Feral Kitchen & Lounge — Restaurant in San Luis Obispo

Great overall experience during our first visit (because there will be more!) to Feral Kitchen & Lounge. Our waiter was Jack- super chill, very knowledgeable in both food and drinks, friendly, and attentive to our needs.

We arrived at 6pm on Saturday evening for dinner (01-04-25). No wait time. We were quickly greeted, welcomed in, and sat at a table for 4. I wish we would have sat at a booth. Maybe, we will get lucky next time.

Atmosphere was welcoming and casual. Great decor throughout. Taxidermy pieces with an Eye Spy feel. The setting was dimly lit and intimate. This would make a great dinner date place. The whole place was clean, staff well dressed and professional, and the restroom was clean and well stocked.

Moving on to dinner and drinks….

We had several different drinks. My favorite was the Pandamonia. We also tried the Himalaya’s Most Wanted, Very Demure, and Cali Squeeze on tap. All of them were good but the Pandamonia reigned supreme!

For appetizers we tried the Bone Apetite (bone marrow) , Untamed Tartare, and the Not So Sweet Breads.

Bone marrow was succulent and melt in your mouth good!

I will pass on the Untamed Tartare as it was very mustard forward for my liking and I couldn’t get the traditional taste of a fresh tartare with egg yolk. The fresh meat and yolk flavors got lost in the mustard for me.

The Not So Sweet Breads were 100/10! Best I’ve ever had and highly recommend if you’re an adventurous eater or just want to try something new.

Braise Your Bar was super tender short rib with mashed potatoes and roasted shishito peppers. The portion size was a bit on the smaller size but the taste and tender texture of the short rib made it all worth it! Mashed potatoes were flavorful and creamy. Shishito peppers were roasted to perfection.

Duckin Good- Duck leg confit was tender and flavorful. The entree came with a duck thigh and a hearty serving of cannellini beans, pork jowel, and carrots.

Find Your Mojo- hanger steak grilled with an achiote mojo, topped with chimichurri sauce and avocado, finished with cilantro cream and grilled onions onions in the side. It was finished off with a mount of crispy French fries. You can’t go wrong with that combo! The steak was super tender and the accompanying sauce was delectable! Fries were crispy and salted just right! Generous portion size. I would order this again.

And drumroll please…… Talkin Bout Tacos- these have got to be some of the juiciest short rib tacos I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying! 100/10! The consommé is out of this world good! Not spicy but packed with so much flavor! Paired with pickled onions…. I’ll be dreaming of these for some time!

Unfortunately, we had to save dessert for next time.

Overall, 9/10 for Feral! Great job! They really do offer a feast for all senses! Check out the menu for the scavenger hunt. Good luck finding the three mice playing cards. I left stumped. Until next time! I’d like to sit upstairs to have a couple cocktails before coming back downstairs for dinner time.

Kudos Team Feral!...

It's so much harder to have ATMOSPHERE than food and service. If you invest enough into your food by hiring a great chef and train really great staff then you can have awesome service, but that PLUS atmosphere is a different ballgame.

You won't be surprised when I say that THIS PLACE has atmosphere. It should be listed in the dictionary definition when the describe the meaning of the word.

Don't get me wrong--the service from ALL the staff is great. Every time I have looked toward and interacted with staff, I always get a friendly smile and a welcoming gaze. That's awesome!

And besides the really amazing mocktails (which are not really that easy to do) and the food we had (we had a couple appetizers as we were short on time), we were really very surprised and blown away. Cat's Meow and Figs of Paradise were the alcohol-free drinks we chose and they were both VERY yummy and mine was served in this really cool bamboo-looking ceramic tiki tall glass--neato!! My wife had the Rabbit Food which is this awesome baked carrot dish with spices that make you go mmmmmmm. And I had the Farmers' Market Board comprised of several pickled veg surprises and hummus with a few pieces of gf bread. Wonderful!

But the real star of the show is the wonderful decor. The menu boasts a scavenger hunt and encourages you to "stay curious" as you look through every corner and objet d'art on walls and above you and beside you. One of my favorite things are the animal portraits and you really have to see them to understand why because they give off this vibe like we're in a very interesting Lewis Carroll alternate reality where familiar things are impossibly different and fun!

And on this trip, we sat in the Upstair. Not many places feature such a fun...feature? Anyway, it was a great vantage point to take in all the cool writing on walls, gigantic mirror behind the bar, and so on! I encourage you to give it a shot because it's so cozy like the den of your...

I’ve gone twice because I know sometimes a restaurant can just have a bad day. I will never go back and I will tell everyone I know never to go either… The only people that will ever eat here are tourists who don’t know any better and those are probably the people giving good reviews, but locals? I promise you won’t see locals eating here more than once…or twice if they are like me.

It’s been dead both times I’ve gone and it’s because it deserves to be. The Service is the worst service I’ve ever had, it took me almost 20 minutes after ordering to get a drink when it was only me and two other people in the entire restaurant… because the bartender went back to cleaning after taking my order for some reason. She was also rude, unfriendly, and unhelpful. It’s the first time I ever wanted to leave after ordering because it was taking so long just because the bartender wasn’t doing her job. She is the only reason I’m leaving this review instead of just keeping my bad feelings about this place to myself

The food tastes like it was bought from Trader Joe’s frozen section… specifically the corn ribs. The menu is more loaded with cringy innuendos and puns than food description with old school sales pitch style quips. That should tell you how mediocre the food is going to be.

The ambience is confused and has no idea what it is trying to communicate. This place feels like someone with too much money and too much time but zero education or skills in the restaurant world slapped it together because their ego tells them that they are brilliant. Go to any of the amazing other places down town. All the places I was kicking myself for not going today… Mistura, Novo, Piandina, Giuseppe’s….so many places that actually deserve the amount of money they charge...