In the 3 years since Saffy’s opened:
Hummus ful 18 → 24 (+33%)
Hummus tahini 12 → 16 (+33%)
Gem salad 16 → 22 (+38%)
Tomatoes 17 → 22 (+29%)
Green falafel 15 → 17 (+13%)
Turmeric mussels 26 → 32 (+23%)
Shawarma plate 28 → 45 (+60%)
Red snapper tagine 45 → 56 (+24%)
Saffy’s dish kebab 65 → 90 (+38%)
Orange blossom crème caramel 11 → 14 (+27%)
Soft serve 10 → 11 (+10%)
The dish kebab and shawarma inflation is wild. Unfortunately my salary has not followed suit which is probably why I haven’t been back.
Then again I’ve revisited dunsmoor since the inflation but it’s getting untenable around here guys
Vanishing middle. Still would love an investigative report breaking down increases into components: labor, rent, ingredients, profit etc.
Also a vicious cycle for restaurants. Maybe it’s lifecycle related, but I entertain at home so much more. Kitchen tech makes it much easier to cook high quality.
Just brutal. Back from a week working in London in some very expensive neighborhoods and the QPR beat LA at almost every turn. Gotta get out of this city!
@caleb I’m there in a few weeks! Been 2 years since last time - any favs?
Hah, funny enough was just making a notes list for my friend who’s going tomorrow. Will add more.
Dalston/Hackney/Shoreditch
Cafe Cecilia - sort of St. John’s-esque, does everything right - banging salads, fresh pasta, grilled fish mains, shockingly good dessert
107 - find of the trip for me. Tiny little 20 seat wine bar, with a lone Portuguese fella doing all the cooking in the back. Order the whole (tiny) rotating menu, but make sure you get the sea bream & melon & sambal if it’s on.
Brat - loved for good reason
Notting Hill & Adjacent
Dove - very well sourced and well cooked seafood - best grilled prawns of the trip
Akub - insanely good Palestinian
The Blue Stoops - resurrected vintage boozer
Joseph’s Brasserie - lovely Lebanese spot
SoHo
Mountain - still as good as ever - you can maybe slide in same day downstairs at the bar if it’s only 2-3 of you.
Mamapen / The Sun & 13 Cantons - banging Cambodian beer snacks inside a great pub
Toum - overpriced (it’s the location) but really good poulet frites and cocktails
Yup. Increasingly opting to use my rare dining occasion for something more special occasion-like (but with less frequency) because the middle is getting near expensive…
this is a fun comparison 0_0 should try to do it with other restaurants…I have a couple in mind
I cook at home for people all the time as a married mid 30s dude with a charcoal grill and an obsession with the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. Can get melons and jimmy nardellos from Weiser, can get pork from Peads and Barnetts, etc.
I’m getting nowhere close to the level of technique/elation that a great restaurant gets to, but when it’s 10-20% of the price using the exact same ingredients, nobody really cares.
Meanwhile, I’m a short walk away from Dunsmoor and go once every 6 months because if I order like I want to, it’s probably $350 for two.
I am on Social Security and I burn through hundreds of dollars every month because, even though I live a frugal lifestyle, SS does not cover it. Naturally I have not sampled Saffy’s despite the effusive praise.
If it is jam-packed on a Thursday night, there will be no price breaks forthcoming barring a severe recession/depression.
Alerting @matthewkang…
latimes did an article on that last year
The fm is pretty expensive now too
I feel like at least the Saffy’s price discussion was relevant to this thread. Robert I know you’re the mod but I feel like the constant moving of threads is really killing any organic discussion that happens on this forum and scatters it to no mans land. Just my thought, maybe no one else agrees and I’m just sensitive
This thread was derailing the discussion of Saffy’s, which is really not much of an outlier as far as prices go these days.
Oh come on. That @Loaxley post did not need to be deleted.
lol
Come on now this is just ridiculous @robert
I am an active contributor to this board. I never flame or bait or troll, unlike some others.
If you want to move the thread, fine. But deleting my post criticizing that is just absurd.
If you want to criticize my moderation, do it in Site Feedback, and be polite about it.
It’s not an outlier but some of the increases were egregious compared to other places and it warranted a discussion. Again, not trying to be rude but I do think sometimes the intense reorganization kills organic conversation that STARTS with a restaurant topic. Now that london discussion (which again, relevant comparing middle tier restaurants in the city and their QPR) and the cost discussion have been siberia’d and the only reason I’m in here is because I was already part of that discussion.
This happens constantly - and my official not rude feedback is that it’s stifling interesting conversation amongst this board where the intersection between restaurants and the context they exist in is why we (or at least I am) are here. If I need to read down the line reviews of a place there are places to do that and not why this forum is special.
Thanks for hearing me out - truly am not trying to troll or be rude, just think there might be a happy middle or you can let other people flag things for irrelevence.