Also unrelated -
Have a friend with a table on saturday at 5 they gotta get rid of - party of 2 - if anyone is looking 
Assuming this already taken?? If not lemme know!
Getting to downtown from the westside for a 5PM weekday reservation…brutal.
I’ve only been to Damian once - I posted about it on here. I was underwhelmed. But you all rave about it, so I’m excited to give it another shot, albeit this won’t be the normal Damian experience.
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Service & pacing disaster. We’ve been here over an hour now and have not received our first course. Many other tables are long done with their second course. They just seemed to realize what’s going on - they said they “talked with Chef” and our food is coming soon. Not really an apology, no offer of…I don’t know, maybe some tortilla chips or something? I’m starving. I’ll update on the food, if it ever comes…
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Damn, is tonight first night of the popup? Hopefully it gets better but in the weeds for the early seating already is a bummer
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Damn, you’re first seating of the first day. Hope they work the kinks out through the week. Sounds like a rough start. 
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Sorry to hear about the negative experience, can’t believe they didn’t offer anything.
I’ll have more thoughts later but it was an absolute trainwreck from start to finish.
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Food: B- (Highs were A-, lows were C- except for one bite which was an F)
Service: F
Our reservation was at 5. By 6, other tables had already finished with their second course, and we had yet to receive our first. Around six, I started hearing servers whispering and pointing at our table, clearly recognizing that we had been all but forgotten. Someone came to our table just after 6 to suggest that the “chef had been notified” and that our food was coming soon. I asked if we could get some chips or tortillas, as we were starving (I ate a nibble in the morning and purposefully skipped lunch as I thought I would be eating dinner at 5PM). 10 minutes later, they brought us complimentary tequila - which, while appreciated and consumed, is not what we wanted. We wanted food!
Our first course finally arrived around 615. Other tables were well done with their second course by then. It was really good! Avocado and shrimp flauta, which was fantastic. Baby corn with a mayo ant sauce - a little oversauced IMO but still pretty good, cool presentation. A nice way to kick off the meal, and had me thinking the evening might still turn around.
Second course didn’t arrive until 7ish, so another grossly extended wait. Comes with tortillas. We open the top and there are 2 small tortillas in there for a group of 4….we asked for more and they eventually brought them. We looked over at other tables - the proper number of tortillas was undoubtedly the number of diners at the table. As for the dish - hamachi tataki with a pineapple puree. 4 slices. The first 2 were delicious. The third was the rankest, fishiest tasting raw fish I’ve had in years - I almost spit it up. I forced the 4th slice down - tasted the same as the first 2, but I couldn’t enjoy it anymore. None of the other diners at my table had a similar experience. But that’s no excuse.
Third course - octopus with beans and other accoutrements. Good, but not extraordinary.
Fourth course - short rib with potato puree and veggies. Cooked nicely, fat properly rendered. But barely sauced or seasoned. Lacked flavor and salt. They brought us plenty of tortillas this time…
Fifth course. Note that I’m not even mentioning the wait between courses anymore. Just assume it’s consistently ridiculous. Young and old mole with tortillas. This was great, no doubt. Highlight of the meal. Chef came over to chitchat for a few minutes, explained the mole cooking process, that it’s 10+ years old, >1,000 ingredients, they had to vacuum seal and flash freeze to ship it here, etc.
Sixth course - desert.. Papaya nixtamala yogurt honey. Edible but wholly mediocre. Fruit itself was ok at best. One of the yogurts was solid, the other was bad. No hint of honey. Whole table agreed it sucked.
It’s 8:10 PM when we finish dessert. We sit around hoping that someone will bring us a check. Close to 8:30, someone suggests we need to hurry up as there’s another seating at 8:30. We explain that we want to get the fuck out but nobody has come by to offer us a check. We ask, beg for the check. We don’t get the check until after 8:30. We drop 2 cards in to split the meal without looking (our bad), as we wanted to get the fuck home. Check comes back, we realize we should look at it, they made MULTIPLE mistakes, charging us for guacamole which was not even offered (though which I would have appreciated when waiting an hour for our first course) and a drink that had been ordered hours ago but never arrived. We flag someone down and explain the mistakes. 15 minutes tick by and nothing. Someone comes by and now, with attitude, tells us we really need to vacate the table as there’s another seating and suggested we can hang out in the outdoor patio. At that point, one of my companions lost it and reamed out the server for having the gall to accuse of us being the ones responsible for the slow table turn. 10 plus more minutes go by until they return with the revised checks. We then had to figure out how to calculate the tip, which apparently was not included on the prepaid ticket portion, plus they added a health charge which I always back out of the tip. So it took another 5 minutes to figure out what to appropriately tip. Didn’t get out of there until right around 9.
Yes, it was the first night, and more so the first serving of the first night. Sure, maybe our experience was worse than most and not indicative of the average experience. That said, for two restaurants of this alleged caliber, it was a complete letdown. For what it’s worth, my 3 dining companions have all been to Pujol (I have not) and loved it, and we unanimously agreed tonight was a disaster. Do I wish I hadn’t gone? Absolutely. While I surely want the money back that I spent, I more so want the time back - 6 hours door to door. Plus, we’re all still hungry. What a bummer of an evening.
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Ugh that sucks. What a disaster. I too have had an obscene service nightmare at Damian. Not with these stakes though. I’d have lost my mind when they told you that you had to leave…
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are you sure? an 18% gratuity and 4% “service fee” was included when we prepaid.
When the server came by with the check the first time, they made a convoluted and hard to follow
speech - what we thought we understood is that the prepaid amount would be credited towards the bill but that there was no tip on the prepaid portion. I then checked my email and saw this.
It does show a 4% service charge but not a tip, that is unless the tip is already folded into that amount paid and it just doesn’t show on the email confirmation?
If that’s the case, then we double tipped and I will certainly reach out to the restaurant to get it straightened out. But just another example of how much of a shitshow the evening was, that there is even the possibility we double tipped because they couldn’t coherently explain the simplest of things…
How odd…I guess that makes me feel slightly better knowing I didn’t double tip.
With that dismal level of service, I would have left a much smaller tip.
Wow that indeed sounds like a clusterf*ck… So sorry you had to go through that.
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Sorry that sounds terrible I would email them. I don’t think such an experience is reasonable for such a high caliber restaurant at such a high price point.
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I am sorry this was such a letdown, I feel your pain just reading this.
My reservation definitely has 18% gratuity and another 4% service fee pre-paid.
Although after reading your report I am thinking of cancelling mine.
Sometimes these guest chef dinners can be dramatic failures.
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I would say usually.
Birdie G’s seems to have it down, but they do it a lot.
Places that are just testing the aguas tend to really fuck it up.
FOMO drives the curious.
FOGF drives away the cautious.
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This is supposed to be a two week residency, not a one night stand! You would think they will prep for it!
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I have confidence they’ll get better after night one - but honestly the menu isn’t that appealing for the price. It’s some of Pujol’s greatest hits but seems small in quantity/filling-ness. The mole is sometimes worth it for the price of admission but I’ve had it enough at the restaurant proper (and honestly - I prefer the food at Molino el Pujol which has the same mole and the a la carte breakfast is banging).
They let me cancel which is nice - and guess I just freed up my saturday for another meal.
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