Apple Restaurant

I’m surprised by the lack of reviews on this place. I would have figured there would be more since it looks trendy. I don’t know anything about this place, (or at least now after eating here and reading the said reviews here on Unilocal I now know a little), so I didn’t really have a motivating factor to make me want to eat here. My friends and I were hungry and it was the closest to where we parked and Jason said we should try it. I’m not at all impressed at all with the atmosphere; it is fancy, one could say its «pretty» probably due to the dim lighting, but I don’t think so. Anything with dim lighting can look that way, it was nothing special looking. Its not at all relaxing, it has that conceited stuffy feel.
Service is snot slow except for when the glasses of water weren’t full. For a Friday night, it wasn’t busy at all! The bus boys or waiters, whatever were just there standing about most of the time except for filling our glasses up yet it took forever to get our food. By the time they gave us a complimentary roll of bread each, we thought it was our food we ordered or at least I did. Even the drinks we ordered were no where in sight till after we got our bread. The menu is extremely limited. With what you get, its really not worth the prices; too expensive.
Dean ordered the chicken fried chicken (oh yes) and a side of macaroni and cheese, I ordered this pizza (goat cheese @_@), Jason the mini kobe beef burger (I should have ordered this) as well as mushrooms, fries and Ryan ordered the same as Dean I believe (Chicken fried chicken…). Now that I think about it, I should have tried Dean’s chicken fried chicken; that’s fun to say by the way. The pizza was so overwhelming with the goat cheese that that’s all I could taste. It was okay, but its not what I normally would think of as pizza. So I ended up trading with Jason because he liked my food and I liked his. The mac and cheese was very bland and practically tasteless. His mini kobe beef burgers were tasty morsels, at least I enjoyed them! The mushrooms were pretty good too, to eat by itself as a side. But that’s really the only two redeeming qualities about this trip to Apple. Because of service, ambiance, prices, and most likely the food minus what I did like, I wouldn’t come back here. Definitely not the apple of my eye. Two stars.
Plus, being the day after, my stomach feels horrible.

The only reason that I joined Unilocal is because I need to express my disappointment in this restaurant. I read reviews about this place on Gayot and Citysearch and it was a new hot restaurant and was highly acclaimed due to the Executive Chef being the son of Bradley Ogden. Nonetheless, we were so not impressed whatsoever.
We ordered the tuna tartar as a started and it was just bland. Nothing to tell your friends about. Oh, I forgot to mention that we noticed that at other tables, they were given small dinner rolls and butter in the beginning. We had to ask for the bread and butter that is usually complimentary.
As our entrees, we ordered the rock shrimp fettuccini and the ribeye. The ribeye was fine, but the fettuccini was very, very, very salty! I guess you can see how salty it was. Also, the fettuccini was supposed to include pine nuts, which it didn’t. I told the waiter that it was really salty and he said that he would send it back to the kitchen. The waiter came back out to tell us that the chef agreed that it was too salty. About 20 – 30 minutes later, they brought out a new plate of fettuccini. During the time they were making a new plate, I gave my girlfriend half of my ribeye since I couldn’t just stand there and have her stare at me eating. At this point, we had lost our appetite and our nice evening out on Friday just killed the mood!
I just couldn’t sit there and not say anything to the manager, so I asked to speak with the manager and told him our disappointed we were in the quality of the food and the lack of service. Not once did he apologize about the entire experience that we were having and just offerred up another glass of wine or a dessert on the house. The manager seemed more into himself and his attitude and his tone of voice lacked any sincerity whatsoever. My girlfriend and I were so unhappy at this place, that we refused any kind of complimentary gestures.
I would never go back to this place again nor would I recommend any of my friends to try this place.

i visited apple on saturday night around 6pm or so with a bf and his fam for dinner. before being seated we grabbed some champagne inside the restaurant, allowing us to check out the décor and vibe inside. open space, good feel… a little smaller than i thought it’d be, but i think that’s a good thing. it made things feel more intimate. we were able to take a peek at the lounge downstairs during this time (although at 6pm it’s empty… of course). it’s tiny. too tiny. the ceilings are low (i felt a little closterphobic being maybe 5’6″ in my heels… even though the five of us were the only folks in there). the idea is good.
not to be negative…
when our table was prepared we were seated outside at a table along the glass partition seperating the restaurant from robertson, near a cabana and the curved bench other «reviewers» have mentioned. the ambiance outside was, i thought, just as mellow and intimate as it was inside.
our variety of drinks included apple martinis, varied red and white wines, waters, coffees, etc. all yummy.
we were all given choices of different bread options… country (a sort of wheat), butter roll (yum and golden in color) and an apple biscuit (again, yum)!
each of the five of us ordered a starter including florida frog legs, georgia shrimp, scallops, foie gras and yellowtail sashimi. everything tasted great. we all sort of took a bite and passed each starter around so that we could taste everything at least once.
as for our entrees there was a small mix up but i believe we ended up with black angus strip loin, grilled prime iowa pave and pork three ways. again, we all passed around a taste of each dish and they were truly outstanding. i personally had the pave and i was VERY pleased with my choice. i’d never tried pork belly before, but i was surprised by how much i liked it.
for dessert we got the melon tasting (included watermelon soup, canteloupe sorbet and pop rocks), a banana cake concoction with chocolate, pralines, caramel and carmalized banana slices, «neopolitan ice cream sandwich» (basically the different neopolitan flavors served in unique ways) and the three apple dessert plate (three different types of apples prepared in a variety of ways). i feel like i’m missing something but at this point i was so satisfied with my meal i was really forcing myself to try tiny tastes just so that i could take in the whole experience, although my stomach was telling me if i kept taking it in it might let it out just as enthusiastically. (crude, i apologize, it’s just me.)
the service throughout the meal from our server and the food runners was outstanding. we were well taken care of and really didn’t want for anything.
i’m thankful for the chance to have experienced all that apple has to offer and i plan to return in the near future with my gbf and fellow food lover, joel g.
salud!

APPLE IS DELICIOUS! My boyfriend and I had dinner there last night and based on our first experience, we will be returning very soon.
I started off with the organic corn chowder (sans the Lobster) and finished every last drop. Yum, I highly recommend. Also, try the apple muffin when they bring the bread tray around! For the main course I ordered the Chicken Jidori and I can say 100% this is the BEST chicken dish I have had in a long time. My (vey picky) boyfriend went all out and ordered the Japanese Wagyu. He was in absolute heaven. The quality of the meats and foods at this restaurant are top notch. The cocktails were meticulously perfect (yay!), the décor of the restaurant is relaxing and beautiful and the waitstaff = A+. We were expecting an enjoyable time, but were completely taken aback with what an amazingly great time we had!
Overall, it was a great experience and we will be back soon. I hope that you enjoy!

you know… I’m really ready to quit Unilocal… but a restaurant this good at being this bad. «pulls me back in».
Apple, much like Beso, Tagine, etc., is a celebrity sponsored restaurant, albeit with a son of a famous chef at the helm:
. Despite massive pump and dump by Eater LA, LA Times:
and Thrillist, we found ourselves the only other 2-​top in the upstairs dining room on a Wednesday nite. The reason, per the waiter: we did it on purpose, still soft opening. No, really? Is that why there are a dozen sous-​line chefs/​sauce makers in the kitchen, and another half a dozen waiter/​bussers and FOH staff all loitering around?
The smallish room was set at a balmy 65 degrees and the already-​chilly dining companion in the tiny tank top was none too pleased. Our über nice server eventually noticed, turned down the A/​C and brought a … sofa pillow.
Water came, bread came, someone asked about food allergies because amuse bouche may be served, but none came. Seriously, don’t tease me like that. At $ 36 – 40 per plat, amuse bouche shouldn’t be just a «possibility». Craft serves amuse bouche even if you just go in for dessert. If you’re gonna set the customers’ expectations so high with $ 30 for a piece of chicken breast, please serve the damn bouche.
The scallop app came and it was fine. They were just a hint overcooked and the celery/​carrot mustard sauce was oddly Asian. The hake (cod-​like fish) and pork 3-​way came and along came a problem. Seriously, pork is all the rage in LA. It’s been the rage since chef Kazuto Matsusaka took a fatty chunk of pork belly and braised it upscale at The Beacon (in Culver City) in ’04. That’s 4 years ago. 4 years later you’d think Chef Bradley Ogden, a Beard winner, taught his son you can’t mince kale (a green with not too much moisture) with tough pork shoulder and serve it up in a fried dumpling («pierogi», whatever!). That was the driest, most tasteless gyoza/​mandu/​dumpling/​piergo I’ve had in my life. The belly was fine, the loin medallions were fine, albeit lacking moisture for being served medium rare. Wish they used straight hoisin instead of the drips of reduction sauce made to taste like hoisin.
Total damage: $ 100, no booze. Pricing scaled thru slanted eyes: 1 whole roasted baby pig served at Sam Woo, or 333 very good pork and cabbage dumplings from Dean Sin World
As I was harshly reminded by a fellow grubber post insipid mediocre wallet-​raping dinner: do NOT visit WeHo until Jose Andre opens his restaurant at the SLS hotel.
PS: the Pussycat Dolls are coming to WeHo and Apple Restaurant/​Lounge will be their new cabaret venue. There is a very nice patio dining area on the first floor which had more clientele but… no amount of open air architecture could save this food.
PPS: soft opened Friday, August 29^th.