Bistro Garden At Coldwater

This place is not accommodating to those who are vegan or gluten free. I ordered their house bistro salad and the salad was full of dirt and sand and every bite I took, it was like crunching on sand. I called the waiter over and he says it’s the pepper in the dressing which is clearly not true. I ordered another one and it was the same.
Disappointing food and what a bummer because they have a great atmosphere and was wonderful for their thanksgiving pre fix menu but not so good for everyday menu!

This is one of the finer restaurants in the Valley. It has a stunning indoor garden setting with a piano player after 6pm. The waiters are extremely attentive and the food is quite good. Although a bit pricey its worth it. They also serve souffles if ordered at the beginning of your meal.

Came here last minute on a Saturday night because we were on Ventura and there were no other restaurants accepting people. As soon as we walked in we realized this was not the place for us but we decided to stay anyway because we were all so hungry. If you’re above the age of 50, I’m sure this place will suit you well, but being in our 20’s, we were totally the outliers of the bunch. After about 10 minutes they brought us butter but we had to ask for bread about 3 times before they brought it. Customer service wasn’t all that great. Food tasted kind of weird, the mashed potatoes were extremely salty while everything else needed a lot more salt. I don’t think I’ll ever go back there again, but like I said if you’re over 50, they might be a little nicer to you.

Mean, intolerable and arrogant clientele and waitstaff. No need to support this horrible establishment.

Have dined here 3 times, the last time being for an office Christmas dinner party. «Standards have fallen» would have been my headline. The positive first. As others have said, it is beautifully decorated for the holidays. The ambiance is low key, elegant. Maybe too quiet and staid for some if you prefer a high energy restaurant. This would not be the place for you then. On the other hand, if you are looking for quiet, romantic, cozy, elegant, then it’s perfect. Especially during the holidays.
This last dining experience was, in short, a disaster. Food was very late coming to the table. Two tables that were seated after our group, got their food much sooner than we did. One person in our group received his food 5 minutes after the others were served (this after waiting for the food for a very long time). Another person at our table was served a side dish that was supposed to have bacon in it, but there was no bacon, and it had to go back to the kitchen and took another 10 minutes to come back. I ordered the prawns in mustard sauce, supposedly one of signature dishes. The prawns had almost no flavor, tasted like frozen rather than fresh, swimming in a bland sauce that barely tasted of mustard. Mediocre would be a kind adjective.
Throughout this debacle, the waiter made no acknowledgement of the problems with the kitchen, offered nothing to compensate for the unfolding disaster, and made very infrequent checks on the table. The final insult was having to hunt him down to pay for the meal.
This is a pricey restaurant that caters to a well heeled, older Studio City crowd. Can’t believe that if this is their typical level of service and food quality, that they will be able to hold on that type of patron. Have no idea why the manager was not aware of any of this. Perhaps his attention was focused on a large private party being held just off the main dining room. I suppose if this had been an Olive Garden, it would have been easier to have another glass of wine and laugh it off, but at Bistro Garden prices, no one was laughing. If the food had been outstanding and not average, I might chalk it up to a bad night for kitchen and staff, but it definitely put a damper on our Holiday celebration. So to sum up, beautiful décor, indifferent service, inept kitchen, very average food. Won’t be back.

Went here for a holiday party. It was a beautiful restaurant will nice christams decoration. Loved the ambience. Food was mediocre for the price. Got the lobster bisque. Thought it was too salty for my taste. The sea bass special was a bit salty as well with artichoke and olives as well but fish was cooked well. Ended the meal with chocolate soufflé which was more cake. Nice place to for special occasion but food was not something I’ll remember.

We went there to celebrate my daughter who passed the Bar exam. The atmosphere is very nice and fancy, although, it could use some upgrading. The service was excellent, the food was great. The servers were very polite and attentive. Since it was 7 of us, they brought us two complementary desserts!

I had Thanksgiving dinner there today. Standard fare, no surprises, nothing special. Can’t complain, but nothing exemplary. I had the turkey breast (moist), stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce. My date had the filet mignon with creamed spinach, carrots and garlic potatoes. He said he could get the same level of cuisine in business class on an airplane. Everything was homemade, but predictable. Maybe their regular menu is better.
The ambiance is very elegant with chandeliers and French doors.

This place must have been grande in its hay day but needs a major overhaul now. The food is mediocre at best. All of the meat was over cooked, the seafood tastes frozen versus fresh and the soufflé is nothing great.
What saved it for me was the attentive service. Our wait staff Sunday night November 1 was fantastic and I am really hard to please.
I highly doubt I would be compelled to come back here unless they remodeled or changed food quality.

Very poor dining experience tonight. While the room is an attractive one. Food way overpriced and at least what I had… the Lake Superior white fish. totally dry and tasteless. as was the Bistro Salad!
Service quite good. But restaurant far too costly for what they offer. Will not be returning.

Ok guys here it is if you looking for a classy place and quality food in Sherman Oaks this is the one and only place you want to come down with your family member a loved one and enjoy this beautiful restaurant please do not come here if you do not know how to dress or if you are cheap person this restaurant is not for you

This place is just stunning. I hosted my sisters Bridal Tea Party at the Bistro Garden and received the most amazing and unflawed service. The staff was super attentive and around the guests at all times checking in to see if we needed anything. Greg was also very involved in the entire process. He is very genuine and listened to exactly what I wanted. I just cant wait to host another event at the Bistro Garden. My guests were stunned by the impeccable service, food, and overall tea experience.
I dont believe in reviews anymore because some people said some things about the «tea party» package that was just not true. Everything from the tea sandwiches, to the desserts, to the scones, to the butter and lemon butter was delicious.
Cant say enough.
Entire staff, Greg, and even the valet guys were super nice and attentive.
Thank you Bistro Garden for the wonderful experience and the beautiful pictures in your venue.

Bistro Gardens has an old fashioned European feel. We had a birthday dinner there for supper. The food was good and service excellent. But I can only give 3 stars since we think it is overpriced. The main dishes are 25−50% higher than some similar nearby bistro style restaurants. I found it irritating that a coke was $ 4.75 and the valet parking right in back of the restaurant was $ 6. The cars are 20 feet from the back door, not in a remote lot!
There is a live piano player for dinners, a nice touch. However the level of music elevates the level of conversation and that got a bit noisy.
For us, this might be a special occasion spot because of the high prices. But…
If you like the bistro style, check a few other places nearby. They are smaller for sure, but have excellent ambiance, food and service as well: Le Petit Restaurant and La Frite. Both are in Sherman Oaks.

I came here for a wedding shower on Saturday and fell in love with this place. It is a bit rustic looking, but their main room/​restaurant area was really pretty. It is completely indoors but has the outdoor, garden feeling. Their wait staff is extremely attentive; every time i took a sip of my iced tea they ran over and refilled it. Their food was also good, I had their chicken dish, but the thing that will for sure have me coming back is their chocolate soufflé cake… Just to die for!
Cannot wait to come back again and try more stuff on their menu.

I hate to write a bad review but had the worst tea experience here. Our tea was booked at the same time as a huge bridal shower so we were not able to sit in the lovely main room, were were stuck in a smaller, dark, hot room. Still pretty in its own way, but NOT what I was there for.
Here were the problems with the tea service:
–water glasses had old lipstick stains on the rims, yuck.
–tea bags provided (limited variety) and pots of hot water. Not loose tea.
–scones served before sandwiches and they were RAW in the middle. Raw dough! We sent them back batch after batch and FINALLY got a mostly baked scone at the end. Not kidding, raw dough.
–NO Devonshire cream. This is a CRIME as far as I’m concerned.
–tea sandwiches were bizarre. With the exception of one cucumber/​cream cheese, all were NOT tea sandwiches and were served on big, tall, hard, rustic bread cut into smaller pieces.
–the icing on the little cakes REALLY tasted like canned frosting. I know my frosting and I would bet it was from a can.
–we were given chocolate chip cookies that also tasted like «cut and bake».
–to make up for the disastreous tea, the owner sent us champagne but the last thing I need before jumping in the car at 4 PM is alcohol.
This was not a cheap tea and unfortunately, based on this experience, I would not even consider going back for lunch or dinner.

This was the worst dinning experience I’ve ever had in LA! The food was repulsive, the meals were served at different intervals at a table of 15 women for brunch! They tried to over charge us for food we didn’t order by $ 72!
When we got our bill the server layed down another bill for $ 30 to cut the birthday cake made by her best friend AFTER the hostess told us there was no cake cutting fee. We said we were not paying it!
The owner came over and said he would take off the $ 30 cake cutting fee and we thanked him — then he said, «Don’t thank me yet… I don’t appreciate being nickeled and dimed to death. This is not that type of restaurant. We don’t usually allow separate checks and if you ever come back you should know we won’t honor that request.»
He basically tried to call out a table full of 15 female guests at our best friends birthday brunch. What he was really doing was chastising us about his own guilt for over charging us and having terrible food and customer service!
I’ve never heard of a male restaurant owner putting down a table full of female patrons in front of the other guests at different tables. He is a joke of a business man and could have looked like our hero by thanking us for choosing to be there over ALL the other restaurants we could have chosen!
If I could have chosen ZERO STARS I would have.

The major updating needed, or some good cleaning. the food was good the ambience great.

This place has gone down in food quality. It used to be a good spot but no longer will I come here. I took a chance on ordering ahi tuna and sure enough, I had to return it cause it wasn’t fresh. My sea bass entrée tasted blah. My husband ordered a filet and it was okay. The only good thing we liked were the chicken fingers for my little boy.
Bye bye Bistro Garden. Your days are numbered.

Can a restaurant be both wildly outdated and charmingly refreshing? If so, Bistro Garden is that spot.
As soon as we walked in, my wife said «this is 80’s fancy,» and she was spot-​on. A gorgeous space that hasn’t been updated in two (or three?) decades awaited us — ceilings that scrape the sky and a beautiful skylight scale down to garish sconces & lamps and white tableclothed tables. Plenty of attempts at foliage, but mostly wooden columns with climbing vines — a nice touch. Think Spago’s (of the Valley) prior to its 2013 makeover. The bar is heavy on the wood, the exposed bottles, and plates of whole fruit as décor.. .yet it’s still enticing. And with a live piano, it’s endearing. Sinatra is playing on repeat in the bathroom, which actually competes with the piano, yet somehow this mishmosh works.
I really, really expected to hate it and I ended up loving it. The menu was reflective of the style — some dishes are circa 1987 (whitefish with butter sauce, lobster bisque) and some are marginally modern (ahi tuna tartar, burrata salad, gluten-​free pasta), and all are executed well (namely the bisque, the double pork chop, the italian sausage fettucinne).
The servers are friendly, if not a bit long in the tooth, and the drinks are poured strong and rapidly. It’s not inexpensive, but very few venues in the Valley have exposures like this.
I really hope they hire a designer to give this place an aesthetic overhaul, because there is some magic here — as it stands now, it’s a really nice place to take your parents.

We came here because we were given a gift certificate for our wedding. The place has some lovely piano music and decoration. The food however wasn’t what I would expect for the price we paid.
The first issue we had was the fact that my spouse has Celiac disease (highly gluten intolerant). There is 1 item on the menu that is gluten free, however we figured that there are probably many others that are, but just not noted. The waiter we had insisted that there is nothing else gluten free except the one dish indicated. We’ve been through this situation many times with other places, and it usually is due to people working in the food industry who are not knowledgable of allergies and food ingredients. We had to ask for the chef/​manager. Eventually the manager was able to tell us that many other things were gluten free, but he had to check. He did however seem a bit confused as well sometimes that cornstarch is not flour or wheat.
I ordered the salmon dish. I have to say it was pretty good and the sauce made it tasty. It was paired with vegetables. I however was not happy with the salad I had ordered before my meal. I thought maybe I was getting a side salad, but when I saw the bill of $ 18 for a Bistro Salad I was shocked. The Bistro salad was definitely tasteless. I could have thrown something together myself 10x better… and for that outrageous price? It was not even a big salad. Why???
My spouse ordered the filet mignon (which wound up being gluten free as well). The peppercorn sauce just didn’t do it much service, as it literally tasted like gravy on top of filet mignon. It was paired with potatoes au gratin and some asparagus and those were ok. We expected a lot more on this dish since it is quite expensive ($ 40+).
We finished the night off with Crème Brulee. It was ok, nothing spectacular.
In the end, I don’t think I would come back to this place. The price you pay is not worth the food.