Bar Restaurant in Silver Lake

[butteredwaffles]

Ate at Bar Restaurant in Silver Lake a few weeks back. Haven’t seen much talk about it. Sorry no pictures. I was still lurking FTC at this time.

Decor reminds me of a perfume advertisement shot in a restaurant? Rose gold and granite? Can’t totally remember but it was nice in a funny way.

Kitchen is run by Doug Rankin, the opening CDC of Trois Mec. Plus I talked to one of the sous who said most of the kitchen worked at Trois Mec under Rankin, then worked throughout the Jon and Vinny/Ludo/Sara and Sarah empire before all coming back together under the Bar Restaurant roof.

Wine list was fine, that mix of classic, easy plus natural. I drank an Aligote and a Carignan.

Ordered Boudin Noir, Mushroom Soup and Mussels

Boudin Noir came out looking like the Antelope Tartare at Angler. Out of the casing, pressed like a 7" record. Seed and sprout salad on top, ate it all without silverware, using sliced baguette like injera.

Mushroom Soup - gritty in the best way possible. Onions swimming around, glob of gruyere, some bread sunk to the bottom. Broth the perfect soft brown.

Mussels - They come shelled! I like shelling mussels/playing with food, but not doing it when I was expecting to was a nice surprise. I had no fork after my Mushroom Soup and when the bartender set down a regular old fork I thought how big are these mussels?

I mainly ordered the mussels because they advertise as coming with curly fries. I can only imagine the kitchen spiralizes their own potatoes but I didn’t ask. I’ve never really thought about a kitchen doing their own curly fries.

Overall the mussels were great. I don’t know that the curly fries added anything besides me loving curly fries and being happy to see them on a menu. Milk toast sitting in the broth.

Dessert I believe was listed on the menu as Black Sesame, Plum, Lemon Custard

Lemon custard at the center with a plum granita/raspado “crust” and shortbread cookie on top. Really fun dessert to tear apart.

If I lived in that neighborhood I’d be at Dinosaur every morning and I’d probably stumble over to Bar Restaurant a few times a month. Good luck to them

[caleb]

had an absolutely fantastic meal there on the bar side last week, seconding everything you said. Nice wine list, great service, the tomato/feta/watermelon salad, frisse w/ potatoes were killer. Lovely waitstaff too. I live just down the street and hope they survive!

[DrinkSmokeGolf]

Really stupid name. Makes Googling the place hard. Good luck to them?

[robert]

Reminds me of my old favorite wine bar with the Google-proof name WINE.

[ronsilverado]

Seems one would actually have to go out of one’s way to come up with a name this difficult to search, i will never understand why this happens so regularly. There are so many other billions of combinations of words. Trillions?

[J_L]

Gonna just go minimalist meta and call my eatery “Restaurant”.

[tailbacku]

Had a really nice dinner here last night. I thought the room looked really nice. Can’t even recognize that it was Malo before. We ate fairly early (6pm res) but even when we left (~7:20pm) there was hardly anybody there. Service was super friendly and attentive from the moment we walked in. Maybe they need to invest in a PR machine like some of the other restaurants do because the food is quite good.

Started with mixed olives that my kiddo loved. Ordered twice.
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Frisee salad with a hidden potato with crispy skin. Highlight. Wife ordered a second portion she liked it so much.

Boudin Noir was also really solid. The baguette could be better. Reminded me of Trader Joes baguette.

Trout was cooked well though the skin could have been crispier. The salsa verde worked really well here.

Our last dish was a pork tonkatsu. I ordered this more out of curiosity, wondering how to put a french twist to a popular japanese dish. Well, other than the bernaise sauce, it wasn’t really a french dish at all. I didn’t get it. Tasted ok but was our least fav dish of the night. You can’t really see the tonkatsu as it’s served with a big piece of grilled cabbage on top.

Do note that they charge a 4% back of the house service fee. It does say on the receipt that customers can opt out of this charge. I can’t be bothered to ask servers to remove these stupid charges anymore, so I just tipped less than my usual 20%. I’m not about to tip 24%+.

Hope this place makes it. We’ll be back.

[caleb]

checked in again last night, firing on all cylinders. great boquerones w/ romesco, the lamb tartare is killer, frisee has the best potato prep in town currently. lovely space and the quebecois somm is a sweetheart. I think they’re gonna make it? good to see love from LA Mag.

[butteredwaffles]

Stumbled over here with a friend for dessert after La Morra at KB. Love this space and it was full! The restaurant and bar sides had their own crowds. Bartender said they’d been really busy lately. Glad the buzz is making its way around.

Asked the bartender what he was into making lately and he stirred my friend a gin old fashioned and for me a Braulio Manhattan.

We ordered this chocolate smore kinda thing and pecan and caramel something or other

Such texture driven desserts!

Wound up finishing the night with a Rhum JM Blanc Hemingway Daquiri. Asked bartender if he had some daiquiri variant he liked making with the agricole and that was his answer.

Didn’t ask if he added citric acid or just lime but the bitter grapefruit (a muddled wedge) really meshed with that grassy green olive flavor of the rhum and bite from the acid. Maraschino hid beneath everything else as it should.

[tailbacku]

Good to hear that they were busy!

[not_tellin]

Going here tonight since I screwed up my reservation at Alimento. Will report back with a heat advisory alert, not planning on wearing any clothes.

[aaqjr]

Will look for you on the local news

[PeonyWarrior]

Peony: We were excited about going to this new restaurant in town. We got 5 dishes in total, and 4 of them were fine. And pretty. But in the last dish, the fish had an unusual taste and texture as if the fish was not fresh. That kinda made this experience unpleasant, and we left without even looking at the dessert menu. Since only one dish had an issue, I wonder if this might be a one off and I shouldn’t judge until I have come here more times.

Warrior: This restaurant has some enjoyable things going on — good wines, nice patio, some pleasant dishes (look at those sardines in the pimento sauce). But our main course fish was bizarrely grainy and mushy. I am not a chef, and I don’t know went wrong, but it was not fit for serving. Maybe I’d try this restaurant again in a year or so.

[J_L]

Rumors online are surfacing that Bar Restaurant will be closing, with last service this Saturday 6/25.

[Srsly]

No, it’s all true.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfFkm_3MUTS/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=