Upper Modern Bistro

Fantastic food, great wine pairing suggestions, even better service.
The open space facing the street was opposite some great Upper Station Street wall art and perfect for catching some sun rays.
Appreciated the cheese at the end of the meal and the courteous staff who introduced themselves.
Overall would def recommend!

Cool décor, great staff. Tasty food that’s no fuss. I actually loved the décor so much I want it as my living room. Had the mushroom soup– yum! Clam pasta was also tasty in an unpretentious way. I will be coming back.

First time we had eaten there. Food was excellent & the beef tartare was standout.
Service was attentive & efficient. We will be back.

We kind of coveted this experience and were very much looking forward to going. I would not consider us «foodies» by any means, but we can asbolutely appreciate the hard work, dedication and skill that goes into the culinary craft of cooking and owning a restaurant. Our Las Vegas background simply has over exposed us to the «best of the best» when it comes to restaurants and celebrity chefs. And the buzz of a newer entry into the Michelin Guide and the history of Philipe Orrico… we were anticipating an exceptional experience.
Cutting to the chase: the food was excellent. Grey Goose martini «served up with an olive» was «served up with a lemon twist» and this was probably the only miss-​step when it came to food or drink. The culinary wonders of the hard working chef shows through with every single bite. My personal highlight was the fois gras crème brûlée that is served as an appetizer. Fois gras is my weakness and difficult to come by in the USA. This spread of sorts you put on top of warm bread… really quite delicious and special.
Also cutting to the chase: as I have said before on Unilocal,often it can be a server or the customer service that can kill it for me in a restaurant. The miss-​step on the martini was followed up by our server failing to bring our side. We are not the kind of people to point these things out when they occur, we are more apt to put them in the mental file in summary of our entire experience. We also found it just a bit off that not a single person from the staff (server, bell staff, host or owner) stopped by once to ask how our meal/​experience was. Not a deal breaker, but just noticeable to us. We did get a survey via e-​mail a few days after our dinner from Upper Modern Bistro and we intend to share with them this review.
The expense was not as high as we might have thought for the experience of dining with such a chef like Orrico in the kitchen ($ 1378 for two, inclusive of 10% tip… and this excluded the side we did not receive!). Expensive or not, we expect small things like the martini miss-​step and the side dish miss-​step to not occur at an establishment like this.
I liked the modern décor. I liked the modern furnishes. I liked that the people there seemed to be enjoying friendships and enjoying food. I like that you can see the kitchen from the dining space. I like that this is a hidden restaurant in my neighborhood off the main Hollywood Road. I liked that there was follow up after the experience via e-​mail.
We would go back for certain because the the food is special. But we will be noticing the customer service touches and hope that this first experience was an exception and not the rule for Upper Modern Bistro.

Lovely bistro, stylish yet personalized service… wide selection of familiar dishes with ingredient twists like ceviche using swordfish to pigeon… food and creations are yummy

Honestly. Its not bad but for the kind of money I expect a bit more vava voom. Typical trendy place.

I headed for chef’s new twist. And it is good.
We started with Artichoke macaroni. It is artichoke purée stuffed macaroni. the macaroni is housemade and bigger than normal size. The purée is light but balanced the heaviness of the cheese.
And of course I got a glass of Margeau. Ohlalala! Okay, we are not that hungry, let us bring the mains on. My friend got the recommended French pigeon and I went for the pork cutlets. I try to avoid conventional French, even I LOVE pigeon and froi gras and white truffle. For this avant garde restaurant, I went for the adventure. And yes, French pigeon is fabulous. Nuh, I just don’t like pork maybe. Haha.
The dessert is beautifully presented with the poached pear with green tea ice cream. We are so happily getting our bills with this last sweet bite. Moderate dessert strength with all natural ingredients and balanced flavour.

Came here to celebrate my friend’s birthday. It’s a 7pm on Saturday, so I would expect here to be quite busy, even it was a bit out the way (relative to where I live, anyway) on the Upper Station Street.
Little did I know that this restaurant has just been award an one-​star by Michelin, not only 2 weeks ago. Well, my friends did know either, so let’s say we were super lucky to get a table. (and if anything, I would usually be biased *against* Michelin restaurants, so this restaurant made a good exception.)
If I had to summarize this restaurant in one sentence, then I’d say, it has everything done right. From the moment I entered, the service had been spot on. I hated the over-​the-​top staff which would ask you if the food’s alright every 5mins in some fancy restaurants, and it’s good they didn’t do it here. Instead they always had someone ready whenever you needed them.
We ordered three a la carte and two mains to share among three of us. Even the bread served from the very beginning was one of the best, and we ended up having three bags of them. The tartare was fresh and well mixed, and the mussels were some of the best. Again the bread came in handy, as I loved them so much I ate a few more together with the tartare and also the soup base from the mussels.
The foie gras mini burgers were top notch. It was the dish I secretly hoped that I didn’t have to share with my friends and have all three burgers by myself!
The wood pigeon and foie gras pie was very good too. Usually I wouldn’t order two dishes both with foe gras, but it was a wise choice this time. I mean, hey, now I do realize the lack of vocabulary I could use to describe food. But let’s move on to the lamb, which was cooked right to the point where it didn’t get chewy. You slide your knife on it and it went into half, that’s how perfectly done it was.
By the end of the dinner, the birthday girl ordered a crème brûlée. We told the restaurant in advance to have her name tagged on whatever dessert we ordered, and it was done properly (you know, 9 out of 10 restaurants would either spell the name wrong, or spoil the surprise). No fancy birthday songs by staff, which again we really liked it.
We also ordered a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux. Smooth and without crazy amount of tanning like the usual, so it came back to «it has everything done right».