Last week, we hit up Sunset Boulevard to try out Ketchup, the latest hip restaurant from the guys at Dolce Group.
These guys are the proprietors behind other celeb-spotting spots like Dolce, Geisha House and the nightclub Les Deux. So we had a good grasp on what kind of crowd we would find sitting in Ketchup.
Ketchup promises a re-invented American classics menu--taking essentially your diner favorites and making them with higher-end ingredients and adding flavors you wouldn't normally expect. Or as they say it--"Ketchup is like the Daily Grill on steroids." (Daily Grill is a Southern California casual restaurant chain.) Er...whatever.
The entrance to Ketchup annoyed us because despite the friendly hostess at the counter to the right, we had to climb up some wide but steep stairs. Now, we don't bat an eye at stairs in NYC but here in Los Angeles, land of the sprawl, this is just silly. (They did have an elevator for disabled access.)
Though, once upstairs and seated at our table, we could appreciate the enormous window that spanned a good portion of the restaurant with views of the Hills and thanks to the heat, was left open. A bit like dining al fresco, but not quite.
Most of the restaurant is white but since this place is Ketchup, there are red accents everywhere--the lighting (yes, red lighting), the fake ketchup splatters on the waiters' shirts, the napkins and the backs of the menus. There are several homages to ketchup bottles hanging as art work on the walls.
But none of that stuff matters, right? Here's what we ordered:
· The Grape Crush Cocktail: Grape Kool-Aid, Sweet and Sour, and Vodka
· Kobe mini-burger sliders
· Tower of Onion Rings served with five different ketchups
· Shake and Bake Chicken.
The cocktails were fun but expensive at $12 a drink for a lowball glass and made with cheap vodka. The Kobe sliders ($9) were not great. In-n-Out is better. Maybe even Burger King too. The tower of onion rings ($11) was good even if a bit excessive. How many fried onions should we really eat? And the ketchups were interesting. We only liked the Chipotle one. The Shake N' Bake ($18) left us pretty darn satisfied. It's a pistachio crusted chicken breast in a raspberry-dijon sauce with garlic mash and baby vegetables on the side.
For some scene factor, several of the Dolce guys were there, including Big Brother alum Mike Boogie Malin, and they were walking around checking in on everyone. One of them even took our check and handed it to the waiter, almost admonishing her for letting us wait too long.
In the end, we didn't walk away from Ketchup gushing about the food. No, we were trying to figure out if the couple across from us was a lonely man and his escort or just some slimey dude with a Porsche and his girlfriend who wore a shirt as a dress. That and how we needed some Tums. Too many onion rings.
Ketchup promises to be "another established timeless American Classic" which is something they can almost deliver. They have the scene, the location and the celebrity draw but they should really clean up that menu.
Related Stories:
· Ketchup on Sunset [Official Site]
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by juliana
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