Bestia - Needs Its Own Thread

Heh… will reference this when someone asks if anything has changed there.

Another time I was at Bestia:

I began with a beautifully composed cucumber salad with gorgeous tomatoes and feta. Just lovely in its minimalism that showed off a melange of LA produce at its apotheosis. Simple, yet highly effective.

Lamb belly was extraordinary in terms of how crispy, yet juicy, and fatty it well. A bit of funk, but not offensively so. Adorned with such bright, fantastic tomatoes and a bit of yogurt sauce…just perfect.

Nduja pizza…an absolute classic at Bestia, is so fucking good. Spicy, and chewy, and savory, just pure bliss. You drink enough Low Profiles and you will fucking crave this for a week.

And. because I am a shameless hedonist, I also ate the spaghetti rustichella… but this was a lackluster version. I think the uni sourcing had not been up to par at the time, but it was so popular they tried to make do. It was still pretty fucking great though.

I was stuffed at this meal but ate even more of the fucking donuts because they are so good lol

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I’ll be going for the first time in a couple weeks. What else would you say is a must get?

I’ll chime in. The cauliflower with marconda almonds is awesome.

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bone marrow

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smoked chicken liver pate
roasted bone marrow
mussels and clams (my wife’s favorite dish at Bestia)
salumi
Cavatelli alla Norcina
Pork chop

dessert:
Strawberries and cream
Roasted Banana Malt and Muscavado Peanut Ice Cream Bar.

this is what we usually order (based on the menu online) We do order other stuff, but we usually order some or all these items when we go.

Usually for a group of 4 people.

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Thanks @A5KOBE and @PorkyBelly - those are some great pictures of some great looking food.

And appreciate the list @Hungrydrunk. I’ve heard good things about the mussels and clams, too. I’m also definitely interested in trying some pasta, so I’ll put the Cavatelli at the top of my list.

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QPR so high.

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cavatelli is another winner

second the mussels and clams with spicy 'nduja sausage and chicken liver. i could sop up that fucking sauce with bread all day.

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I really love the food at Bestia but the challenge of getting reservations at a decent time keeps me from going back more often.

Speaking of that pork tomahawk, if it is indeed 40oz, then $75 does seem like a relative bargain considering their pastas are in the $30 range, which I don’t consider it to be a large portion by any means.

Yes, it is interesting. There are certain things at Bestia that seem to have absurd QPR. The clams and mussels, as everyone has said, is an insane portion of amazing clams and mussels with some of the best grilled bread anywhere, and a ton of ndjua spiked broth that may be the best thing to ever compliment mussels and clams… last time I was there I think I counted 20 clams and 20 mussels in my dish. And it only costs $18…

The pork often really is like 40oz. I think I have a photo above of a 32oz pork tomahawk, but it was only $50… which seems insane because they have a 16oz Aspen Ridge skirt steak plate that costs $45… is beef just that much more expensive than pork??

Pastas can really vary in size too. The agnolotti for example, when I ordered it, was literally 8 little balls for like $22…but then some things like fusili will be massive for the same price haha I think the pastas are priced based on restaurant culture of setting prices in that range as opposed to being set with any cost rationale, otherwise I can’t explain it really, but the pastas are so damn good they are usually worth the money.

Also, the reservations thing is silly…just go walk in. I have never made reservations at Bestia and I think I have eaten there more often than anyone else here.

Hard to tell, because menu changes somewhat…like the cauliflower someone posted is AMAZING, but not on the menu anymore. I highly recommend getting whatever vegetables they are grilled though. Currently I think it is smoked white corn. I would order that for sure.

If you have 4 people then try both the nduja pizza and the white kale and fennel pizza. Get the mussels and clams as well because it is insane and you can never have enough nduja. Plus you can dip the pizza in it =D

Pastas, should do the classic cavatelli and probably whatever fusili they have. Get spaghetti rustichella if they have it, but lately they haven’t. Or just whatever sounds good, all of the pastas are usually incredible. Cavatelli will be a sure hit though, and never leaves the menu.

Then whatever large format pork they have, sometimes it is a steak, sometimes a tomahawk, sometimes a porterhouse…it doesn’t matter, just get it, because it will be amazing. If you can, get the skirt steak as well because it is an awesome plate loaded with some indelible vegetables with very delicate steak, and is not a massive portion.

Dessert, you have to get the fritters with maple cream and huckleberry ice cream (just replaced coffee and donuts for summer, it is amazing, but I miss coffee and donuts). Other than that, just pick what sounds good, all of the desserts are usually great, the peaches and cream that is currently on looks particularly lovely, but just go wild with your selections haha You can’t really miss too much with them.

A 1lb slab of skirt steak from Gelson’s is $19/lb. Makes that $45 price tag seem reasonable?

Yeah, I guess so. Bestia always specifies Aspen Ridge as the source, any idea if that is even more expensive?

I assume restaurants get lower prices than retail pricing though right? However, taking $19 as the price, I assume the vegetables are at least another $3? I am not sure, is a 2x markup on food typical?

How come at most places skirt steak is like $22?

Maybe it makes sense though because my skirt steak at Charcoal was $38, and came with nothing, so with the vegetables Bestia offers that would account for the extra $7.

I wonder if the skirt they are using costs them more like $29 because of the higher quality. Pricing does seem typical, so I have no real gripe with it.

Actually last night I noticed Bestia was doing huge beef porterhouses for the first time, and they were $160 for like 40oz. It really must be that beef is just way more expensive than pork since 40oz beef porterhouse is $160 and 40oz pork porterhouse is $75.

So yeah, it probably is just a cost thing on the backend. I mostly just wonder why most places serve skirt steak for more like $20-$25 rather than $38-$45. Maybe portions are just smaller elsewhere and I haven’t been paying enough attention haha

I don’t usually see places serving a full 16oz skirt for $20-$25 though.

You must be right. I must be thinking of like 8-10oz plates. I am thinking of places like The Little Next Door, where the steak frites is a skirt steak. I haven’t been in a long time, but I recall it being a fairly sizeable skirt steak portion. It used to be $22, but is now $26. However, they don’t say the size of their skirt steak online, so I guess I just have to assume they only serve like an 8 oz portion. Maybe it is just hard to notice the oz difference between meals shrugs

Is this what they were serving? All I could find on yelp…

Yes, I posted this picture of it when I had it in this thread:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDzueB-k0Dx/?taken-by=compulsiveaesthete

I just counted the slices of skirt in both Bestia and Charcoal, and they both are 9 slices, so at least we know they are the same size.

Yes beef really is much more expensive than pork. Even if you are comparing well sourced heritage etc pork with kind of normal nice beef. When you get into particularly well sourced beef the price becomes insane. I’ve been pricing out menus for around 10 years and the price increase in beef has been significant. Not quite twice the price as ten years ago but 50%. It makes it hard to serve a decent piece of steak at a reasonably priced restaurant and that’s why you see so many skirts, flanks, hangers and flat irons being served at even the most expensive places. In terms of markups the “cost” is usually marked up 3-4 times. Most of the time a standard restaurant is looking to have an overall food cost of under 30%, however for the more expensive items, foie, oysters, caviar and meat the food cost to the restaurant can be higher bc the sales price of those items are usually outliers. So the restaurant would typically mark those items up less, more in the 2-3 times range. Another note is that mark ups in grocery stores are much much lower than in restaurants and when your dealing with a Gelsons vs a single restaurant or small group, Gelsons gets the stuff at a much lower wholesale price then the restaurant. A lot of the times I see meat sold in retail stores sold at about the same price I am buying it for at a restaurant.

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Fuzzzz. That dish looks insane.

Check. And check.

Thanks for the recommendations. Looking forward to it.

Oh, and the cocktails posted in this thread look really good too, but I may skip drinking to get more foooood.