Taste at the Palisades

I walked up with my dog needing a table outside but they didn’t have any available sadly. The Owner walked up and saw that I needed a table outside so he said «we can make something work» and the waiters began to make me a nice table and they even brought me a water bowl for my dog. That alone deserves five stars.

My husband and I moved to Palisades 3 years ago. We never stopped by this place until recently but have tried various other places in the area: The Farm Shop, Café Vida, Blue Daisy, R+D. By far, this is the best one in terms of value and quality. Farm Shop and R+D may have better ingredient but are a lot more expensive. (We we weren’t impressed by Blue Daisy or Café Vida at all!)
Definitely hidden gem in the Palisades.

There must have been a change in kitchen staff because food has become quite mediocre lately. It used to be a cut above the others. My Lobster Benedict was insipid today.

I was quite impressed by Taste. The menu had a good variety of options. I loved the atmosphere and décor. I had a simple breakfast. The rosemary potatoes were excellent. Our server Jennifer was hilarious. It was a group of 7, but the staff took care of our every need. I highly recommend it.

Love this place, truly don’t understand some recent posts! We just finished the perfect date/​birthday night. Our server Pedro way awesome and the manager Edward was very friendly and knowledgeable! Everything we ordered was PERFECT!

I usually enjoy this location but this time the server left us unattended for periods of time that were too long and drinks were empty. My burger seems like it was forgotten and once it came it was cold. No one came back for me T mention it was cold so it couldn’t really be resolved in a reasonable time either. We left Unsatisfied.

Taste is not tasty. I wouldn’t go back. The only good thing about Taste is the décor is nice and the staff is friendly and accommodating.
The food is mediocre at best. The cauliflower starter had an odd taste and was cold. The soup of the day was a beef soup that was not hearty or very satisfying. The pizza was okay, nothing special. The worst of the bunch was the pork chop. Dry and tasteless, there’s no way it was brined. I can make a better one at home. The mac n cheese also flavorless even though it’s got truffle oiI. I make this better at home as well. The only decent thing to eat was the sugar snap peas.
Such a bummer, wish it had been good.

DISGUSTING!!! It was my 2^nd visit. Both time were business lunches. My first experience was a pleasure, my 2^nd time was «DISGUSTING».
Our server was more interested in taking care of himself. He lacked any kind of personality when he came to the table. We ordered our drinks first when he arrived. I happened to glance over where he was standing, behind the bar, and witnessed him blowing his nose into a paper napkin and tossing it into the trash. He then placed each hand onto each side of his head to push his hair back behind his ears while looking at himself in the mirror across the room. I was DISGUSTED and wanted to get up and leave but I didn’t want to make a scene and stayed. EWeeeeeee…
The food was tasty. Our server lacked any quality’s of a professional server. Once our food hit the table he never checked on us. When we finished our meals he didn’t ask us if we would like anything else or how was everything. He just dropped off the check and walked away. Our table was loaded with plates and silverware that should have been removed.
My advice to this establishment is that if your trying to cater to the high end local crowed, higher established servers who know how to serve your local high end crowed.
I wont be back again.
V

I love the food here but sometimes the service is only ok. Their key lime pie is some of the best I’ve ever had — fresh lime is grated on top, perfect graham crust, and soft smooth filling. I’ve tried numerous salads and pastas and all are yummy. I particularly liked their spicy seafood pasta. They have good discount days too, like a discount wine day. The wine is decent and gets the job done! Prices are a little high but it’s good for a nice dinner or lunch. Atmosphere and décor is great, chic but down to earth.

*Update: A manager by the name of Mayuret Bryant sent me a kind message upon reading this. He offered to send me a gift card for my experience here. I emailed him the address to send it and of course it never came. Don’t trust anyone here.
My experience here wasn’t absolutely terrible but it was not at all good either. I wanted to like this place, it had an inviting décor and it was in a good location. But no after I ate here, I don’t think I’ll go back nor will I recommend this place to anyone.
It started off bad when my friend and I walked in at 9:12pm to get some dinner after a really long day. The manager at the door passive aggressively looked at his watch, turns to the hostess and says, «We’re still open right?» Taste closes at 10pm on Fridays. They were still open another 48 minutes. I worked in the food service industry for years and when a customer walked in 5 minutes before closing, we still served them. Not a good thing to say in front of your customers Mr. Manager.
After we sat down, the server came up to us immediately which was great but he kept coming up to us almost as if he were rushing us to order. He was however very attentive to our dietary needs and food allergies.
We both got our entrees quickly. My friend’s pasta bolognese was cold. He had to send it back. My brown rice pasta dish was quite tasty but some of the Tiger shrimp were cold as well. I didn’t bother sending it back. I wasn’t even finished with my entrée when the waiter insisted on taking our dessert order. This is not a good experience for the guests. I just wanted to get out of there so bad we passed on dessert.
While we were eating, I noticed Mr. Passive Aggressive manager enjoying his wine behind the bar and didn’t bother touching up on our table. So much for doing your job except drinking while on the clock. The only reason this place doesn’t get one star is because of the rest of the friendly staff that had smiles on their faces as they waited on us and thanked us for coming. But I’ve had better service at Denny’s for much cheaper prices.
Oh and by the way, we walked out at 9:57pm when they were still technically open. So Mr. Manager yes, Taste was still open the whole time we were there, from start to finish so don’t ever say stuff like that again to your customers bc it might get you a bad review.

First time here. Great menu of American style cuisine w inspired flourishes. Potatoes were served with diced peppers. My hole in one egg was baked perfectly inside a crunchy piece of bread and served over a creamy sauce with mushrooms.
Good value. Great service.
I’ll be back to taste more of the menu.

Come here a lot. Really like the addition of a full bar, which is a rariety in the Palisades. Staff is super friendly, even though often changing.
I really like the grilled artichoke with an aioli sauce. Nothing more exciting than it sounds, just something that isn’t on every menu.
The sabrosa salad is also decent, as advertised. Again nothing overly special, but good. I really like the pancetta & asparagus rigatoni. The short rib pizetta is very nice, maybe my favorite.
Wife loves the chocolate decadence, but my favorite is the brioche bread pudding.
They’ve got a nice happy hour now too.
Recently cme here for brunch and tried the mushroom, asparagus egg in a hole. Very tasty, super rich.

SO DISAPPOINTED with Taste!
I want to start this review by saying I prefer to write about amazing restaurant experiences Ive had and hope other people will have similar experiences because I love restaurants and the whole experience of eating and drinking unique and delicious dishes and beverages. I also love mentioning the amazing people who cook create and serve. Usually when an experience is bad I just don’t go back. With so few good choices for my family to eat out in the Palisades I felt I would share this bad experience:
We were really looking to eating here… so disappointed. The highlights (like the delicious wagyu meatballs) were completely overshadowed by the problems. To start: lemon drop martini was clearly really bad well vodka with what could have been the lemon juice from the plastic lemon and the rim was crusted with old sugar (like when the rimmer setup hasn’t been cleaned all day) and it was hard like concrete. Chicken tortilla soup had a fair flavor but didn’t have any chicken or avocado or fresh cilantro and the cojita stayed hard and clumpy even when warm. Salads were decent. Time for the entres. I knew it was time for the main course because the girl that brought them couldn’t reach my side of the table so she handed me the hot plate for me to grab over my dad’s head who was sitting in front of me. My meatballs were delicious but they were served over a flavorless pile of pasta. my wife had the short rib dumplings; short rib was tasty… too bad they were in what seemed to be pre-​made dumpling skins (chewy and bland) which were all stuck together and broke apart when we went to separate them. Pizza with the pears was the only dish that was fairly good. We also had the penne bolognese which was so bland and flavorless I couldn’t believe it on top of what had to be pre-​made pasta (the kind from a box) because it also was chewy until it broke in to crumbs in your mouth. Finally deserts: chocolate bread pudding was cut from a larger piece and heated so all the exposed edges were crunchy and the whole thing was really dry, even with the sauce under it which was some weird tasting caramel concoction from what I could tell. I wasn’t even offered a spoon or fork with which to eat the thing and had to wait some time so I finally asked the busser who promptly returned with desert utensils for the whole table. Lastly the cookie hot fudge sundae; cookie seemed homemade by someone who has never tasted cookies before because it tasted like hardened baking soda with super hard caramel drizzled over top. Loaded with caramel sauce the ice cream flavor couldn’t come through and alas… no hot fudge anywhere. When asked, the server said they were out of hot fudge so they put extra caramel… no apology… nothing. I would have spoken to the manager but there were 2 problems with that; he looked disheveled and unkempt and was sitting at a table with what looked to be a friend.
So to summerize: standards here are atrocious, service is definitely subpar and the food is a ridiculous mess. I hope this was unusual for this beautiful, well appointed, expensive restaurant but my wife and I will not return to find out.

We waited and finally got seated they brought us a bread basket with good tastey hummus. It’s a little far for me the Torrance of redondo store is a lot closer. This place was kind of empty that kind of all ways scares me.
So I Tried this placed Kobe meatballs and spaghetti it was good it had two sauces both were delicious. The Kobe meatballs were small of course but they were ok I had better. It needed some heat but I had a good experience waitress was nice,

My server was such a nice person. Just returned from a local place-​I was starving. The desert was terrific and my tacos were healthy and filling. Upon check in we were given a free dessert. The atmosphere is beautiful, high end and yet relaxing.

Got my oatmeal. It was delicious, as usual.
I was so hungry that I got my two eggs, potatoes, and orange juice.
It was wonderful to talk to my friends there & see them again!

We are local (Malibu) and for many years we enjoyed visiting TASTE in the Palisades. We especially liked our long-​time waitress Terry Ann, who no longer works there and has left California. However, we took advantage of the nightly specials, e.g. Wednesday was corkage free and another night was ½ off on a bottle of wine.
Maybe they have change management, just don’t know what went wrong. We arrived at 6:15 and stayed about an hour. Only a few tables were occupied, which was so different than in years past when every table was taken.
The menu looked similar, but a few of the words have changed. I asked the waitress about the flat iron steak, and she said it was «natural.» As we all know, «natural» has no definition. So, I asked more questions, e.g. Is it hormone free?, Is it antibiotic free?, Is it grass fed? Since she was unable to answer any of my questions, I ordered the pasta with shrimp.
My pasta – without shrimp – arrived. I waited for the block of cheese to be grated. There was nothing – nor did the waitress return to see if the dish was OK. After waiting for a while, I finally picked up my dish and walked into the other room and found a tall, handsome man who was willing to take my plate – glad he wasn’t a customer! I told him that the shrimp was missing. A few minutes later, my dish was served – I don’t recall an apology from the waitress. Again, no grated cheese.
Fortunately, my husband brought a delicious bottle of white wine. With hardly anyone in the restaurant on this Thursday evening, there was very little atmosphere; we thought the maximum corkage would be $ 15. Well, it was $ 20. I think we will be crossing this restaurant off of our regular list.

Love Taste. Liquor license great. 2^nd place in Palisades you can get booze booze. The Wagyu burger with onion jam excellent. I’ve had it twice since my first review. Key lime pie is small but excellent, though the signature is the chocolate bread budding with crème Anglaise and a tiny bit of outstanding vanilla bean ice cream.
The Palisades is hardly a foodie Mecca. We are all therefore grateful for Taste, which seems busier than ever since the liquor license approval.
My friend ordered the roasted chicken in cast iron pan atop fingerling potatoes and spicy cauliflower. If you don’t like cumin, you won’t care for this, but not a lot comes with the dish and our nice server brought us a whole side. Potatoes out of this world with flash fried kale I thought was sage.
Best discovery? Half-​price wine bottles on Tuesday! 62 Bouchaine Pinot delicious. So just 31. The Tempranillo at 42 a bottle regularly sucks. It’s like airplane red. They had another Pinot ordinarily 54 but sold out just before we arrived.
Also, from 3 – 6 Saturdays and Sundays only, Taste has happy hour. Popular starters are a few bucks less and house wine and well drinks 6 – 7!
Each night they have a special on something. Pasta. Wine. They do kid deals too but I am not a breeder so don’t care. Nice though for families.

I had heard good things about Taste, so I decided to come in for lunch. When we got there, there were only a handful of people dining at the time, so out experience with service might be better than some others. But, for this first experience, the service was outstanding and the food was great too.
My girlfriend had plans later in the day, so when the waiter brought over the menus, we mentioned that we were in a little bit of a rush. When we had decided what we wanted, it was a breeze to waive him down and order. I ordered the buttermilk fried chicken sandwich and she ordered the strawberry & kale salad. Taste was a perfect choice for the situation too, since the food came out very quickly.
My buttermilk chicken sandwich was crispy and juicy. There was a little bit too much breading on the chicken, but it was still great overall. The slaw was also a perfect complement. Put it on that brioche bun and it doesn’t get much better. The sweet potatoes fries that came on the side were okay, but they weren’t my favorite. The strawberry & kale salad was also good, but it could’ve been a little bit larger and included more strawberries. The salad also came with marcona almonds, feta, and their honey-​jalapeño vinaigrette as well, which tasted awesome.
As soon as it looked like we were finishing up, our waiter came by to ask if we were ready for the check. You could tell he was very attentive to the fact that we were in a hurry. When we replied that we did, he simply pulled it out of his apron. I love that he had already printed it and had it ready for us. Two thumbs up. Altogether we were out the door in 35 minutes. Unheard of!
Parking was a breeze for this whole little shopping center. Just park in the big lot out front. We had no trouble at all.
Taste at the Palisades just made it in with some of my Palisades favorites. Looking forward to stopping by again!

I had a delicious blt sandwich and salad. It was a great atmosphere and wonderful staff.
Loved the dessert!!!