11 Reasons Why The Bowery is a Good But Imperfect Option After the Arclight

1. Pressed-tin ceilings, white-tiled walls, black-leather barstools.
2. Excellent hamburgers and homemade onion rings.
3. An eat/drink bar where they're genuinely happy to have you do either or both.
4. Oversized windows open to the street.
5. Wine/beer lists are short but sweet.
6. Pabst Blue Ribbon in the can. If you feel like showing off.
7. It's loud. 78-83 dBs.
8. The kitchen's open until midnight.
9. Whole-leaf Caesar salad.
10. Balky kitchen. Mussels can be delicious. Or they can contain a bizarre excess of saffron, the shells trapping saffron stamen like so much seaweed and turning the broth a disturbing, vivid orange. Tasted harsh and must have killed food costs for the night.
11. You'll never get in at Hungry Cat.

The Bowery, 6268 Sunset Blvd. (323) 465-3400

Comments

[Meesha]

Bowery is one of the restaurants in this town that I am very vocal about NOT recommending. Why?
1. No beer on tap.
2. Burgers were served raw and rare, despite having ordered them medium and medium-well.
3. The most egregiously raw burger was taken back to the kitchen for more cooking, then redelivered on the SAME PLATE, which was still soaked in blood and juice from the first unsuspecting bite.
4. Redelivered burger is revealed to have been cooked only to barely medium-rare.
5. Both server and manager say, "Just so you know, we use very good beef so we don't cook our burgers as much as you might think we need to." Um, OK, then what's the point of asking how we wanted our burgers cooked?

To their credit, they did only charge half-price for the one burger that was deemed inedible. But it clearly should have been comped--we didn't eat ANY of that burger after the first bite, and the repeated back-and-forth with the kitchen, server, manager, etc., ruined our meal. Enough that I feel driven to write this comment and warn others away.

Why don't they just cook the meat to accepted standards in the first place? Or explain the whole "we serve our burgers on the rare side" thing when the customer is ordering?

[Tucker]

I've gotten nothing but attitude and reluctant, slow service at the Bowery. There's nothing like an annoyed, "don't bother me" expression on a bartender's face, especially when the joint it empty.

[Dana]

Yikes. I've eaten there several times and had good service at the bar and on the floor. This visit was the first indication that there was something amiss in the kitchen. In addition to those weird mussels (really, did the spice jar fall in the pot?), the "chicken french dip" was more of a fried chicken breast sliced in half on toasted, somewhat tough bread. Very difficult to bite into and, once I did, saw no real reason to do it again.

[Andrea]

As is usually the case on comment boards the people who take the time to write are those with grievances. Since I have had nothing but incredible experiences at Bowery I feel I should pipe in as well. My burger (which is usually what I order) is always impeccable. No other place in this city offers a burger of that calibur for the price. The beer selection for such a tiny place is amazing. Servers are usually very attentive and caring, but I go in knowing that I am in a gastropub and not a four star restaurant. I love the way the place feels, the food, the service and my only complaint is waiting to have to be seated. Cheer up everyone it's fun to go there.