Melisse Restaurant

10/14/09

It's all about pride

by atLarrys

One of my two favorite restaurants in California. The other is in Sacramento. We've been dining at Melisse since it opened 10 years ago and it just keeps on getting better. The room is classy and the staff taks pride in presenting and finishing at tableside the excellent dishes that come out of owner Josiah Citrin's kitchen. For a complete report on this and other favorites in L.A. go to: www.atLarrys

• Pros: Class on top of class

08/10/09

great dining experience

by greenerplanet

Even though it's pricey--my business collegue suggested this place for lunch--apparently the restaurant just had a nice remodel--so the decor was beautiful and made me feel like I was on vacation having lunch.

The food was superb...

• Pros: excellent service--staff is very friendly
• Cons: prices

08/03/09

terrible service, mediocre food

by majorfoodie

what a disappointment!

After hearing the rave reviews, I had high expectations of this Michelin 2 star restaurant.

The sommelier was next to awful. Usually not one to note these things, but his appearance is as unprofessional as his snarly attitude. He also didn't seem to have a clue about what wine he was pouring.

If you are going to be an arrogant p****, then at least know your stuff!

I'm not sure who he thinks he is, but we were the ones paying for a $600 meal, not working.

Food was pretty mediocre. Aside from the caviar egg, it was poorly seasoned and over salted.

NEVER AGAIN, NOT WORTH THE $$

• Pros: one or two standouts
• Cons: sommelier, service, ambience

07/14/09

spoiled now for all other restaurants

by saxifrages

Like some other reviewers. I did once have a less than stellar evening at Melisse. Fortunately this was after several other flawless dinners enjoyed there. I now compare all other restaurants to Melisse and no other food has measured up. Our weekends at the "best" restaurants in Las Vegas are now shadowed by our experience of Melisse, like the apple in the Garden of Eating from the tree of knowledge. If the prices were not so very, very high and the recession so fierce in our pockets, I would only ever eat at Melisse. And that poor evening that I mentioned, there were some serious flaws in the service but they were remedied, apologized for and a week later we received a generous gift card from the restaurant.

In my opinion, the only way to go at Melisse is to share the tasting menu and wine pairing with at least a party of four. Each getting something different and tasting from each others' plates and glasses. If you are not a "foodie' with knowledge and love for food preparation and service, then you will not appreciate Melisse and I advise you to save your money. Melisse is for the connoisseur. If you love foie gras, their's is the best.

• Pros: exquisite tasting menu; usually great service
• Cons: occasionally off night for service

03/16/09

Not as good as the hype.

by msmerymac

I had been looking forward to trying Melisse for months. I mean, they have 2 Michelin stars AND a vegetarian tasting menu. That’s my kind of place! Sadly, Melisse really didn’t meet my expectations. Reading the reviews and seeing people complain about the price at first made me somewhat annoyed. You can look up the menu and see how much it will be. Plus, it’s a Michelin-starred French restaurant, so we aren’t talking Applebees prices, here. However, I can now say that they are spot on – the food just isn’t worth what they are charging for it.

First, we were seated in a small room in the back with about 4 other tables rather than the main dining room. The atmosphere was stark and sort of lonely. I felt like I was waiting in a doctor’s office rather than a restaurant. We ordered a cocktail and a glass of champagne to start. Okay, but not great. The cocktails at Cut and Providence are much, much better. We got the tasting menus, of course. I like the idea of sort of choosing your own tasting menu. You can pick one starter, one appetizer, one main course, and one desert. You can also supplement cheese before dessert for an extra charge. The vegetarian menu, unfortunately, had only one choice for each, but you can substitute any other dish from the rest of the menu. The vegetarian menu is also $10 cheaper and comes with a cheese course without the supplement. Since it was black truffle season and I noticed they had a vegetarian pasta dish listed under their truffle specials, I decided to substitute that for my regular pasta. The rest of my menu was artichoke soup and gnocci. Well, they brought the truffle pasta first. Then they tried to give me the regular pasta dish as well… Um, I don’t want 2 pastas and a gnocci. It’s nice that they are trying, but there’s more to vegetarian cuisine than that. They did eventually bring the soup as my second course, though.

The truffle dish was the best of the night. My boyfriend had the fois gras two ways, and liked one but not the other. His lobster was way too salty, as was my gnocci. We got wine pairings, which were just okay. The sommelier was really not that good, nor that plesant. The cheese course was great. Our server gave us about 10 choices. But it was a $30 supplement, I think, for my boyfriend to get the cheese course.

Then the bill came. We don’t mind paying for good food, or paying for wine pairings, obviously. But we realized that, in addition to the $50 supplement for a truffle dish, they charged me the regular price for the tasting menu. Our server explained that when you substitute a dish, it reverts to a regular tasting menu. Even though I substituted a vegetarian dish with another vegetarian dish – and paid $50 extra to boot? Okay. I can kind of see that, but it wasn’t mentioned to us before the bill came. I know it’s $10 out of a $500+ meal, but it just seemed really petty.

Basically, I’ve been to better restaurants. We didn't have anything horrible happen to us, but our time and money is worth more than this.Try Providence, with great service, a great sommelier, and great cocktails. I won’t make a point to go back to Melisse.

• Pros: cheese cart, black truffles
• Cons: salty food, mediocre preparation

12/04/08

Best Presentation and Experience

by WineAndFoodCritic

Melisse is the most amazing restaurant I have ever walked into! The atmosphere is comfortable, the service is exceptional the food presentation is just as amazing as good as it looks... I have worked in restaurants and I have had tasted food from all over the world, but Melisse is a cut above the rest. I was able to relax and take my time to enjoy each course without feeling rushed. If anyone wants to impress someone with exquisite cuisine, I highly recommend Melisse. Try anything with truffles!!!

11/06/08

Disgraceful

by sorrocoprexus

We arrived for dinner at Melisse after hearing about the 2 star michelin rating. We had the Maine Lobster Thermidor, rib eye, duck breast, wild mushroom ravioli, duo of foie grais and Jamon Iberico Pata Negra. That's 2 appetizers, 2 first courses and 2 entrees. It took them 30 minutes to plate the next course. I work in the restaurant industry, and my god, if it took more then 10 minutes, 15 top for one course to the next, it'd be catching hell. If it had been 1 course late, i'd have been fine, 2 maybe but all 3 were late.

My date's water glass went empty 3 times during the meal, i had to grab a bottle myself to prevent her from dying of thirst.

The staff is slow, unattentive and complacent, downright lazy. They rather talk amongst themselves about their weekends then play attention to the costumers. These are bad economical times, restaurants are slow and competing for your business. Go to Jiraffe instead, it's in the same area.

10/05/08

Take care when it's time to pay !

by Karunina

I gave them my credit card number because this dinner was a gift for 2 friends of mine.

They took 704$ instead of 600$ as I told on the form.

They refuse to refund the difference and I've asked to my legal protection to help me

08/30/08

Food = Excellent; Service = Lousy

by adev1974

I know why Melisse received Michelin 2 stars. The food is excellent. On our first wedding anniversary, my wife and I decided to try the restaurant. The service is very uneven ? I would implore Michelin to try to the restaurant on multiple occasions ? especially a Saturday night. We had the chef?s tasting menu, with a wine pairing. The sommelier is a complete *******; he provided little information on each wine that was paired with a course, and poured the wine flight on our last course while my wife was away from the table ? just inexcusable. I asked for a listing of the wines that we had with each course ? he indicated he was too busy tonight, but that ?I leave a card? and he could email me the listing ? for a 2 star Michelin, this is inexcusable - not to mention downright rude.

The chef is a great at what he does ? but obviously doesn?t have the business talent to recruit the proper folks to run the front of the house. I?d have to recommend folks steer clear of Melisse ? Wolfgang Puck operates a class organization, as well as a number of others in LA. Hopefully when Keller returns to Beverly Hills, the service level Keller provides as well as the attention to detail will provide some competition to the French food of Melisse.

04/30/08

Sublime and Friendly

by sonofliebling

We arrived with teenagers in tow and did not receive a table in Siberia. We were greeted warmly, seated promptly at a prime table and visited by chef Citrin.

Evertything else I might say has been said by another reviewer, so I will not go into detail about the food.

If you want to top this you will have to go to Paris and spend twice as much.

The best meal I have had in Los Angeles,

• Pros: Food, Service, Decor
• Cons: Spolis You For Other Restaurants.