Paparazzi Restaurant
Whenever my husband flies in and out of LAX (which is a lot). He books a room at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel near the airport. It is a wonderful place to stay on a layover or for a pre/post flight rest-up.
One of our favorite things about the Sheraton is the Restaurant, Paparazzi Ristorante, but not the dining room itself-which is lovely, but the lounge. Now please be careful if you go NOT to sit in the main lobby lounge as it is noisy, expensive, and the service is crap. Go into the Paparazzi entrance and turn sharply to the left and you will see a small intimate louse full of sofas and plush chairs to relax in. Sit down at the bar or a table and the service will be spot-on! You can order from the full restaurant menu, in a much more relaxed atmosphere than the slightly stuffy dining room. Mario and Horacio are the regular servers/bartenders, and they do a BANG-UP job with impeccable service.
OK, Julie, but how is the food? It is always as good as it gets! We started the other night with a tuna tartare duo dressed with basil oil and blood orange sauce. I found the tartare itself to be heavenly, the basil oil to be a perfect accent to the delicate fish, but the blood orange sauce was misplaced. It is a very strong tasting sauce and overpowered the other flavors. I just pushed it aside and ignored it.
My hubby ordered an Italian version of Bouillabaisse, which he finished to the last drop.
I ordered the Sea Bass originally, and although it was visually stunning, that blood orange sauce made a reappearance. To my horror there was something on the top of the 'stack' of fish they were calling "chili strips". they were the consistency of horse hair, and very very bitter. Once combined with the orange sauce it was a very unbalanced dish, I felt like the delicate flavor of the Sea Bass had been compromised. In a nutshell it was beautiful to look at, but tasted just yucky!
Horacio was right on it! He took away the fish and brought me a menu. I then ordered the Linguine a la Langostino (for those who don't know what that is-it's like a cross between a small lobster and a jumbo shrimp). This dish more than made up for the first one. The Langoustine were PERFECTLY cooked, the pomodoro sauce was freshly prepared, and the pasta was ideally al dente! I ate the entire dish!
We couple the meal with a few expertly prepared cocktails, and it was heavenly! We had wonderful experience all the way around.
If you stay at the Sheraton Gateway, definitely make your way to the Paparazzi lounge and relax, order some drinks, and eat some of the best Italian this side of Italy!
One of our favorite things about the Sheraton is the Restaurant, Paparazzi Ristorante, but not the dining room itself-which is lovely, but the lounge. Now please be careful if you go NOT to sit in the main lobby lounge as it is noisy, expensive, and the service is crap. Go into the Paparazzi entrance and turn sharply to the left and you will see a small intimate louse full of sofas and plush chairs to relax in. Sit down at the bar or a table and the service will be spot-on! You can order from the full restaurant menu, in a much more relaxed atmosphere than the slightly stuffy dining room. Mario and Horacio are the regular servers/bartenders, and they do a BANG-UP job with impeccable service.
OK, Julie, but how is the food? It is always as good as it gets! We started the other night with a tuna tartare duo dressed with basil oil and blood orange sauce. I found the tartare itself to be heavenly, the basil oil to be a perfect accent to the delicate fish, but the blood orange sauce was misplaced. It is a very strong tasting sauce and overpowered the other flavors. I just pushed it aside and ignored it.
If you stay at the Sheraton Gateway, definitely make your way to the Paparazzi lounge and relax, order some drinks, and eat some of the best Italian this side of Italy!
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