Pace — Restaurant in Los Angeles

TLDR: Don't believe the hype. I went here on a weeknight for my birthday dinner with my husband expecting to have a pleasant evening. We were disappointed by the food and the experience.

The walk into Pace from the valet lot is promising. You pass a market and down some stairs and along the way are transported into a more bohemian version of CA. I'd been looking forward to finally trying this restaurant and booked it as my birthday dinner for two. Once we are seated, it appears we are in good company. I hear other patrons be told happy birthday as they sit down and see presents getting passed around.

Starting off with the wine list, the red wine options were pretty standard if you were ordering by the glass. There were a couple of extra Italian options (it was nice to see lambrusco there to partner with a pizza order) but it was not comparable to other places I've been to that feature organic wine. When the bread arrived at our table, it was delicious and paired with olive oil that had to be infused with something but I couldn't tell what!

We ordered the mixed greens salad featuring goat cheese and raisins. It's pretty hard to mess up a salad with goat cheese, so this was good as well. The woman next to us even ordered one after seeing ours! I'll note here that at a table for two, the food and extra large menus all took up a significant amount of table space. If you were looking to take advantage of the crayons and draw on the table, it's really only possible to do so between courses.

After this is when the night starts to go awry. Our main courses arrive while I am in the restroom. I walk back to a waiter grating Parmesan cheese over MY tortellini. My husband had been put in the awkward position of answering the question on my behalf and was doing his best to guess what I would want. I note this mainly because it would have been a faux pas if this happened to someone on a first or early in the game date. I wish they would have just come back as it was a Wednesday night and the place wasn't overly busy.

The main flavor of the sauce for the tortellini was butter - there wasn't anything to balance it out. I found myself trying to eat the tortellini on its own. My husband's medium burger was closer to rare and it was the first time I'd ever heard him contemplate sending a dish back. Unfortunately, no one ever stopped by our table to check in on our food and the general wait staff walked by infrequently and quickly so this never happened. His other notes on the burger were that the topping choices were a bit unbalanced flavor-wise.

I ran out of wine at the same time my main course was delivered. I was planning my next glass as I dug into my first bite, debating if I would get another Cab Sav or the Super Tuscan. But, since no one stopped by and were impossible to flag down, I was stuck with water. The next person who stops by our table asks if I want to pack up my dinner. My husband still has half a burger left, so it seemed a little early for that! But I'm done so I say yes and they deliver my food back to me in a literal paper lunch bag that has nowhere to sit besides on the table in front of me. It sits as a visual reminder that it's time to go soon.

They offer to pack up my husband's food while he is still eating, in what I assume is a haste to turn the table over. I'd feel singled out, but I had just watched the same thing happen to the table beside us as well. After all of this, someone stops by to ask if we want to look at the dessert menu. It felt odd to be packed up before getting asked this question, especially as the staff who seated me knew it was my birthday. Given how the main course went, we say no and ask for the check. AFTER WE ASK FOR THE CHECK, someone else comes by and asks if we want coffee or tea. Someone then stops by to ask us how our meal was. It would be funny, honestly, if I wasn't so disappointed.

Overall, Pace charges high-end prices for okay food, bad service, and a dive bar atmosphere. Save your celebrations for...

I have never written a review of a restaurant before, but me and my wife had such a terrible experience that we believe it's important others know.

Our waiter offered us the lava cake as soon as we sat down, explaining that it took 30 minutes to cook. We decided to order it together with the rest of the food.

We finished the entire meal, and after 30 minutes had gone by since they had cleared our dinner plates, the lava cake had not only not come out, but not a single waiter had come to address us. We hadn't seen our waiter for over 45 minutes.

Finally, I was able to flag someone down and we asked for the check since it was getting late, assuming the lava cake would not be included in the bill since it never came and our waiter disappeared.

To our surprise, the lava cake was included in the bill. Once we saw this, we requested it to be taken out since it never came. Our new waiter called over “the manager” to check with him.

"The manager" of the night shift of December 4th is a guy that never quite introduced himself but has long black hair and glasses. We explained the situation to him, and he refused to take out the lava cake. I then proceeded to explain that if they charged the lava cake we would simply not leave a tip since we didn’t consider it fair to be charged for something we never received. The manager proceeded to say “watch your tone” while standing over the table in a domineering way.

This “manager” proceeded to say he would go check if it was true that it didn’t come out. Surprised, I asked if he was calling us liars, to which he proceeded to respond “trust and verify, have you heard of it?” And walked away. After coming back and obviously realizing that we had not received the lava cake he proceeded to ignore me and solely interact with my wife instead without acknowledging my presence.

When we were leaving, this manager realized we were planning on telling “Che”, the GM of the restaurant, what occurred and he proceeded to pretend to send a voice note to the GM saying I had too much to drink. If anyone that works at Pace is actually reading this, please do check our bill and see how many inexistent drinks we had, or check the cameras to see me drink my entire bottle of water all night.

We have never been disrespected to this level in a restaurant, live less than 10 minutes away, and unfortunately have plans to not...

Highly recommend, this is a hidden gem in LA. Best upscale but not stuffy organic Italian / farm to table restaurant in Los Angeles. The ambience and energy is the best I have seen in LA, dim lights , candles on tables and an attentive staff. Maybe I should say farmers market to table as the chef/owner gets ingredients from farmers markets twice a week. Hard to describe their food , maybe Italian country comfort food that is healthy. They make their pasta in house as well and you can tell each dish is made with a lot of love. What to eat?! Going to have to go back to try their home made ravioli with lobster and squash or lasagna or their cedar plank wild salmon dish and they have daily specials as well. The menu looks so good it’s hard to decide what to order so my mom and I split the minestrone soup and The Peace Pie which is their version of a margherita pizza and both were really tasty and perfectly seasoned. We also got the cedar plank roasted and grilled chicken , this dish is next level and it came with 2 sides, I got the asparagus and roasted root veggies, once again very tasty and perfectly seasoned. We also got the spaghetti bolognese and the waiter shaved some fresh Parmesan on it. Love the attention to detail and this dish was also great, although it could have used a little more sauce. We finished the meal with their warm chocolate cake that was so soft and moist and really perfect with fresh berries and vanilla gelato. Highly recommend this place and will be going back again. I often eat at their sister restaurant called Pace Joint on sunset, it is more of a no frills casual spot but the food is great there also and make sure to check out the...