Josh C.
Yelp
The atmosphere is nice, and I love the idea of going there to see live music. That's the good part.
We were running a few minutes late and called to ensure this would be fine. We had been told it was not a problem but we would need to order everything when we sat down, then they would pace the meal out in a normal relaxed manner. That worked perfectly for us. We picked 5 dishes to share, 4 of which had been recommended by our server. Sadly within minutes of ordering we received 4 of our items. We asked them to please not make our final dish yet and they seemed hesitant but did respect our wishes. We were their last table, and felt bad for being late... so this would all have been fine if the quality of food was better. Sadly it was among the worst meals I've ever eaten. Everything was wayyy over salted, and really we struggled to finish anything. The worst by far was the halibut which was texturally awful, over seasoned, and overcooked. The steak was cooked perfectly, but was a tiny medallion for $34 (if I remember right) and was the saltiest meat I've ever eaten... like so much salt that it was a struggle to consume. The duck taquitos were mediocre for a restaurant. Maybe what you'd expect if sold at Trader Joe's, then cooked a bit too long in your home toaster oven. The Caesar salad was bizarre. It contained a ton of these massive 1.5" browned cubes of super salty grated cheese. Perhaps if they were melted/gooey inside, it would have at least been texturally pleasing to eat. But even then the flavor was just like a bomb of salt. The burrata salad was the least offensive dish we ordered, but still a slog to get through... especially because the cheese was so cold in the center I almost expected there to be ice particles.
We have dined at numerous Claud Beltran restaurants in the past, always been huge fans. Honestly didn't know this was his restaurant until after the fact. I can only guess that he was not cooking the night we were there... but I'm still surprised that he conceived of these dishes. Given the rave reviews overall, we must have had a spectacular miss. I was really struggling with whether or not to write this review. Ultimately if our meal is a rare exception then it will not hurt the business. And maybe it can be taken as constructive feedback for them to make adjustments, if they think our comments are valid. If not, no hard feelings!
I should add, our waitress was super friendly... she noticed we didn't really touch the fish, and decided to comp it. We would have been happy to pay for the food, and told her so. Didn't complain once. She was just a very observant and kind person. She said we should not pay for food we didn't eat. So we gave a 40% tip, essentially adding the fish back on plus a standard tip. The staff all work hard and should not be punished for our experience.