Last night I was just hungry. Tonight it was a combo of work and socializing. The 8-second video above shows the ambiance of the room. This is antebellum styling, but in a way that they don’t get called out for it. Rihanna is blasting in the background and everyone is enjoying themselves.
Me, not so much. I loved the company, but the cacio de pepe was too salty. This is definitely a me thing. Sabrina ten years ago probably would have loved this place. Actually, I take that back. She would have thought it was okay, but she wouldn’t have evaluated it the way I did.
My young co-creator picked the establishment. I let her in on what I was seeing and she informed me that it would be a spot she would hang out with her friends. When the face of your project gives you a thumbs up as far as what’s trending, you trust her.
What I took away:
Food
The menu is just a page long. Starters, entrees, sides. Simple layout without many extras. 80% of the menu had seafood in it and the other items were steaks. They had a tomahawk on the menu. No one in that spot was ever ordering a tomahawk or consuming it. I glanced at the tables and the entrees were the pasta dishes and appetizers. Off the bat, no one is here for the food, they’re there for the selfies. The drink menu was a small novel. They also understood that the alpha generation doesn’t drink, so there are mocktails that are the price of hard liquors. I was given a great pitch for a strawberry drink that amounted to lemonade with half a slurpee poured in. I heard “Arnold Palmer” thrown out in conversation, but never saw one on the table.
Layout
It’s a small venue. It can probably seat 120 with the location broken into three areas: the main dining room, a patio, and small tables along the wall surrounding the bar. There isn’t much room to walk around once you’re seated.
Waitstaff
Super kind and attentive, but with fear in their hearts. Accompaniments were offered for anything you asked for. By the way they were acting, my spidey senses guessed new management.
Calculations
Upcharged menu with few options. A ceiling and walls that looked like the Christmas staff at Michael’s lost their mind and hot glued everything together to inhibit shoppers from entering. Music playing as loud as any club with a room of mostly female guests that were not alive before the late 90’s. Where was I sitting?
This was once a West Hollywood surf and turf restaurant. The layout is a wooden staircase that leads to a mostly patio built restaurant. In a previous life, sharks and life vests probably hung from nets on the wall.
I’m betting the kitchen is large and built for a surf and turf restaurant. I wonder how long they’ve waited to actually make a tomahawk.
This establishment needs parties to survive. Weekends are probably packed with people that reserve it for out of town guests or insta-occasions.
The waitstaff were dressed to the nines. Not a wrinkle in site. I couldn’t guess the demographic they were trying to impress.
It felt like a menu from a bygone era combined with an atmosphere meant to capture the crowds that attend pop-up museums in town. I understand the energy they wanted, but I couldn’t get why the menu.
No one will bring kids to this establishment. At night, the mood lighting is so dark that you can’t see past your own table. Older couples won’t dine here, they’d really have to impress with their ribeye and I don’t think food is their main concern.
I was just sad. Maybe a group came in after I left and every one of them ordered a steak medium rare and followed it with two bourbons while they all chatted about Wuthering Heights.
I don’t know. All I know is I’m not enjoying places that are built for superficial joy, which is sad because if there’s anything I’ve been accused of my entire life it’s being shallow and superficial. I did get a great convo out of it.
“I don’t drink,” I tell my lead.
“Me either,” she says.
“I just never liked the taste, same?”
“No, I just don’t like to consume things that will hurt me. I don’t want to die and if I have to, I want to be 107.”
Me, who had labs done this morning. “Yeah, same.”
The pasta might have been subpar, but the insights were priceless. I wrote a story about an immortal and my actress is fighting for immortality in real life in her early twenties. May we all enjoy fun spaces and shoot for 107.
