Los Angeles - Spago

Austria has made its mark on California.  One Austrian runs its head (Arnie), and another runs its stomach.

Wolfgang Puck is arguably America’s number 1 celebrity chef and his flagship restaurant is in Beverly Hills.

Visiting LA for New Year, we were invited to Spago for their New Year’s eve dinner and entertainment.  I noticed that the set banquet, including champagne at midnight, was $300-a-head.  This would surely be a real treat.

We arrived at 9.30 whilst the first sitting was still departing and were finally seated at 10ish.

Half a baked potato was plonked in front of several hundred diners.  I suspect the few droppings were specks of caviar.  All around, the forks of bewildered guests politely poked and pushed fluffed potato until it returned to the kitchen in its new mashed state.

Dishes to follow included a tuna sashimi starter and agnolotti, neither of which ignited our Hogmanay palates.

The main courses arrived.

True Japanese Kobe beef comes from Wagyu cattle, which have been carefully raised on a diet of saki or beer and lovingly massaged to ensure the poor dears don’t suffer from muscle stiffness.

Americans have created ‘kobe-style’ beef which is a cross breed of Wagyu and Angus cattle.  Not surprisingly, it is claimed to be as good as the real thing.

I suspect my cow ditched the beer, downed cans of treacle and snored in a corner whilst awaiting its nemesis at the Spago New Year’s eve party.

The camel’s companion chose veal.

Austrians have a famous veal dish called Weiner Schitzel where a thin slice of this delicate meat is coated in breadcrumbs and fried. Whereas one would expect our Austrian host to be a little more creative, what was not anticipated was a Jurrasic Park sized lump of dinosaur.

The desserts were sweet but not imaginative, and certainly nowhere near the creative standards of many 2 Michelin star chefs in France.

The band played and people left.  The pre midnight exodus said it all.  Anyone leaving after 11.30 would be stuck in traffic and ‘ring in the new’ from the back of their stretch.

Perhaps they considered it a better option than sipping Spago champagne, which was now, oddly, no longer included in the bill.

LA is the last major city in the world to see in the New Year.  Perhaps by the time New Year reaches here the enthusiasm has passed.

Certainly, any embers of celebration were extinguished by Spago.


Spago
176 Nth Canon Drive
Beverly Hills

+1 310 385 0880

Link to website