Blu

I have not had an atrocious experience since I started Unilocaling but this place was a travesty and warrants this dishonor and ZERO STARS. ( Unilocal doesn’t allow ZERO but these guys get a verbal ZERO here.
I was out with my company celebrating the conclusion of our huge conference we just produced. We even were co-​hosting the party there. I ordered 10 chilled vodka shots for our team as a «fuck ya we did it» toast. Now I am no mixologist but this is almost as simple a shot one can make. For some reason this guy was taking forever. We finally got all 10 after almost 7 minutes and we are all in the circle right at the bar with our classy plastic cups raised and the bartender yells at me «get over here».
A tad flabbergasted I turn and inquire why. He freaking demands my credit card and that I conclude my order because the bar is closing in 40 minutes!!! I tell him «dude, let us do our victory shots and I will close out after. «He crudely refuses and demands my card in such a rude and pissed off manner that I was actually shocked. I give it to him and we go do our shots.
I return to the bar right after to grab some more drinks to finish our order and this guy is being the biggest bartender cocksucker I have ever encountered and I’ve bee to gay clubs before ;) He starts taking shit to me about what kind of gin I want. Is being rude and difficult when I am asking about the wine selection and even makes fun of my friend for ordering a $ 5 bottle of water instead of drinking tap water.
I lost it after that started telling him what a fucking asshole and a moron he was. We were ordering almost $ 200 worth of drinks and he was in line to get a great tip but now he’s getting shyte. I see his manager next to him who had witnessed most of his obnoxious and inexcusable behavior and started complaining about him to her. She leaves in the middle of me talking to her not caring at all.
So now the $ 156 bill comes and I’m talking shit in full force. Telling this douche bag that he is a poor excuse for a human being and the rudest bartender I have ever encountered. I say because you are a HUGE dick I am leaving you NOTHING. I draw 3 big zeroes for tip. Asking him if he likes these 3 huge zeroes. Then I say «let’s turn them into titties» and dot 3 nipples In the 3 zeroes. I tell him «this is the 3 tittied alien from total recall and she ain’t tipping you». Then my boss next to me says «add another zero.» So he does the honor and dots the nipple too. I tell the bartender «now it’s 2 twin playmate’s titties and they ain’t fucking or tipping you either.»
The pitiful (bar) cherry on top was when I reengaged the manager and told her how unacceptable her employee was and she looked at me with the «I could not give a fuck look». She said she was sorry but I refused it. I told her that she walked away mid convo when I was talking to her before and now she was incapable of even feigning empathy. She was a pathetic manager who made the shitty situation even worse.
I have been to bars around the world and has never had a manager and barfuck act like such unprofessional, rude assholes. I am appalled at this despicable place and hope the owner fires these horrendous employees.

I wanted to give this place a try since the pictures seemed to catch my eye. Word of advice, pictures can be deceiving… I guess i was lured into thinking this place was «fancy». brought a friend here and … BOOM! boy, was i embarrassed. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice casual spot, but definitely not a gem.
We almost missed the entrance. When you walk through the doors, you will see a bunch of gym members. yep i said it, gym members. the restaurant shares a floor with sportsclubLA.
Food was «eh ok» and drinks were reasonable. I should have done more research if i wanted to impress my date.
Oh well. check this off my list.

Where do I begin. This place has food that not even my dog would eat. I feel like the cooks don’t even know what salt is because man the stuff that they gave us didn’t taste like ANYTHING. I mean, the service wasn’t bad — but the food was just so god awful and so overpriced it just makes me furious talking about it.
FOOD — ⁰⁄₅
Holy crap is the food terrible here. My friend and I came here for Wineluv (which happens every Wednesday and is terrific) and decided to order two things for dinner. She ordered the penne pasta with spinach and kale and I ordered the bruschetta. Let me say this — the penne pasta was completely unseasoned, tasteless and bland. I mean, I’ve had better pasta in cans for god’s sake. We had to season it ourselves which made it so sad because we might as well have cooked the whole goddamn thing ourselves. My bruschetta wasn’t even bruschetta. It was two flimsy soggy thin pieces of bread covered in giant cherry tomatoes. TWO PIECES OF BREAD. Like come on here. And there was hummus. That’s not bruschetta! It made no sense. They gave like 2 pounds of hummus and 2 thin slices of bread. What did you expect me to do — eat the hummus like soup? God.
AMBIENCE & SERVICE — ²⁄₅
Okay the ambience isn’t bad. It’s a bit weird though because you go to the 4^th floor of this building and there’s this café area and the entrance to this gym and suddenly there’s a bar and restaurant looking area. The view was quite nice and the service wasn’t terrible — she was kind of nice. It was funny though because when we first arrived one of the servers looked at me and said «Hi» and then immediately walked away. What was I supposed to do? Making things awkward I guess. Not to mention it took the server almost 15 minutes until she came to get our order when we sat down. Well, she filled our water I guess so it wasn’t all too bad.
PRICE — ⁰⁄₅
This place is expensive. And usually when things are expensive you expect at least decent quality food. The food here is terrible. I don’t even think my food standards are that high. It was just so tasteless and not delicious at all. I mean, everything here was almost $ 20+ which is pretty much Spruce level pricing or NOPA and those places are absolutely amazing. Here’s just some expensive place that is expensive for the sake of being expensive. I pay for quality and if I don’t even get satisfiable quality then it is definitely not worth it at all.
WRAP — ¹⁄₅
In Conclusion, don’t come here unless it’s for Happy Hour. Some of the people are saying that this place is good for a drop by drink or hanging out at the bar and I’m sure it is. What I’m saying is that the food is absolutely terrible for its price and the service took forever. I do not recommend this place at all for food and I hope the cooks find the goddamn salt in their kitchen.

Decent happy hour at Blu, tucked away in Sports Club LA (RIP membership).
I’ve been here more times than I can count (although Unilocal check-​ins, I’m sure you’ve got my back), usually post-​workout. The 3 bean salad from the grab and go counter was my JAM– I’d seriously pay money for the recipe to whatever that spicy dressing deliciousness was. I don’t know if they make that salad anymore but a friend and I used to go in several times per week and order huge helpings of it.
3 stars because I don’t know hot they get off charging so much for some of their menu items. I assume they get a lot of Four Seasons traffic so that (kind of) makes sense but the food is no where near worth the prices.

This place is so hidden in plain site. This place has great people watching views and good food right on Market Street in the Four Seasons. Stop bye for happy hour and enjoy it for yourself.

Went for lunch yesterday. There was an event going on, but there were three tables open at the restaurant. Not sure if the event affected service, but service was… absent.
I had to flag down the inattentive host/​server/​bartender to place our order (after waiting for 10 minutes without a welcome or water). Once our order was in, the appetizer (ahi poke) came out reasonably fast. It was a decent portion, except only had 6 chips. The poke was pretty good, so I wasn’t too phased.
It took about 45 minutes to get our lunch after I had to again flag down our server to check on our food. The food portions were pretty good. I felt the salmon was slightly under-​cooked, but still tasted okay. The burger was a little over-​cooked and only came with 4 fries (which was pretty hilarious). I asked if we could get more, but that request was either ignored or forgotten.
I will credit the server for coming and checking on us once we started eating, but then she forgot about us again — forcing me to do a grade school hand-​raise to get her attention.
For $ 15−25/person, I felt the experience was pretty mediocre. Luckily I was with good company so we made do.
Maybe the café side is a better option. More table scanning/​eye contact from the host/​server would go a long way.

In general, I really really like this place. I am member at SportsClubLA and even though Blu is open to the public, I consider it a major benefit of my membership. It’s almost always empty, great happy hour ($ 5 wine), great views of SF, strong wi-​fi, decent food (especially the risotto balls). My girlfriend and I both work on the block and regularly come here for a change of scenery and glass of wine to finish up the day’s work.
As often happens, I was not compelled to write a review until things turn south. What happened? Sofia left… :(Sofia was almost always there after work and always waited on us if she was. She knew our names, knew what we liked, chatted just enough that it was pleasant without overdoing it, and was all around a great server. Always quick with water, our wine, the check. We never had to look around to check where she is or why we aren’t being taken care of. She was just on it.
Now that has all gone away. We haven’t seen Sofia in weeks. The new servers have never even heard of her, and we are beginning to wonder if she ever even existed in the first place.
The new severs mean well, I think. I don’t think they are purposefully doing a bad job. Or maybe Sofia was just so good that they don’t stand a chance in comparison. Either way, they suck. They don’t bring us menus. They don’t take our order unless we walk over to the bar. The forget our water. They disappear for ages when we ask for the check. It’s laughable.
All I can think is that because the place is never busy, servers must not make much money and thus the good ones, like Sofia, can do better elsewhere.
We will continue to go to Blu, mostly because it feels like our own little private café w/​a view, but we won’t be happy about the service or the fact the Sofia is gone unless things drastically change for the better.
Hopefully Blu’s management is on Unilocal and can rectify the situation.

Came here a few times to watch football games. The menu is really basic, I hear it used to have a lot more but they’ve changed it recently. It’s a great place to get away from the crowds, I can always count on this place not being crowded during a busy game. It’s right by a gym, so the locals are usually just gym members grabbing a quick dinner or some drinks before heading home.
Really nothing special, a place to skip over, unless you’re looking for a guaranteed place to sit and hang out while watching a game downtown.
They also have Happy Hour which makes the drinks pretty cheap for downtown prices.

Harry Plopper lives.
This pig will live to see another day:
Because at the Blu Café the Turkey Club is made with turkey, turkey bacon, lettuce, tomato, whole wheat bread and a side of mango vinaigrette. It’s outstanding.
Sealing star five was the unexpected side of greens with black beans, corn and edamame. Great deal for $ 8 and change.
Friendly and efficient service the entire experience.
Gobbles is the only loser:

15 min (and counting) in the morning for an over priced breakfast sandwich. If I hadn’t already paid I’d have walked out.
A week ago I ordered a wrap for lunch that had me in a similar time crunch and chalked it up to a one time thing. I decided to give it another shot this morning.
My recommendation? Stick to the pre-​made items.
Edit: after 20 minutes it was finally ready. Not worth the wait…
Edit 2: business owner has contacted me to try and address my complaints. I’ll probably have a review update soon.

Terrible ambience and ordinary food is the best place to describe it. One of the companies I work with held a function here and we dropped in for a visit. All I wanted to do was leave. They had a buffet laid out with lots of food and besides the hummus I don’t think I liked anything else.
It is also quite a small space and the entrance is obscure. The staff were nice and polite but that did not make up for the lack of good food for me.
Not a place I would return to in a hurry.

Not sure why I keep coming back to Blu. I guess I just expect it to eventually get better. Maybe it’s just that my memory is short. But walking into an empty downtown restaurant at 1 pm brings a mixture of relief and foreboding.
The space is beautiful and clean, but one can’t help notice the whipped dog atmosphere in the air. Maybe it’s the self-​defensive service or the manager cringing by the exit as we leave, but it’s pretty evident someone’s taking a hiding behind the scenes.
Your Unilocal dollars at work.
Our dishes did arrive within a reasonable time. I had a nice quinoa bowl with beans and grilled tofu topped with chimichurri sauce. Perfect dish for a restaurant that is attached to a health club, so why not offer more faire along these lines? Take a cue from Millenium, Blu, vegans will beat a path to your door.
Unfortunately there was one (very) sour note in the Salade Nicoise: spoiled fingerling potatoes, which one at our table had to spit out into a napkin they were so nasty.
I still think this rescue dog has potential, though, and may even one day prove a reliable friend.

This place was okay… I had the burger and it was cooked well, but wasn’t all that spectacular to me. The service was good, but it honestly took a long time for our food to arrive… the restaurant was very empty so I’m not sure why there would be a delay.
The view is nice since you get a good view of Market Street.

This review is only for the café. I ordered a protein smoothie post-​workout. The smoothie wasn’t bad, but I felt like it was slightly overpriced. They do have a good selection of items on the menu. Since I go to Sports Club LA, this is a very convenient place to get something after working out or even meeting up with friends.

I shared a bunch of appetizers with some friends at Blu. The food was awful. I don’t plan on eating here ever again.
* Niman Ranch BBQ pork sliders — $ 2.50 each
These were absolutely terrible. The pork was so dry I felt like I was chewing a mouthful of greasy twigs.
* Niman Ranch burger sliders — $ 2.50 each
Much better than the BBQ pork sliders but still pretty bad.
* Risotto bites — $ 4.95
The only palatable item on the menu.
* Chips with quac + salsa — $ 7.95
Overpriced and nothing special.
* Roasted red pepper hummus with pita, carrot sticks, celery sticks, broccoli — $ 5.95
The hummus was very chunky and not particularly tasty.
* Ahi poke — $ 6.95
The poke looked like unappetizing mush rather than semi-​firm cubes of tuna. I didn’t even want to touch it.
* Crispy Brussels sprouts — $ 7.95
The Brussels sprouts were overly charred and barely had any vegetable flavor left in them.

Blu, under new management, is a huge improvement from the Sports Club/​LA venue. It is a convenient location to catch up with friends who are member at this gym. The staff is very good in every respect and the food is predictably consistent.
Nothing to report negatively of this place as each visit is usually the launching point to another nearby venue after my friends workout at this centrally located health club with largely good reviews.

Blu Blu Blu. What to say about you? I recently went with a group on a Friday night after visiting a nearby art gallery.
There were some things that made it a good place to gather… it wasn’t busy, so it was a nice place to sit with 10 old friends and catch up, and we were able to sort of play musical chairs and move around to have a chance to «visit» with different people. The view is quite lovely too.
Some people had food, but nobody ever came to clear plates, so once in a while we would stack them up at one end of the table. And there they sat, ’til after we left (altho they may still be there, what do I know?). I really wanted a second glass of wine, and we were there for quite some time, but it was not meant to be, I never could get the server’s attention.
We blamed the lack of service on «too much sports», since Blu is a part of Sports Club LA. It smells like chlorine. We got good comic relief from an attractive blonde who was spotted in the men’s room, then later throwing up in the ladies room. Again, too much sports?

What a strange place for a restaurant? We took advantage of a
deal and made dinner reservations for a Wednesday night.
We took the elevator up to the fitness club level then wandered through a café and bar until we ended up at the «restaurant» — notice the use of quotes because the «restaurant» was just some tables set up behind a Shoji screen. If someone thinks this is a upscale «restaurant’, you need a lesson in branding and the user experience.
I had the Vitamin Blu cocktail which tasted like cough syrup. The scallop salad was decent but nothing special.
Our server did a great job refilling glasses and was very nice but he didn’t know anything about the menu. I’m guessing he must train people during the day and fill in for servers at night.
Even with a
coupon on top of a Groupon deal, I would never come back here.

The real question here is whether Blu is true blue or bluer than blue. Judging from my café experience, I’m gonna have to go with the latter. And this is not a one-​time opinion from me. Truth be told, I was a member of Sportsclub LA for years before the exorbitant fees made me accept my happy fat and quit. So I used to eat in this space quite a lot when it had no name and felt all along that it was overpriced for the quality of food they served. Flash forward a few years and now it has a name and the same basic menu. I remember the Salmon Wasabi Rice Bowl, although I don’t remember it being as high as $ 12.95. I came back with Jamie W, for a late lunch, and we were both severely underwhelmed.
He went for the $ 7.95 Cuban Sandwich which he thought was adequately unmemorable (see photo), while mine was the same-​price Curry Chicken Salad Sandwich which I found dry and not worth finishing (see photo) especially with the wheatberry toast that surely must have come from the Sahara. Even with this lackluster experience in my memory, I came back a few weeks later thinking perhaps my judgment was a bit harsh. But no. This time, I ordered the $ 11.95 Turkey Burger, which was an arid patty in a soft bun (see photo). It needed mayo badly, but I demurred given the long wait I experienced to get it. It came with garlic fries, which were a wilted pile hardly worth the effort to pick at. Even though I have not tried the restaurant side of the operation, I feel the café is most definitely not a good introduction. Bluer than blue? You bet.
FOOD — 2 stars… underwhelming café fare for the non-​discriminate diner
AMBIANCE — 2.5 stars… still feels like a waiting area for the gym to me
SERVICE — 2.5 stars… Uncle Joe… why…’cause he’s movin’ kinda slow
TOTAL — 2 stars… bluer than blue, sadder than sad…

We threw my boyfriend a surprise birthday dinner at Blu and had an amazing time. The staff was really great about playing along with the surprise plans and my boyfriend did not see it coming at all.
They gave us a table right by the huge, floor-​length windows overlooking Market street. The ambiance is really calming and light– loved the fresh flowers and the blue lights hanging by the tables.
We had a party of 8 and everyone enjoyed their food. I ordered the hearts of romaine salad with sun-​dried tomato for appetizer/​first course. They gave me a pretty generous portion of romaine and the light dressing and sun-​dried tomatoes were amazing. For my entrée, I had the chicken breast with brussel sprout salad and fries. I’m not a fan of whole brussel sprouts but the shaved salad was delicious when paired with the chicken. The potatoes were good, they were a little on the doughy side, but I still enjoyed them.
The service was great– our server was attentive and gave us great recommendations. On point with the bread, haha. The manager, Eric, came by to see how we were doing which I really appreciated!
Only aspect of Blu that I didn’t like was that when you walk in it looks more like a cafeteria. I realize it’s across from a gym but I thought that the entrance could have been put together differently.