TLDR: There aren’t many ~walkable~ options available to us in the Palms neighborhood of West LA. Electric Bleu provides a new option at a cuisine not readily available nearby. There are many kinks to work out on the front-of-house side, but the back-of-house (which is actually open to the full restaurant) provides tasty food that leaves you full, but not grossly so.
Food: 8.5 / 10
Drinks: 8.7 / 10
Service: 4 / 10
Ambiance: 6 / 10 (loud enough that elevated voices just below shouting are required to talk across the table)
Overall: 7.6 / 10
Price: ~$100/person when considering appetizers / entrees / drinks / tip / tax
See below for the closest thing I have to a review. I am vastly bummed at the loss of folks at Eater LA, so I am trying to fill in those shoes via this attempt.
Walking into Electric Bleu puts you into an environment like The Bear. Tables are packed in like sardines (there’s no host stand!) and servers are fighting for their lives darting between tables. Getting service is walking a knife’s edge between being respectfully polite to your fellow diners and fighting for the attention of the first open waitstaff before they are snagged by a competitor.
Once past the thunderdome of ordering food and drinks, prepare to engage in (what I believe is) classic contemporary French cuisine. The dauphine potatoes and accompanying chive dip make you wish that you did splurge on the baguette to mop up the leftovers. The melon salad makes you wish that they provided spoons so that you look a little less ridiculous while draining the leftover vinaigrette that’s delightfully mixed with melon juice directly into your mouth.
The green peppercorn sauce accompanying the steak au poivre is not quite enough to be labeled as spicy, but you’ll appreciate flagging down a waiter to make sure you have water on hand. The steak itself is cooked to a phenomenal medium rare – no qualms there.
The duck breast sits on top of a bed of (wine, I think) grapes, providing little explosions of sweetness that compliment the fattiness from the duck quite well. I prefer my duck to be cooked more on the rare side than the close-to-medium I received, but it’s only day two of the restaurant being open – these are kinks that are likely to be worked out over time.
Speaking of overtime, it’s clear that the restaurant is currently woefully unprepared for the number of guests attending the opening of a new restaurant. It’s difficult to describe the waitstaff as attentive given that they were each balancing 10-12 tables at a time, but their service and hospitality were top notch once you got their attention. The sommelier, in particular, was extremely knowledgeable regarding their selection in wines and his recommendations did not fail to provide great options for my tastes.
by Final-Swim-8868
Dining and Cooking