Cara Restaurant — Restaurant in Los Angeles

In Los Feliz, a Hollywood adjacent neighborhood, stands CARA RESTAURANT, an eatery of timeless beauty.

Cara's Mediterranean architecture incorporates a portico. The open roof structure is surrounded by monochromatic walls. Giant white sails protect the guests from California's brilliant sun. Oversized chairs and soft, deep couches complete the room's intimate comfort.

As the sun sets, reflecting pools, towering green palm trees, and a grove of 100 year-old, silvery green olive trees, glow. The olive trees, draped with hundreds of miniature lights, sparkle.

Cara Restaurant is just plain wonderful. Service is excellent. The meals delicious. Lucas, the restaurant's manager, understands what is required to maintain this idiosyncratic eatery to the qualities expected of a high-end restaurant.

There were 26 guests at the birthday party we attended. Josh and the service staff are knowledgeable, friendly, and attentive. Our meal is served family style.

Executive Chef Misael Sossa's first course included a salad of Little Gem Lettuce, apples, dates, and almonds in a shallot/ balsamic vinaigrette dressing. A serving of shaved, aged Parmesan cheese was provided.

Burrata and Tomatoes, Ceviche, and Lamb Skewers completed the first course.

The main course includes lemon pasta, grilled shrimp, charcoal smoked strip steak and chicken breasts.

Particularly enjoyable are the vegan, crusted, Fingerling fried potatoes. Their cloud-soft centers are encased by crunchy, gently salted shells. This may be the ultimate French fry.

For me, a vegan, Chef Sossa created individual stir-fries of beets, a grain/rice blend, cubes of potatoes, Adzuki beans, Enoki mushrooms, and strips of sweet red and yellow "Lunchbox " peppers. As presented: the vegetable mounds ring a serving platter with the grain/rice blend in the center. It was absolutely delicious.

STUFF: "Cara" is Gaelic (Scottish) for comfort and welcome. Everything is ADA compatible. The restrooms near the front of the restaurant is a work of art. Valet parking is available and strongly recommended. The restaurant opened in 2020. Cara's principal owner is...

We have been to Cara Hotel many times and this past visit was incredibly disappointing. We made reservations for Jazz on Sunday for father’s day. Last time we went there we were seated in the same patio in comfortable tables. This didn’t happened. Maria the person that was hosting was directing people with no reservations there. So we almost didn’t have a place to seat. There was only one waitress, Josephine. She was very pleasant and kind. We were notified after ordering a dish with salmon that they were out. Then my husband ordered a ceviche with a side of sausage. The gentleman that brought our food informed us they also didn’t have sausage. Our waitress was so overwhelmed that she didn’t get a chance to tell us. So we requested to speak to a Manager to see if they could do something nice for us to make up for the disappointing experience we were having. Josephine requested Maria to come to us twice. The third time we requested, Lucas the manager came in. I explained our experience and asked hi. 3 times if he could make our experience better, perhaps take my husband’s meal out of the check, offer dessert or comp our parking. Nothing was offered as a courtesy/apology. Lucas instead blamed on being Father’s day, instead of taking accountability for their failure in planning their restaurant for the reservations that were made for that day. That in my opinion is an unprofessional way to resolve a straight forward complaint about two different items we requested that they didn’t have, which were popular basic items on a branch menu. The lack of staff and slow service were not something we had experienced before. Of course we tipped our server 20% because this bad planning was not her fault and Josephine and the Jazz band were the only good in the mess...

The pictures make the outdoor seating arrangement look so nice and peaceful, but I feel like they cram a few too many tables together, it ends up feeling crowded. To me, the service once we were at the table was good, our waiter was friendly and on top of things. Front of house not so much--not particularly friendly, little bit of an attitude.

Anyhow, on to the food! We started with some fried shishito peppers, but I've had better quite frankly (though in full disclosure, my wife liked these ones). I like my shishitos well-blistered, and Cara's to me were pretty mushy. Redbird has the best shishitos in LA--fight me if you disagree!

As for the main course, I had the steak sandwich. When it first arrived to the table, I was kinda disappointed, it didn't look super appealing. But holy COW was it tasty! I would come back, just for this dish. So good. My wife had the salmon, and she loved it.

We capped the meal with some espresso and the brownie with ice cream--both were excellent.

Overall Cara came really close to being a 5-star exerience but a couple issues, especially with front of house, meant it narrowly missed the mark and earned a 4-star from me. But I might come back for that blessed steak sando, so maybe next time they'll...