Alice B. — Restaurant in Palm Springs

We had come for brunch before and were not impressed. We figured we’d try them for dinner just for good measure. That was an expensive mistake.

This restaurant is definitely not fine dining despite what it charges. Here is why:

Can’t be bothered to bring matching wine glasses to a two top.

Waitress insisted on me tasting the wine from a screw top. The $15 a bottle rosé wine sold for $60 isn’t going to be corked because it has no cork. Also, 2022 is starting to be old for a rosé at this price. Lastly, if you are going to bring an ice bucket to the table to keep the wine chilled, you probably should have some water for the ice to cool so the wine bottle can actually be chilled. That’s wine service 101.

$16 for three tasty biscuits brought to the table with a thumb in the plate touching the food. The butter was left behind and had to be brought afterwards.

The man serving water apologized to us about it being cold. Having not complained about the temperature we were confused. He kept talking about the heaters coming next week. We finally had to tell him bluntly that nobody had complained about being cold and my wife told him she had just taken off her jacket because she was hot.

They had apparently replaced two of their menu items out of the very limited selection but could not be bothered to print new paper menus.

Let's talk prices...

$28 for a roasted sweet potato lazily cooked and served with Tahini and some pomegranate seeds.

$40 for a simple chicken schnitzel, some aioli, and a side of radicchio salad that would have been more tasty at Johannes down the street.

My wife could only eat so much of the huge roasted sweet potato because it just wasn’t that exciting. When the heater/water man came back to bus our table, he expressed shock that she would not take a box to bring home the leftovers. He really wanted to offer us more unsolicited opinion but she was able to squash it by saying no “thank you” firmly.

We decided to pass on the $15 dessert options.

Because of all of this, we will not be returning. There are so many better dining options in Palm Springs for the same price. Celebrity chef schmelebrity! You really need to do a better job at training your staff on basic restaurant etiquette if you want to be considered...

My sisters and I were in town celebrating my sister's retirement. She wanted to eat here to celebrate. The food was so very good! We had the biscuits which were amazing, smoke salmon carpaccio and trumpet mushroom shawarma as appetizers...all delicious, albeit the salmon carpaccio was pretty small if you want to share with 3.

For dinner, we had the pork shoulder, the shepherd's pie and one of the steak specials. All of the meals were equally delicious as the appetizers, but by the time we ate, it was too heavy.

The reason we ate so late is because the service was SO SLOW!!! We had a 6:30 reservation; we got there on time. We were seated quickly and water and bread were on our table within a few minutes.

After that....radio silence! We waited between 10 - 15 minutes before the server came over, introduced herself and finally took our drink and appetizer orders. Normally the drinks come pretty quickly or at least some time before appetizers. Nope, they both came at exactly the same time about 15-20 minutes later. (We were pretty starved at this point.)

We made the mistake of not ordering our dinners when we ordered our drinks/appetizers because our server did not come back again FOR A LONG TIME before she took our dinner orders. By the time she returned, one of the pasta specials that my sister had wanted was no longer available. They had just run out.

Oddly enough, we got our dinners within about 15 minutes of ordering; we were pleasantly surprised about that one. In any case, we did not leave this restaurant until after 9!

I do want to say that the restaurant is decent sized but not overly huge. The tables were pretty full, but there seemed to be several servers working. So, it didn't seem like they were short staffed.

Definitely have great food, but go there knowing that you're going to be staying there FOR A LONG TIME! Oh, and don't go there hungry. You'll be starving before you actually...

With all the hype, we had to try Alice B.’s. My husband is a Foodie, descended from a long line of Foodies, and both of us love dining out. Our first impression was how very antiseptic the Lounge, and on our second trip there, the main dining room was, too. Our guess is that this was purposeful, and honestly we hope we’re right as having such a sterile environment by accident feels tragic. We shared the yellowtail crudo and chickory salad and both were delish! We began to forgive the hotel lobby feel. On our second trip we brought the in-laws and started with a cocktail. I started with a dirty martini (blue cheese olives of course) and I was SO disappointed to see not fresh delicious blue cheese stuffed in easy to find, classic Castelvetrano olives, but canned/jarred pre-stuffed olives wherein the blue cheese is inevitably (and on this night of course) stale and inedible. I was confused. Celebrity chefs for multiple decades running, several successful restaurants and such a simple gesture overlooked. Neither blue cheese olives, nor dirty martinis are difficult to make, why then are you cutting corners dear Alice B owners?? Our party of four reported decent, good, very good, and over-priced as our evening review. I’m sure nothing will change as celebrity chefs don’t generally need our approval ratings (also sad), but it would be impressive if they tried! One last comment on the Lounge, which sans the bartop, has no lighting but for a candle on each table. This assumedly purposeful light-absence does not create an ambience, it just feels like somebody forgot to turn the lights on at the start of their shift. We do give mad props to the piano player, Robert, whose music (and personality) is delightful, fun, and perfectly...