The Factory Kitchen — Restaurant in Los Angeles

This place is A-OK.

This place is PERFECT for group outings. They recommend sharing the dishes so you can try a little bit of everything. The portions are well sized so don't worry about leaving hungry.

We ordered 3 entrees, 2 appetizers, and some cocktails and wine.

Cocktails: italian stallion - fernet branca, lemon, ginger -Incredibly smooth. You'll definitely feel a little buzzed with this one but you'd never taste it. This was my favorite cocktail, here. $10

weet jane - barrel aged genever, rhubarb, lavender honey -This was really good if you have a bit of a sweet tooth. The lavender is very gentle and doesn't overpower the drink. The light sweetness from the honey was a nice finish on the taste buds. This one is really good if you just want to sip for a very long time (or drink it super fast lol). Very good! $10

backyard boogie - templeton rye, root, fennel, absinthe mist, orange oil -This one taste JUST like a root beer float. It's smaller than the other cocktails. While good, root beer float isn't exactly my favorite flavor for cocktails but it was very well made. So if you like A&W without the ice cream you'll really enjoy this drink. $10

Wine: sangiovese - casamatta, toscana, italy, 2011 -While this was a very good wine, they gave me a very tiny amount. Some in my group got a little more, and everything in-between. The serving amount was all over the place. I would just skip ordering wine by the glass here because of that. Just go straight for the bottle. $9 a glass

Appetizers: brodetto - steamed littlenecks clams, mussels, garlic, organic garbanzo beans, clams water -This was very good but there's room for improvement. As others have noted, I'm not sure why the mussels aren't in their shell and just hidden at the bottom of the bowl. They only give you two tiny crouton bread, so you have nothing to sap up all that nice clam broth. Very good, but I wouldn't recommend ordering this if you're in a group. $14

prosciutto - parma prosciutto 24 months, lightly fried sage dough, stracciatella -This was REALLY GOOD, perfect for sharing. It's just a really simple prosciutto on what taste like a fried bread with some cheese on top. This was one of my favorites of the night. $18

Entrees: mandilli di seta - handkerchief pasta, ligurian almond basil pesto, fiore sardo -This was my other favorite dish of the night. A very simple pasta dish but the flavors were just perfect. The pasta was very very light and the sauce they used really infused just the right amount of flavor and really brought out the unique subtle texture of this pasta. I know in all the pictures it looks like a tiny hump of noodles. It's actually a lot of noodles, so worry not. Highly recommend getting this. $19

porchetta - rolled pork belly, red onion, carrots, fennel, celery -While the pork belly had a lot of flavor it was actually kind of dry. So that was pretty disappointing. But at least the flavor was solid and very savory. The carrots/veggies served under it were blackened and over cooked. For the price and the overcooked-ness of the dish overall, I would skip this one. $24

tradizionale - crescenza, arugula, ligurian olive oil with the added shaved truffles -This dish without the truffles is very simple and delicious to simply put it. The cheese in the middle is perfect. I regret getting the shaved truffles for this because it didn't add or take away anything from this dish. If you get shaved truffles expect to add $20 to the base cost of this. The truffles they use for the dish are questionable. They were not aromatic at all which was very frustrating. So I'm hoping they didn't use cheap Chinese truffles, but they are definitely cheap and not fresh. They are certainly not worth the extra cash you have to pay for them. So skip the truffle and enjoy the Tradizionale as is. $16+$20...

Factory Kitchen has solid food with standard flavor profiles, in a nice but casual atmosphere. Factory Kitchen is just west of the 101 Freeway near Alameda and 6th street. The restaurant is in an industrial neighborhood alongside warehouses, storage buildings, hipster lofts, and abandoned buildings. The ambiance is bright and clean with an industrial feel to it. The open kitchen and TV at the bar add to the low-key atmosphere. Arrived at about 130 PM midweek and Factory Kitchen was about a quarter full. Service was professional, knowledgeable, and cordial. However, it wasn't too warm and felt like they were going through the motions. The tables were also spaced closely to each other and might feel crowded during a busy dinner service. In general, the food was solid but somewhat standard.

Cremosella - creamy mozzarella, green beans, pea shoot salad, ligurian oil ($14.00): The salad and green beans were fresh, well-seasoned, and well-dressed. The creamy mozzarella (like a burrata) was rich, creamy, and filled with cheesy flavor. The salad was sprinkled with good olive oil and, I think, a basil based dressing. +1 to the amount of cheese in the salad as well. It's hard to fault this dish.

Francobolli - pasta stuffed with three meats, veal sugo, foraged mushrooms ($22.00): The pasta was well cooked and the ingredients stood out. The tomato sauce had strong veal flavor that permeated the dish in a good way. The mushroom flavor was good as well and the dish was well seasoned. The drawback, however, was that the sauce seemed to be watered down from the pasta at the bottom of the plate. The dish had small puddles of water in it, as if the pasta was not drained enough. Otherwise the flavors of the dish were good, albeit standard.

Pane - chocolate bread pudding, warmed caramel sauce, vanilla gelato ($10): The bread pudding was meh. Tasted like a standard bread pudding that you could get at any decent restaurant. The chocolate, gelato, and crumb had good flavor. However, the bread was a tad dense and I also ran out of crumbs halfway through the dessert. The caramel was also sweet but without bitterness. I needed something to cut through all the sweetness.

Parking: valet. Since the restaurant is in an industrial area, the neighborhood seems meh to do street parking. The street that Factory Kitchen is on also had some areas with no parking signs. Valet for lunch was $3+tip. The valet...

Reservations here are pointless - they won’t honor it anyway.

I’d like to start by saying I was really excited to try this restaurant. I’ve heard lots of good things and was looking forward to coming here to celebrate my friend’s birthday dinner. We made a reservation for 8pm on a Friday night, and our entire party arrived at 8pm on the dot. When we checked in with the hostess, she informed us that we’d have to wait a little longer while they cleared out the table.

After ~15 minutes, we still hadn’t received any communication from the hostess so we checked in again. She informed us that they were waiting for another party to finish up their dessert, then we’d be seated. We continued waiting for a total of 40 minutes past our original reservation time before we asked to speak to a manager. The hostess attempted to brush us off, saying that the manager would be coming shortly even though we clearly saw him wandering around the restaurant.

We finally managed to get a hold of Jeff Smith, the manager, and explained to him that we had made a reservation for 8pm, but it was 8:45 at this point and we still hadn’t been seated. Jeff made no apologies for the inconvenience, and instead said “I don’t know what you want me to do, you wouldn’t like it if I tried to rush your party out of the restaurant.” You’re right, Jeff, we wouldn’t like that. But we also didn’t like it when you refused to honor the reservation we made either.

At this point, we decided that it wasn’t worth the wait and informed Jeff that we’d like to cancel our reservation. Jeff responded by saying “Where are you going to go? I know this area very well and you’re not going to get anywhere better on a Friday night.” He offered us free appetizers for wasting our time, but we decided to call it quits and opted for Ave. 26 tacos instead.

In summary, we were shocked at the complete lack of consideration and rudeness of the staff. While the food looked delicious as we saw plenty of other parties being seated and served on time, it simply isn’t worth the trouble of dealing with Mr. Smith and his staff. I recommend visiting all the other places in the area for good food, including Bavel, Bestia, Rossoblu, Maccheroni...