Pastas killed it. The paparadelle with white truffles ($15/gram, 3 gram minimum). Paparadelle was thick and al dente. The white truffles were fragrant but lacked flavor. Not Republique’s fault but more my experience with this season’s white truffles.
if republique served nothing but their bread and pricey butter and that crock o’ lard and their drinks, i’d still go there.
now i’ll look harder at the pastas.
thanks.
Really? I didn’t find the bread very good when I went oddly enough…
Isn’t the butter just the beurre de barat they sell at Gjusta (and other high end places about town)?
I’d rather eat that butter on Gjusta baguette/rye/sourdough/etc… than Republique. Maybe they’ve improved their overly chewy baguettes since I went last though.
Their pastas are really great though, very “perfect” in their feel.
i enjoyed the bread.
i don’t know what kind of butter they serve. there was a charge for “better” butter, i paid it,
and it was totally worth it.
it’s my understanding gjusta is 12 miles and a shit ton of traffic from republique. i don’t think
they serve drinks at gjusta.
but, thank you for the tip. if i go to gjusta, perhaps i will try the bread and butter.
I decided to see if I could have partridge for my final meal before undergoing massive surgery tomorrow. No luck. But I decided I ought to try Tournedos Rossini at least once in my life, and Manzke is using Escoffier’s sauce recipe, so it’s not a bad place to get the old dish.
Potato Beignets obviously lovely, being almost perfect fried spheres of shattering dough encasing cheese and potato. The little gems salad felt a bit overpriced but it’s pretty much just the sort of thing one hopes for when ordering a dish filled with green goddess dressing, toasted pumpkin seeds, and avocado in it. The pasta does indeed deliver in a huge way. Perfectly al dente, just the right bit of chew, and perfection in putting all of the simple ingredients together in the kale pesto torchietti. I think it is a correct summation to say that Republique is now doing the best pastas in LA since Bucato died. I’ve been for pasta 2 times in the past two weeks at Bestia, and although wonderful, think the pasta here upped them.
The tournedos was of course marvelously decadent. Really nothing less than seemingly perfect, classic French execution. Equal parts foie, filet, and truffles. And the potato mousseline was beyond silk…my word. A fitting final dish to be sure.
I skipped dessert though.
With a couple of spectacular chamomile cocktails, and a very costly, but perfectly matched glass of barolo I dropped $277 on dinner, but probably at least $77 was alcohol. So about $200 for food. Although one could order lighter, I must admit I only skipped out on 2 beignets and a few bites of pasta. I suppose that is the price one must pay for obscene amounts of foie and truffles, but part of me certainly imagines the QPR won’t make sense to many people. It’s a bit tricky for me to figure out what Republique is in a sense…is its only competitor in town essentially Spago? I wouldn’t mind having a tasting menu available there. But anyway, if you have the cash, it seems like Republique has certainly settled into a place where pretty much everything is “just right”. I forgot to try the bageutte though, ah well.
