mulberry alert
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Oh jeezus
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Where’s his house that his mulberries are ripe in March? That’s insane.
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Against a wall with southern exposure?
That one’s a ways from ripe.
Thank you for your urban farm-splaining and telling me how my yard is supposed to work. The first batch of berries has already gone to friends and neighbors. The photo, from this past weekend, is actually the second batch.
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Different climate.
It’s like you’re showing me ripe corn or beefsteak tomatoes.
Wow, was that a special? Or did you pre-order this?
I pre-ordered. the flavor changes often so just email them if you’re interested.
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Wondering if anyone has been recently. Current reviews make it sound a little hit or miss with so-so service. Have never tried dinner and bringing folks in from out of town, it seems like a no-brainer.
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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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