Spago Beverly Hills 90210 | 89 FoodDigger Rating

tangmeister Favorite Cuisine: French,Japanese 33 Reviews

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User Restaurant Rating 96

5/29/2010 For me, Spago is synonymous with fine dining in Los Angeles. Though the restaurant has its share of detractors, my two experiences have been sublime. I think credit for Spago's consistency is in a large part due to its Executive Chef, Lee Hefter. Chef Hefter started his career at a New Jersey country club before moving west to San Francisco to work at Tropp's China Moon Cafe. He then joined Wolfgang at the original Spago in 1993 before heading to Europe in 1995 where he staged at a number of top restaurants. He returned in 1996 and hooked back up with Puck, this time as the executive chef at Granita. After a year he left to take up the reins at Spago in Beverly Hills. Since then he has also served as executive chef and managing partner at Vert, CUT, and most recently WP24. In an industry characterized by high turnover Hefter's 13 year stint as the executive chef of Spago is particularly impressive. While the food is by no means groundbreaking, Spago offers delicious tasting and approachable fare and remains one of the better restaurants in Los Angeles. Recommended Dishes Tuna Tartare Cone, Homemade Sweet Pea and Marscarpone Agnolotti, Mille Feuille - Inverse Puff Pastry, Créme Baumanier, McGrath Farm Strawberries, Strawberry Ice Cream, Chcoolate Bread Pudding - Warm Guittard Chocolate Ganache, Almond Krokant, Butterscotch Gelato

Clayfu Favorite Cuisine: American (New), Asian Fusion, French 13 Reviews

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User Restaurant Rating 96

11/14/2008 http://clayfood.blogspot.co m/2008/08/spago-los-angeles beverely-hills.html

My most cherished dining partner and I made a pact at the beginning of the summer. We decided that we would eat through the best restaurants Los Angeles had to offer in an effort to explore its culinary topography. Being raised in Los Angeles we both have enjoyed the ethnic food the city has to offer but really never explored the fine dining options.

One of the restaurants high on the list is Spago. The DP and I were invited by her coworker to this luxurious restaurant.

One of the three two star restaurants in Los Angeles, the restaurant is located in Beverely Hills and property of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. You might know him from all the mall restaurants he has... luckily.. the mismanagement and ineptitude of the menus at those restaurants does not occur at Spago.

To get to our seat we passed by their open air dining area at the side of the restaurant.

Finally they sat us at our table which is along the glass windows that peer into the inner workings of the kitchen.

For our visit we tried to sample as much as possible.

First up is one of their signature dishes, the Sweet White Corn and Marscapone Agnolotti.

Little pockets of Agnolotti stuffed with sweet corn and Marscapone with a creamy sweet sauce covering the pasta. Each bite reveals a perfectly cooked pasta that bursts with the richness of the marscapone and freshness of the sweet corn. Outstanding dish, just hands down one of the most beautifully constructed dishes I've had in my life. Every part of it was perfectly cooked and the taste was exquisite.

The second appetizer was the mushroom gnocchi.

Firm yet delicate to the bite, the gnocchi is wonderfully cooked. The dish exudes the qualities of earth and dirt that the mushrooms come from.

For the first entree we had a Pan Roasted Halibut.

The Halibut as expected is flaky and moist. A halibut sits on a puree of sweet corn, marscapone, and wild mushroom. I'm not sure where the restaurant gets its sweet corn from but the rich sweetness is so explosive in flavor. Hints of cheese and earth, the sauce is so perfect to eat with the prepared side of carmalized onions, corn, and bits of bacon. The dish looks rather simple but it's truly a delight for your tastebuds.

Spago seems to have alot of chinese influenced dishes (more so on that later) and one in particular is the Steamed Florida Grouper Hong Kong Style.

They try to go for a twist on the steamed whole fish with soy sauce with this particular dish. The grouper itself was oily and flaky, thin pieces fell at a hint of pressure. The fish is cooked with hot chili oil, garlic, ginger, bok choy, and sugar snap peas. Just like the dish it is based off of, the focus is on the savory nature of the sauce, and it does not fail in its replication. The sauce is sweet with a tinge of spice.

Our final entree is truly a Chinese dish. Cantonese Style Roast Duck.

I had to order this, I was just so curious how the Chef was going to prepare this. The duck is roasted with Star Anise, Apricot (the orange fruit on the dish), pea sprouts, scallions, and ginger. Everything but the duck was great, the apricots were cooked with the spices so it's sweet and savory and the pea sprouts/scallions add the bite to tone down the sweetness. My problem with the dish is the duck seemed to be overcooked. A bit dry and chewy, something you'd never see at a Chinese restaurant, where the duck is usually incredibly moist due to the long marinade and roasting time.

But the real highlight of the dish, was the chow mein that came with it.

The perfect amount of sauce, scallions, mushrooms, bok choy, and noodle gives you a simple yet wonderfully created dish. It's hard to explain why I like this dish so much, but the ingredients just blend so well together and no one flavor overwhelms the other. The noodles are also soft yet chewy, perfect for slurping large bites!

Now on to dessert!

We had two desserts,

The Thousand layer cake with wild strawberries.

Crispy fila dough layed with rich strawberry cream and littered with tiny wild strawberries. By the way, the picture may not show the magnitude of the size of this dish. It is truly a wonder to behold. It is literally 6x6 inches.

But check out the berries.
Don't they look like raspberries? They have all the sweetness of a normal strawberry but in a bite size package.

A chocolate cake (sorry don't remember exactly what it was)

Overall a great experience. I highly suggest this restaurant and believe it should be on anyone's Los Angeles top fine dining destinations.

whizchan Favorite Cuisine: Japanese,Chinese 110 Reviews

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User Restaurant Rating 96

7/15/2008 I haven't been to many Michelin star rated restaurants so I can't say if this place really is overrated. But my experience at Spago was great. I had the monkfish which was an inspiring rendition of this ugly fish. The service was friendly...a little too friendly. When I asked my waitress how to eat my souffle, she punctured it herself. Too forward for me.

The highlight of my evening was shaking hands and meeting Wolfgang Puck himself. I am prone to hero worship after all. This just shows his personal touch; I even saw him in the kitchen test-tasting some dishes. Impressive enough for me, but what do I know? I haven't been to enough restaurants of this caliber. Recommended Dishes monkfish

SnooshiKing Favorite Cuisine: Chinese,French 67 Reviews

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User Restaurant Rating 77

OVER_RATED! 2/19/2008 Maybe 20 years ago, Wolfgang was cutting edge, this was THE place in town with the most innovative cuisine -- but no longer. I've had two meals here, and both times, it was the same -- mediocre. And the second time, I was with a celebrity guest, Wolfgang came out to greet us, and the food was still just mediocre!

Maybe I'm rushing to conclusions, but maybe if you're not old enough to have fond memories of going to the original Spago on Sunset, you'd think that this is just another above-average restaurant in LA. A little heavy-handed on the flavorings and sauces, one-dimensional, not exciting, probably hasn't changed for 20 years.