Sonoma Wine Garden (Los Angeles, CA)

If you could eat the view, Sonoma Wine Garden would serve one helluva meal. We went at exactly sunset and though it was cold enough that we didn't bother to battle the hostess for outdoor seating, we were able to watch the California sunset (prolonged by car exhaust) sink slowly, pinkly into the ocean, through a huge picture window. Breathtaking. The food that followed was unfortunately slightly less so. 

It's not that the restaurant, located on the third floor of the posh, newly opened Santa Monica Place shopping mall, serves bad food; it doesn't. But the food is for the most part so generic and samey that it doesn't leave any strong impression whatsoever. At the end of the day, it is really just mall food, albeit high-end mall food. 

We ordered a bottle of prosecco and a whole host of plates to share, which we asked our actress, I mean waitress, to bring in whatever order the kitchen made them ready. 

Garden Pizza

The fried polenta with creme fraiche (not pictured) came first. I love polenta. I love anything fried. I even love pan fried polenta (a.k.a. fried grits), a traditional breakfast food in my home state. Sonoma Wine Garden's deep fried version came as huge, rectangular blocks, approximately the size and shape of sidewalk chalk. The outer layer was dripping with grease and obviously had not been blotted after frying at all. I'm personally not afraid of a little grease, but this might be a turnoff for many southern Californian health nuts who will all probably live longer than I do. I enjoyed eating that greasy, crispy outer layer. The innards -- which comprised 98% of the volume of each piece and 99% of the flavor -- were unfortunately wholly bland. Unless you did what I did and peeled off the outer layer of each piece to eat separately, individual bites were insipid, even with the creme fraiche dip. I think this dish would've worked as an accompaniment to a main course -- perhaps steak frites with fried polenta instead of frites or with a braise of some sort. But it didn't work as the main character. 

Roasted Root Vegetables

Our next dishes came in quick succession: the roasted root vegetables with turnip, celery root, carrots and parsnip and the garden pizza with ricotta, arugula, maitake mushrooms and truffle oil (pictured above). I didn't try the pizza crust or attached ricotta, but the crust was very thin and I believe crispy, rather than Neapolitan-style chewy. The mushrooms were pleasantly "meaty" and the arugula fresh. The bites I tried did not taste of truffles of truffle oil at all.

Root vegetables were, again, a bit overly oil and wholly bland. There wasn't that nice, caramelized crust on them or the deep, sweet, developed flavors that you get from slow roasting in an oven, I think because they were finished too early or perhaps even boiled for part of the time, before roasting. The dish could've benefitted from the addition of herbs or spices (rosemary, thyme, cumin) other than the tasteless green stuff (parsley, I think) that seemed to've been sprinkled on more for aesthetic effect than flavor. 

The salads fared better. The Sonoma salad with baby head lettuce, grapefruit, avocado and shaved Parmesan included very nice, fresh vegetables, as seems to be the norm in California. For some reason, vegetables just taste better on the West Coast than they do in NYC, whether you're comparing locally grown produce or California produce that stays in California v. California produce exported to New York. In any event, the lettuce was tender and flavorful, the grapefruit sweet and juicy, and the avocado perfectly ripe, though proportions were a bit off. The salad included a lot of lettuce and not very much of anything else.  

Roasted Beet Salad

The beet salad with roasted beets, fennel and goat cheese was probably my favorite dish of the evening. It was both beautiful to look at and beautiful to eat. Roasted golden beets, some with a tinge of sunset orange and red, were tender and sweet. They played well with the thin slices of shaved fennel, goat cheese and what I think were tender, baby basil leaves. Proportions of  ingredients were balanced and I like that the kitchen wasn't too heavy handed with the goat cheese. It tasted and looked (with its bright greens and yellows) like a spring dish. 

Pumpkin Ravioli

Our final dish was the pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and toasted pecans, which came simply plated on a long, rectangular plate. I tried a small bit of the pumpkin filling. It was slightly sweet, and somewhat non-descript, by itself -- but I could see how the plump ravioli would be wonderful popped into the mouth and chewed whole, so that the filling burst from the seams all at once and mingled with the nuttiness of brown butter and pecans. The ravioli "skin" appeared to be al dente when I cut into it. One of my dining companions raved about this dish, a variation of which is served with shaved truffles when they're in season. 

In certain contexts, this meal would be a good one: on an airplane, in an airport, at a Californian restaurant in Asia. In west L.A., though, where California cuisine is strong, Sonoma Wine Garden ultimately does not stand out for its food in any way. I'd surely go back to sip cocktails, sit on the roof deck and watch the sun set. But next time, we'll go for dinner, elsewhere.

395 Santa Monica Pl, Ste 300

Santa Monica, CA 90401

(424) 214-4560

sonomawinegarden.com/