Pascal Lorange has opened another one of his famous Fig & Olive restaurants in West Hollywood and what better way to try it out than with your best friend? Friday night before the supposed rapture was supposed to happen, Elizabeth & I hit up the new mediterranean-esque hot spot for some much needed quality time & good food.
OK, I know I don’t really even like figs or olives, but this place is great. First it’s beautiful – when you first walk in, it sort of feels like any hip new spot in West Hollywood with the bar filled with people and comfy looking lounge areas nearby. Then you walk into the dining area where you feel like you’re outside, but you’re not. High ceilings, foliage, music, perfect lighting and adorable tables & chairs. There are some spots w/ pillows that look very inviting, the kind of spot you can sit, eat, drink & talk for hours. We were welcomed with housemade foccacia with 3 types of olive oil for dipping. We spent a while figuring out what to get because everything looked amazing. We started off with some cocktails which were made with fresh & yummy ingredients. Sipping them over girl talk and mulling over the menu we decided on a few apps – crostinis to share:
Cucumber, Green Onion, Yogurt / Mushroom, Truffled Artichoke, Parmesan / Manchego, Fig, Marcona Almond / Roasted Bell Pepper, Ricotta, Caper / Shrimp, Avocado, Cilantro, Tomato
Every single bite of those little crostinis were soooo good. Thinking about them right now makes a little rumble in my tumble! Elizabeth had the Fig & Olive salad (romaine, mesclun, fig, apple, manchego, dolce gorgonzola, tomato, walnut, olive, scallion, 18 yr old fig & balsamic – Arbequina Olive Oil) which she said was good, but “had chunks of this weird cheese, what IS that?!” Where I had the side salad w/o tomatoes, it wasn’t that great, but we were trying to get our greens on. For our entrees, we had the Salmon A La Andalucia (zucchini, fennel, tomatoes, chickpeas, verdial olive, oregno, garlic, lemon, Picual olive oil) and Penne Funghi Tartufo w/ Grilled Chicken (cremini mushroom, black trumpet, parmesan, parsley, scallion, White Truffle olive oil.) If you just read that & are not drooling, then you might be crazy. I do love when restaurants list the majority of ingredients because as a picky person, you really want to know what you’re getting yourself into when that plate arrives. I can’t comment on the salmon, but Elizabeth said it was really good. I LOVED my dish, it honestly was the perfect balance of all of those flavors. It was a little too much olive oil, but once you’re over the little pool of it on the bottom of the dish it’s really delicious. The chicken was also grilled very well – still juicy! I couldn’t finish it all, but I was very happy that I had decided to take the rest home because the next day my taste buds thanked me again. We spent a little over 3 hours there… yes because we hadn’t seen each other in a while and we had a lot to talk about and catch up on, but the atmosphere is very comfortable & welcoming.
The rapture was predicted for the next day, so if it had happened I would’ve been very happy with that last meal before I went to hell. But since it didn’t, I will definitely go back.
Fig & Olive | 8490 Melrose Place, West Hollywood | 310.360.9100
