Rao's — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Imagine that you are celebrating an important event? Now also imagine that while you have been in Southern California for 40 years you have this need to find comfort food that you grew up eating and loving in small mom and pop Italian eateries in Brooklyn in your youth. Rao's doesn't even get close. In fact, to call the food at Rao's "New York style red sauce " would be an insult to the neighborhood Italian Restaurants I grew up on. Let's get down to basics. The ambience at Rao's is great. But you don't eat ambience. When you walked into a neighborhood Italian restaurant the first thing on your table was warm delicious Italian bread cut up into thick 2" rounds to either spread soft butter or munch and save to dip in wonderful left over red sauce. We did not have any bread until we requested a basket. The bread given was nothing like I was enjoying in Brooklyn. Our order was fairly simple. Clams oregenata, Ceasars salad, one order of Veal Parmesan with a side of spaghetti and an order of spaghetti and meatballs. Finally desert of Tiramisu and Gelato. Growing up the Clams Oregenato were each palm sized with light delicious garlic infused breading with a large plump clam. You were served 6 of them. You could dip your fresh bread in the juices and were happy. Sadly we were served 6 "Little Neck Clams" about the size of a quarter with oily breading and little clam meat to enjoy. That was the first clue of the food served to us. The Ceasar salad was ok, the dressing had some anchovy punch with some croutons and Parmesan cheese but the romaine could have been more of the fresher crunchier type. The spaghetti and meatballs was good with Rao's signature large meatballs. The Veal Parmesan was large but the Veal itself did not have that unctuous melt in your mouth close your eyes and your in heaven flavor. The Veal itself was tough and other than the sauce with melted cheese really lacked flavor. Truely not what I had dreamed about for weeks prior to coming. At $57 a serving it had little similarities with the serving I grew up loving in an oval baking dish coming out hot and bubbly with ooey gooey melted cheese and a sauce that you could not wait to sop up on that wonderful bread that you were probably on your second or third basket of. I was devastated. Finally the bright spot of the evening dessert. The Gelato consisting of three small scoops of ice cream was good but the Tiramisu was the second best version we ever had. Would go back for that one but not for the rest. The serving staff was great and when we pointed out that no bread was delivered to our table till requested were quick to respond. I know that they do work hard to offer a pleasant experience. The one odd note is that they have a older Italian gentleman walking around just asking if all is ok but not really conversing with patrons as if he were just there for the pseudo experience but not there as if he owned the place and was there only for show. He reminded me of one of Tony Soprano's mob making sure you were enjoying the restaurant. In all a $270 not including the $15 valet fee for two was not the 75th birthday I had so very eagerly anticipated. Food memories of my childhood may never be...

Highly disappointed, had heard about Rao's NYC for years and was happy when they opened up in California a few years ago, FINALLY made time to go (for my daughters birthday) was so looking forward to going to Rao's but alas our experience was disappointing, their signature dish lemon chicken was TERRIBLE it was all vinegary and unpleasant smelling unless you're into vinegar there were FIVE (5) of us and no one was impressed. Rigatoni with bolognese sauce, rigatoni wasn't cooked all the way through indicting that it had come out of a box, sausage and peppers were fine I ordered a 1/2 order of fettuccine with al'arribiata sauce to match up with the sausage and peppers BUT LOW AND BEHOLD the sauce had NO FLAVOR, no SALT!!!!! The sauce for the salmon was way to heavy on the butter and AGAIN lacking in flavor. I place the blame at the feet of managers that let such poor executions take place in their kitchen let alone serve it to their customers I cannot believe that nobody else has complained and if they haven't they have no clue about eating good food. And please DON'T send me the canned response from management telling me how sorry they are for not meeting expectations, instead get up off your rear ends and fix the problems in the kitchen the name of Rao's on the building is only going to take you so far if management doesn't get in that kitchen AND FIX IT🙁

Just got the response from management and I'm disappointed that they take no responsibility that there are things that need fixing in the kitchen do you mean to tell me that your signature dish (lemon chicken) is supposed to be swimming in vinegar? And that the arribiatta sauce was supposed to have zero flavor? Next time use your bottled red sauce it actually has flavor. The two stars were for the service & the valet service, really sad that management is making excuses for bad execution out of...

I really wanted to like this place but sadly it's just not for me. I think it's mostly because of the patrons, mostly rich & full of themselves. I was seated next to a table of 4 and I couldn't even enjoy our meal or have a conversation with my family because their conversation was too overpowering. Rich Jewish types, talking about nothing except for money, houses they've bought or are buying and career. But mostly money. Another table the guy is wearing his sunglasses for the whole dinner, keep in mind that it's in the evening and indoors. Pretentious?!

Our waiter was not the best, which is what you expect when you are paying a premium for excellent service. He greeted us and when we went to order our appetizers, he wouldn't take the order and demanded that we order our appetizers and main dishes at the same time. This struck me as odd and I really didn't get a chance to explore the menu and felt rushed. When he brought the bread out it didn't have any butter, just some olive oil, which wasn't that tasty. Another thing was that it was my wife's birthday and I mentioned that to our waiter, which he acknowledged, and at the end of the meal I ordered some cheesecake expecting it to have a candle, it didn't. At this point in the night I was over it and just wanted to leave so I didn't even bring it up.

Dinner for 2 adults, 2 kids, nothing fancy, a couple of appetizers and a couple of main dishes and 1 desert, $150. What a mistake and waste of $. I wish I would have gone somewhere that was worth it and not this place. The food wasn't even that good. Meatballs were OK, I did like the Caesar salad though, my kids enjoyed the penne Bolognese, I ordered a simple spaghetti with marinara which was nothing special. It's funny too because I see their sauce for sale in the local grocery store for $8, not that good...