I've eaten at enough Nordstrom restaurants over the years that I've developed the slightly ridiculous condition of having opinions about individual Bazille locations.
Del Amo has generally been our reliable one. Fashion Island, unfortunately, won't be. We came in Sunday with our two and four year old while the restaurant was still open. For context, this Bazille closes at 5 p.m. on Sundays. We weren't pounding on the doors at 4:59 asking someone to fire the kitchen back up. There were other diners in the restaurant and we had plenty of time to eat.
Our server was exceptional. And I mean that without qualification. I wish I'd gotten her name because she deserves the recognition. Warm with our kids, empathetic, attentive without hovering and incredibly gracious as the restaurant approached closing. When the kitchen reached last call, she simply came over and let us know in case there was anything else we wanted. When the check arrived, there was none of that passive aggressive end of shift choreography designed to make you understand that everyone would very much like you to disappear. She made us feel welcome right until the end.
Unfortunately, almost everything surrounding her did the opposite. The host interaction was perfunctory enough that I initially wrote it off as someone reaching the end of a shift. Fine. Everyone has been tired at work. But as dinner continued, the atmosphere changed. Staff began breaking things down around us, dishes and equipment were being handled loudly enough we were bothered by the clanging and we repeatedly caught employees staring toward our table.
The strangest part was the basic human interaction. Someone would clear something from our table, we'd say thank you and get absolutely nothing back. Not a "you're welcome." Not a nod. Just the unmistakable sensation that our presence had become inconvenient.
I understand wanting to go home. I've wanted to go home from work too. But if the restaurant accepts customers until 5, those customers shouldn't have to spend the end of their meal feeling guilty for having believed the posted hours.
The frustrating thing is that our server understood this perfectly. She wasn't keeping us there. She wasn't promising unlimited time. She simply managed to communicate that the kitchen was closing without making a family with two small children feel like assholes for finishing dinner. That's hospitality. It isn't complicated.
The food didn't exactly rescue things. I ordered the cilantro lime chicken tacos, something I've had plenty of times at other Bazille locations. Four tacos for around twenty bucks already requires a certain suspension of disbelief. At five dollars a taco, the shell shouldn't taste like it has been waiting since lunch. These did.
The shells were stale and several were fried closed so tightly that there was barely room for the filling. The greens tasted off compared with what I'm used to and we received two lime wedges for four tacos. None of this rendered them inedible. It just made twenty dollars feel increasingly silly.
Our son's grilled cheese had cheese melted so far outside the sandwich that I had to push it back in myself while it was still hot and parts of the crust were hard enough that I ended up tearing them off before giving it to a four year old. My wife's panko chicken salad was the best of the food and generally good, although the breading was noticeably darker than what we're accustomed to.
And that's really the disappointment here. I like Bazille. I voluntarily eat at a restaurant inside Nordstrom when Fashion Island has approximately nine thousand other places trying to feed me. That's how much goodwill I'm bringing into this.
Restaurants are allowed to have an off plate of tacos. A grilled cheese can get away from somebody. I can survive receiving only half the citrus allocation I apparently believe I'm entitled to.
What I don't particularly want to pay for again is the feeling that my family needs to hurry up and leave a restaurant that is still open.
Whoever our waitress was, thank you. You were genuinely one of the better servers we've had anywhere in a long time and you were the reason this wasn't a one star experience. Everyone else working the close that afternoon should take notes from her. read more