carefully edited wine lists.

“The process of building an acclaimed wine cellar is a combination of education and experimentation,” Luggatti’s co-owner Mike Savage said.

He and co-owner Frank Savage are accredited sommeliers from the Culinary Institute of America at Graystone in Napa. They taste between five and 20 new wines each week.

High-end highlights from the current wine list include a 1999 Far Niente cabernet and Dom Perignon.

For more information on the restaurant, call (714) 536-8846 or visit luggattis.com.

— Candice Baker