Staff Meals Today: What Top LA Restaurants Are Serving Their Employees

[noahbites]

They cook for you, they serve you, they pick out your wine and they clean up after you. But what do they eat? Here is a sampling of what ten local restaurants are feeding their staff before they start taking care of you instead.

(http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/la...

)

1. Angelini Osteria
Lamb and veal in a lamb ragout. Spicy pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil. Arugula salad with veggies and roasted chicken.

2. Ciudad
Red chicken chilaquiles with cotija, manchego and panela cheeses.

3. Comme Ça
Beef stroganoff.

4. Craft
Roast chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and salad.

5. Drago Centro
Curry chicken legs with basmati rice and salad.

6. Fraiche
Penne with lamb spezzatino (stewed lamb) and salad. They're also offering a vegetarian pasta option.

7. Lucques
Suckling pig chili.

8. Matsuhisa
Beef teriyaki.

9. Providence
Lamb sausage and couscous.

10. Water Grill
Caesar salad.

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Angelini Osteria
7313 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036

[DallasChowChick]

Oh, we were spoiled at the tapa place i worked. Beef tenderloin kebabs with brandy cabrales cream sauce, goat cheese stuffed piquillo peppers. lots of brie, feta and olives. Yummm...

[pitterpatter]

At the last restaurant I worked in, the sous chef made the same thing for lunch every day -- and was eventually fired. This was unused chicken parts in some kind of white sauce and was truly disgusting. One day I found him on the bathroom floor choking on a chicken bone from his "lunch" and had to give him the Heimlich maneuver. In the back room the staff had a good laugh over "poetic justice."

[jeanmarieok]

ROFL! Good one, pitterpatter!!

[KTinNYC]

My question is what is the sous chef doing eating chicken in the bathroom?

[adamshoe]

Maybe it was cleaner than the kitchen.... :( adam

[Das Ubergeek]

That's not what they mean by "choking the chicken".

(Sorry... sorry... I couldn't resist.)

[DallasDude]

Interesting for sure. I worked in European style hotel in college and they always fed us. Usually not the best, but certainly hot meals and at no charge. Never what the guests were fed. I was happy to eat for free. I remember lots of rabbit stew and beef tips with rice.

[noahbites]

Another installment!

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/la...

1. Akasha
Meatball sandwiches.

2. Animal
Lomo saltado.

3. Ford's Filling Station
Taco Thursday-- pulled pork carnitas tacos with avocado and salsa (the salsa is made by the dishwasher, whose sister sends him chiles from Oaxaca).

4. Golden State Café
Red poblano chilaquiles with a fried egg.

5. Melisse
Thai marinated chicken with a broccoli and chile, Asian inspired rice.

6. Nobu
Corned beef and cabbage.

7. Osteria Mozza
Crispy chicken thighs with sage, rosemary, garlic cloves and roasted potatoes.

8. Palate Food + Wine
Lemon pepper chicken wings with salad and pasta.

9. Rivera
Crispy pork.

10. Rustic Canyon
Fennel sausage with pumpkin and kale. Arugula salad with apples.

[goodhealthgourmet]

am i the only one who finds #6 somewhat incongruous? corned beef & cabbage at Nobu? i'm not saying it should be Japanese, or even Asian necessarily, but this one is just odd.

[Philly Ray]

I think it is in the interest of a restaurant to serve the staff what is on the menu. That way, over time, they become the experts they should be when offering advice to customers.

[Harry Nile]

And that's why many restaurants do it, but they should also take care to serve well-balanced meals -- not merely an unrelated collection of dishes -- to help the staff remain healthy, energetic, and alert. You know, just like us customers. I would be shocked, shocked to find that any restaurant (at least, in Los Angeles, where this moveable thread began) doesn't care whether their staff is wide-awake and ... what was the other thing? ... oh, yeah, healthy.

[dtud]

is this every day? they have to eat the same thing every day?

i think it should be a crime if restaurants didn't feed their staff. totally uncool.

and what's with water grill? salad? no starch/protein?

[noahbites]

This is all just what they served today.

[dtud]

well, in that case - yum!

[dmd_kc]

I agree, yum to the salad -- but that's simply not a meal. Even if you eat 500 - 600 calories' worth of it, the only component of any significant nutritional value is the fat in the dressing and the white bread in the croutons. Not a really balanced or healthy meal by itself, regardless of the portions.

[ChefJune]

If it is a REAL Caesar Salad, there is egg and anchovy in it. Not what I think of as a Pre-Service Staff Meal, but NOT devoid of protein or food value.

[Harry Nile]

It would be interesting to correlate the calorie and refined-carb content of these meals with the energy and alertness of the staff.

[goodhealthgourmet]

definitely an interesting idea. i hope Water Grill supplements that Caesar salad with some sort of protein, otherwise that must be one cranky staff!

[noahbites]

Here are the rest of the links.

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Ciudad
445 S Figueroa St Ste 100, Los Angeles, CA 90071

Comme CA
8479 Melrose Ave West, Hollywood, CA

[noahbites]

Ok...for some reason I'm having link problems. Here we go.

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Water Grill
544 South Grand, Los Angeles, CA 90071

Craft
10100 Constellation Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90067

Providence
5955 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038

Matsuhisa
129 N La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Lucques
8474 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90069

Drago Centro
525 S. Flower St., Suite 120, Los Angeles, CA 90071