Welcome to FTC!!!
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In my mind it is the quintessential LA restaurant. I can’t imagine any out of towners not loving a night out at Republique.
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I agree. It’s the place my NYC cousin always wants to dine at when she’s here. She recently sent me this photo while they were still at the restaurant lol.
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I find it inconsistent but when it’s on (which is about 80% of the time/dishes) it’s great.
But I have had many dishes and/or service experiences that really call the reputation into question. Kind of reminds me of Spago in the old days - if they know you, and seat you in one of the best seats with the best servers, you will feel like it’s your diamond jubilee; if not you may find yourself wondering why people rave about the place.
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Honestly you described how I feel about 80% of the higher end places in town.
With that said, if this was my only dinner at Republique then they set an awfully high bar. It definitely seemed like the kitchen was firing on all cylinders and the dining experience overall was exceptional.
No pics but standouts include some of the usual suspects recommended on here (lobster campanelle, corn agnolotti) and some delicious seasonal dishes like squash blossom tempura, burrata/peach, rock cod and a lovely duck preparation. Also had a stellar mushroom tarte. I could also recommend the paella but it fell short of the other dishes (but by no means a bad dish- just not as great as everything else).
Didn’t have much room for dessert but was able to stick a spoon in a strawberry tiramisu which was a home run as well.
Service was not without some small faults (duck fired late) and hostess was a bit cold and in accommodating.
Overall it was a knockout experience and can easily see why this is for some the quintessential LA restaurant.
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It’s so bizarre how the food here is so wonderful and yet a lot of peoples experience gets soured by bad service.
The much easier of the two things to get right! Just be polite and nice!
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So nice to hear!
Also had dinner here tonight…
Charcoal-grilled Market Vegetables
Decent, though it was pretty much just cauliflower and broccolini. Was expecting a bit more variety. The peppers were quite good, as was the labneh(?).
Mushroom Tart
Outstanding. Caramelized onions really brought everything together.
Arugula Carasecce w/ Morels
Didn’t quite reach the peak of the OG spinach cavatelli, but quite good. Nice bite and hard to mess up morels.
Paella
Probably a 3.5, really. Some things here were really exceptional - the octopus, the way the saffron shone in the rice, and the chorizo. Some things were almost exceptional - the kiss of the grill on the shrimp was delicious, but the shrimp was a tiny bit overdone. (Mussels I’m not qualified to evaluate.) Some things were a bit of a miss - no socarrat.
Duck
Duck was a bit underdone - closer to the rare side of medium rare, but that would’ve been fine if the skin had at least been crisped properly (and the fat a bit more rendered). Rescued by literally everything else on the plate being outstanding - the beets, apricots, cherries, oats, and sauce. (To be clear the duck was still fine; if I didn’t have high expectations it’d have been a minor flub in most contexts. Needless to say, the poultry course at Manzke was done better.)
Strawberry “Tiramisu”
Um… kinda weird, not really what we expected. The top layer seem to be powdered freeze-dried strawberries, which was certainly an inventive riff on the normal tiramisu topping (cocao powder). Invisible in the picture is the scoop of strawberry gelato(?) in between the ring of strawberries. The ladyfingers (all the way at the bottom) were a bit chewy, as though they weren’t soaked through properly. Not really properly integrated as a dessert the way a normal tiramisu is - nothing really came together. Separately all the ingredients were good (except the ladyfingers), but as a concept? Eh…
Baguette unpictured, but . Service was very good - warm, professional, and mostly timely.
I miss the octopus, watermelon, and cabbage salad. Today’s menu was honestly not that exciting; I’d be happy to come back for the pasta (I already know the other two options are very good) and the mushroom tart, but I might actually rather go back to Wally’s for the mains and sides. Had a very good pork chop there a couple days ago, and their grilled market vegetables actually feel like a proper “grilled vegetable” dish.
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We like pretty much everything from Republique except the Southeast Asian influenced crudos. Recent highlights were the casarecce and the main course roasted vegetables with black sesame and yuzu. I would definitely order the main course roasted vegetables over the charcoal grilled vegetables with labneh pictured above.
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We were supposed to be in Hawaii starting today but my son badly sprained his ankle, so we’re taking the week to explore LA! Finally made it to Republique for brunch this AM…
- French Toast - my wife and kids loved it. Massive slice of buttery, pilllowy, thick-cut brioche. A bit rich for my taste but it was gone in a blink of an eye. Slightly sweet, so the syrup went unused.
- Belgian Waffle - so rare to find an exemplary waffle, that is crisp outside, light on the inside, and this wasn’t it either. it was fine, but nothing especial. The berries were excellent though - peak of season, sweet and flavorful
- Short Rib Burrito - delicious. tender, marinated chunks of short rib, gooey Oaxaca cheese, bright pico de gallo, a perfectly fried sunny side egg on top with a bright orange yolk. Served in a cast iron pan, so the bottom of the burrito was crisped up. Not your everyday breakfast burrito!
- Croissant - i was torn on this. On the one hand, it wasn’t as buttery as your typical croissant, which was a + for me. And the exterior was flaky and crisp. But, the inside felt a bit dough-y and dense, and it didn’t have those air pockets that make a great croissant so enjoyable. I enjoyed it but wouldn’t really view this as a traditional croissant?
- Strawberry Passionfruit Creme pie - ok, so while everyone else ordered an entree, my meal was the croissant and the pie, and what a choice. The fruits weren’t overpowering, i.e. the passionfruit creme was clearly there but it was lightly aromatic versus super tart and in your face. And the crust is what I love in a pie crust, where you need a fork to break through and risk the whole thing shattering. Probably the best pie I’ve had in LA… FWIW, I like things that don’t skew too sweet and so if you have a major sweet tooth, this might not be the pie for you. But I loved it.
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That’s a lovely pie in its own right but you have to give the mango version a try when they’re available. It’s nuts how good and perfectly balanced the mango one is.
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I keep hearing about the mango, but they didn’t have it 
Other choice was peach pistachio which seemed interesting but the peaches on top seemed just ok.
Meal #2 of our Making Lemonade Out of Lemons Staycation week… Cassia. I wasn’t sure what to expect. We’d recently tried Little Sister for upscale Vietnamese and were sorely disappointed, so while Cassia gets great reviews, I went with some skepticism.
Flatbread with Meatballs - I’d be able to write a more extensive review except my kids inhaled it. They couldn’t stop raving about the bread. At one point, my 14yo offered me the last piece of bread, but I let him having hit, because seeing the joy in his face was good enough. But yeah, it looked / smelled wonderful.
Laksa - My wife’s entree. Flavors were a bit muted for me… I like the more “authentic” versions and this one was also a bit heavy… I normally enjoy drinking the laksa soup but this was a gut buster. That said, the rice noodles they use were perfect - chewy and slippery - if not traditional and the ingredients were high quality.
Sunbathing prawns - For $25, you get 6 large prawns. Good, but I’d probably pass to try something else next time. The prawns were fresh though!
Rendang - The beef was perfect. A large cut of beef that was impossibly tender, with a vein (not sure what you call it, but it’s that layer that separates the top and bottom of a flatiron roast) that was broken down and added this wonderful unctuousness to the dish. The sauce, like the laksa, was muted versus what I’m used to, but I was fine with that. Overall, no complaints and my younger son took care of this dish. That said, I’m not sure it’s a $40 dish, which is the only reason I would order something else next time.
Half Roast Chicken - I loved my entree. Marinated in a lemongrass and other spices - reminded me of gai yang, which I love. Only bone remaining was the wing bone. Meat was again perfectly cooked and incredibly tender without being over cooked. My only complaint is the skin wasn’t crispy, but I would order this again in a heartbeat.
Desserts were coffee pudding and kaya toast. Coffee pudding was fine, but after the Republique pie today, it was a hard compare… reminded me of a Kopiko coffee candy in pudding form. And the kaya toast was just too rich for me, though the kids loved it. Could see my younger one’s eyes lolling back as he ate his piece so I gave him mine. LOL.
Overall, this was one of my favorite meals in LA thus far. Pricey but didn’t feel gypped and execution was spot on, not to mention the service was A+. Oh, I had read reviews that the food could be salty, but I thought the salting was perfect, so the flavors of the food could shine through!
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Now I know… We live in Palos Verdes and have been lazy about venturing past Manhattan Beach for food, but now we’re really finding our groove further out and loving it. Definitely going to add Republique and Cassia to our rotation!
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$40 doesn’t go as far in Santa Monica as it does most places!
LOL… for sure. Although the chicken at $36 felt pretty reasonable. Maybe the beef was just a good cut but $40 for rendang just felt a bit much.
Oops. Put this in the wrong thread!
PSA: You’ll have to do without your passion fruit cream pies for a bit. Republique will be closed for renovations August 15 - September 6.
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