Chelsea Restaurant - Santa Monica (CA)

5 /5 Steve Greenberg: Nice quiet place. Comfortable. Excellent service. Really interesting menu: not the same old stuff you see on every menu. Portions are a little small, but really just fine since arent we all trying to watch our weight? And prices are better as a result.

3 /5 Brianna Millward: Overall good food but we left disappointed. Where a dish had phenomenal flavor the texture was off so it just missed the mark for us which was surprising at this price point. The cauliflower steak was way too tough and difficult to cut with the regular dinner knife, the sea bass was undercooked and the rice with it was overcooked and mush, the bananas foster bananas were too starchy and there was not enough rum brown sugar sauce so all you could taste was the starchiness of the bananas, the escargot mushrooms were good but very rich. We also got early fog cocktails which just tasted like a gin sour, no notes of earl grey as the menu promised. The green curry mussels however were very good but not enough to save the meal. Might be a timing issue on dishes in the kitchen, not sure.

4 /5 Jordan Wood: Food was excellent. Good portion sizes. Nice presentation. Highlights were the harissa lamb tartare, chicken tikka, and the sweet corn ravioli. The Brussels sprouts were the one thing that were a little disappointing - not crispy and flavor was just eh. Recommend getting the naan if you do the chicken tikka so you have something to dip in the sauce. Cocktails were great as well. Nice cocktail menu and well executed drinks. Only reason for the lower rating was for service. Server himself was great - knowledgeable about the menu, friendly. Issue was timing - they took forever coursing out the items. We got there at 6:00 and by 8:45, we still hadn’t gotten all of our dishes - we ended up cancelling the last few items and skipped dessert since it took so long.

3 /5 Jason Hoffer: I would give it 3.5 stars if possible. Based on the reviews, high expectations and price point, it left a little bit to be desired. After we were seated, no one came by for a full 10 minutes (this was at 7pm on a Saturday and it wasnt overly busy). For appetizers we ordered the mussels and the spicy yellowtail on crispy rice. The mussels were excellent with a delicious broth. The yellowtail was overpowered by the crispy rice and other seasonings. We shared the grilled octopus and it was overcooked/chewy and pretty bland. We also ordered the scallops which were pretty good and well prepared and tasty. The Japanese Cesar salad tasted off so we didnt eat it (our server was apologetic and took it off the bill without us asking). We ended with the lamb chops which were good and prepared well but the carrots tasted odd. Our server was nice, just maybe overwhelmed a bit and then drinks were good. It just fell short given the price point.

1 /5 Tasita Garcia: WARNING for anyone with food allergies ⚠️ I ate here last Friday and it was one of the most dangerous dining experiences I have ever had. I have a severe sesame allergy and made it very clear to the server and manager. They repeatedly reassured me that the ceviche had no sesame oil. When the dish arrived my friend immediately tasted sesame oil and stopped me from eating it. The manager insisted over and over (3 times even after checking with the kitchen) that it was just chili oil until finally admitting it was sesame oil after going back to the kitchen to see what the base oil of the chili oil was. His excuse was is that they had a new vendor delivering the food ingredients This kind of negligence could have killed me. The manager even joked about driving me to the hospital which shows how little they understood the seriousness of the situation. If I eat sesame oil, I will go into anaphylactic shock and die if my EpiPen isn’t enough. To make things worse I later found a curly hair in my wine. When I pointed it out the server said nobody there had hair like that and then made a condescending comment that we were the only table with problems. Her exact words were “ respectfully, no one works here with her like this. The only person here with her like this is you but I’ll take it back to the bar and the bartender has short blonde hair.” The manager in fact had black curly hair and there was a server assistant who had long black curly hair. They comped a few things but we still spent nearly $200 dollars for what turned into a frightening and humiliating night. If you have allergies do not eat here. This restaurant does not take them seriously and the risk is simply not worth it.