CUT Lounge — Restaurant in Beverly Hills

We came to celebrate Mr. Joy's birthday with the intention of trying some Japanese wagyu. Needless to say, entering the Beverly Wilshire just feels fancy, practically glitzy. The dining space itself is ultra-modern with rather striking paintings on its walls.

When our waiter showed up at our table, presenting the impressively large array of marbled beef, I was very impressed that they lift these slabs of meat with such ease.

We began nibbling on parmesan sticks and then the bread arrived and kept coming. Gruyere gougeres (cheese puffs), pretzel bread, onion focaccia, and butter of course. I enjoyed all of them, especially the gougeres.

$20 Bone Marrow Flan w/ mushroom marmalade, parsley salad, red wine bordelaise, toasted brioche: Good! This has got to be one of the most complex bone marrow dishes I have had. The delicate bone marrow flan scoops out smoothly from the bone itself. The bulk of the flavor comes from the mushroom marmalade and red wine sauce. The parsley salad helps cut through the richness. The toasted brioche simply resembled toasted bread with the crusts cut off, but it made for some very nice, fancy toast.

$90 Rib Eye 9 oz. American Wagyu, Snake River Farms, Idaho: Great! Delicious juicy, pink in the middle, with a quite a bit of char on the outside, forming a very crunchy crust. We ordered the American wagyu as a comparison to the Japanese, and it was clear. American rib eye does pale in comparison.

$25/oz. Rib Eye Japanese Pure Wagyu, Miyazaki Prefecture: Excellent! The meat is so heavily marbled, it just tastes rich. In fact the fat content probably facilitates the crust that forms on the outside. Inside, the meat is so tender and rich, it practically melts in your mouth.

The beef came with sea salt and a trio of sauces, but they tasted so great on their own, I didn't see much need to add sauce.

$14 Brussels Sprouts, Sesame Yuzu Aioli, Glazed Shallots: Good! We did just order these to have some vegetable content on the table. Crunchy and crispy, a little sweet, and wonderfully caramelized. As much as I love Brussels sprouts, they are becoming a ubiquitous side dish, an expensive one at that.

Lastly, we were surprised with a plate of petit fours, including a sesame ball, chocolate truffle, a small almond cake, a small lemon tart with a candle, and 'Happy Birthday!' written in chocolate. Mmm I enjoyed each of these desserts.

The food was excellent. However this being my first time trying high-quality Japanese beef, I hope I can be satiated by other...

Food is insane. And service is next level. But we brought a $1k bottle of Ridge wine from 1984, and let the sommelier (I think Bo? He was a bald guy in his 30-40s) have a glass of it. He sat and talked to us for 10 minutes about how the wine was a unicorn and how amazing it was and how he has a wine club and would love to put us on the mailing list and give us his contact info, and then never came back and didn’t check in after even once. When I went to the bathroom, I saw him standing at the hostess stand talking to the hostess staff. It was my boyfriends birthday and while we were blown away by the service and food, as a wine enthusiast and collector, my boyfriend was pretty upset by the Som. I said something to the waiter who handled it appropriately (he said he would inform the manager and he also saw us pour a nice glass for the Som). Separately they did not comp the decorkage fee so I ended up paying $60 for the bottle of wine. Normally that would be fine, if we hadn’t poured the Som a $100 glass. My boyfriend was less upset at the fee (but since I was paying for dinner for his birthday, I particularly found it to be bad mannerisms especially as we spent $750 all-in on dinner for 2 and brought our own “trophy” wine). I would definitely come back to Cut for the food and the service, but I would avoid ordering wine here or sharing wine with the Som (unless the Som changes, in which case disregard that advice and share away).

We got the A5 Japanese Kobe New York (expensive but wow so good) and the 6oz Filet Mignon, the octopus appetizer (insane!) and oysters (so good) and a couple cocktails.

I would give the service and the food 5 stars. But because...

The caviar and Hautevillers Champaign has the most tantalizing appeal to the palette and usually cost more than $2-3 thousand each. It coincides with the tantamount attention to detail in the interior decorations. Astonishingly I even had a bottle with precious metal wrapped around it after indulging in a Hemingway! The meals cost between $2-8 thousand dollars every visit, but Wolfgang allows me to make up the difference from $400-500 every time I return for service. Plus or minus $7,500.00 is not going to drive him out of business, because that is many times the gratuity amount of each persons’ table after confirming reservations to eat there (which I don’t make and when I do make reservations I don’t show up without even canceling last minute or...