Skylight Gardens

I am so excited I have found this gem of a restaurant in Westwood! Hands down the best Italian meal and one of the most memorable dining experiences I have had in LA.
My friend and I decided to do dinner here at Skylight Gardens since we both are Italian cuisine fanatics and had not tried this place out yet. We were more than pleased with our decision.
We started out with the Barbabietole. I am a beet lover, and this dish was delicious! For my main course, since I absolutely love spice, I went for the Strozzapreti Alla Norcina. This pasta was SPOT ON. A perfect combination of spicy crumbled sausage and a black truffle cream sauce made for a very flavorful pasta!
After being so pleased with our first two dishes there was no way we were going to walk out without trying a dessert. Dave, one of the owners’ sons’, came by our table to see how our meal was and if we needed anything else. We asked him what we should order to satisfy our sweet tooth. He suggested the Sticky Toffee Pudding, which he said happens to be his specialty. But then he also recommended the Butter Cake. We could not make up our mind so we ordered both and shared them. Holy Moly! These two desserts were spectacular! Both were perfectly moist and very tasty. I had never had Sticky Toffee Pudding before so Skylight Gardens has sure set the bar high for every other sticky toffee pudding I try from now on!
The ambience, stellar service and authentic Italian cuisine all made for a beautiful evening. I will be coming back as well as telling all my family and friends about Skylight Gardens.

We were excited to have dinner there after a one hour drive. There were six of us. Our table was at the bar, beautiful ambiance. We had the salmon tartar, beet salad, very nice we enjoyed it very much. Then for entrée we asked the server for another beetroot with salmon salad, soup and file mignon medium well… which we repeated several times. The soup, salad with salmon came early. 25 mins later the rest of the entrees were served. The file was rare. We told the server we asked for file to be medium well. He took it to the kitchen came back with the next cut which again was rare. We asked for the manager, when he arrived, he shook his head, apologized for the mistake and came back with a small snack to make us feel better, however this was not an adequate replacement for the file that I could not eat. Unfortunately that was such a bad experience. I am not sure we will want to go back. I forgot to add that the quinoa salad was really good.

Service, the condition of the facilities, the menus choices, and the food was excellent.
I would definitely return.

My boyfriend and I have been coming to Skylight Gardens pretty consistently for a year or so now. We mostly go for bunch which offers many of the classics (Eggs Benedict and Chilaquiles are my favorites) or the Skylight Omelet for more of their signature taste which is a lovely choice too. (my mouth waters just thinking about it)
The ambiance is spectacular. There is a room for every mood you might be in. If it’s Happy light and airy then you can sit in the Atrium where the sun shines down the giant skylight through the tree’s that grow in the middle of the circular room. But if Cozy and romantic is what you are feeling then you can sit in the bar with the brick walls, cozy arm chairs and and a fireplace to keep you warm.
The staff is also always kind. We are always greeted with a smile from the hostess. Heather has been our waitress pretty much every time we’ve gone there. She alway greets us with a warm smile and quickly returns with our bottomless mimosas before we even order them. She is by far a huge reason why we keep coming back.
To address one of the complaints about parking. Well there is valet or here is a guide to all of the garages around Westwood:
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Finally had the chance to try this after living in the area for 3 years. Its walking distance from UCLA and a lot of buildings on wilshire, but there is validated parking available right across the street.
We started with the meatballs which were really juicy and perfectly meaty. Someone came by and told us it was his mom’s recipe– the staff was really friendly. We went around 6 or so for dinner, and the bar area was super crowded, so I’ll have to give happy hour a try. If you want a view of the «stars» (you don’t get many in LA) make sure to sit in the main dining room. They have twinkling lights throughout the rooms making an elegant atmosphere. They bring you nice warm bread that is slightly seasoned with herbs and olive oil on the side. We didn’t even have to ask for another plate since they picked up on the bread obsession and kept them coming!
I got the handmade pasta with truffle sauce and italian sausage. The pasta was nice and thick and had a very comfort food feel. I also tried some of my friend’s short rib — it tasted as good as it looked! The mashed potatoes it came with were a little cold, but the fried kale was on point – and I hate kale. I have to say the best part of the meal was the dessert– the moist chocolate soufflé cake with a name I can’t pronounce. The cioccolatissimo melts spills out warm chocolate as soon as you cut into it and the vanilla ice cream adds the perfect creamy texture. Looking forward to coming here again!

I took my family to brunch at Skylight Gardens. We couldn’t decide between several great sounding options so we shared the blueberry pancakes, the French toast, and the artichoke frittata. They were all delicious, but my favorite was definitely the pancakes!
Our waitress, Heather, was attentive and quite helpful. Her recommendations of the three meals above were spot on.
The great food, excellent serving staff, and beautiful atmosphere made for a great dining experience.

3.5 stars
I’ve been to Skylight Gardens on multiple occasions for both happy hour and dinner, and my experiences have ranged from 1star to 5star. It’s a beautiful venue with great food, I want so bad to love it. But the service here often leaves something to be desired. On a couple occasions, I’ve had phenomenal, highly personable and attentive service. But on most occasions, even when the restaurant has been half empty, service has been painfully slow and negligent.
Skylight has great food and drink options at Happy Hour. Prices of most items are in the $ 5-​$ 10 range, and everything I’ve tried has been tasty. I love their passionfruit martinis, though they also have decent wine and limited beer selections. Food has always been solid at happy hour. I enjoy the calamari – seasoned and fried to perfection, it is a staple on my happy hour order. The bruschetta and short rib fries are tasty and the margherita pizza is the best value on the menu. I’ve had a few experiences at happy hour that were perfect, and a few that left me vowing to never return and it has all been based on service. The bar area tends to be understaffed so it takes an eternity for orders to be taken and another eternity for food and cocktails to arrive at the table. On one occasion, it took almost half an hour for food to arrive, and half of our order had been forgotten. The food that did come out came piecemeal and lukewarm. We just cancelled the items that were forgotten and asked for the check.
The ambiance for dinner romantic and whimsical with moody lighting, tall ceilings with a magical skylight and a real life tree in the center of the dining room. It’s a beautiful space with so much potential. The food is also delicious. I’ve tried various pastas including the bolognese and the seafood risotto, and everything was cooked and seasoned well. The problem is the service. It takes an eternity to place an order, another eternity for dinner to come out, another eternity to place a dessert order and another eternity to receive the check. My last dinner here was a little under three hours. Yes it was for a larger party (about 8), but the wait times were still excessive, even in good company.
Skylight is a beautiful venue with immense potential. If they hired more waitstaff and were better organized I’d be a regular here. But sadly, I can only frequent Skylight when I am not too hungry and know I have three hours to spare.

Today was my birthday celebration and it was ended with a Hitler salute: I have never had a worse experience. I wish my cousin had not spent her hard earned money at such a uneducated establishment… The hostess was unfriendly but agreed to seat us. Once seated, Not only did we experience poor service. We had to beg for any passer by to take our order. After an hour with no food or drink order being taken, we were finally served our entrees which were cold and quite frankly inedible (despite ordering the most expensive meal on the menu). We were afraid to say anything because of the treatment we received thus far.
All we wanted to do was leave so i went to the bar to ask for the check as I knew we would have been there until closing if we waited for someone to bring it. At that point I was given the Nazi salute by my original server and I was floored. His counterpart conceded that it was shocking for me to be the recipient of the most hateful act possible. My group is not hateful and tipped out usual 30% as we will never change who we are despite the adversity in which we were treated. Honestly I could continue but this place is not worth it. NEVER EVER GOING THERE AGAIN!!!

This review is purely about the staff, the bar, the wine selection and the atmosphere.
My office is way up high and across the street. After a recent dinner elsewhere with colleagues, a few of us decided to swing by and enjoy some wine at Skylight Gardens. And many bottles we did enjoy. The staff was excellent and the venue is of course very nice. A lot of people having a good time, even on this past Thursday evening.
I was introduced to maybe my favorite red wine ever; and I am a big red wine guy. It is called Summers and it’s a 2012 charbono from Napa Valley. Extremely good and I am coming back for more soon. Please save a bottle for me, Skylight Gardens!

So good and great service! came here on Sunday for lunch and some wine with someone and I was impressed. Very cute on the inside there are a few fireplaces that makes it more romantic for sure. The spinaci salad was amazing. Not drenched in dressing like some places do he got the artichoke fritatta which was delicious as well really good food! and the waitress came back at appropriate times and didnt bug. Customer service really makes or can break a place. It was in Santa Monica Westwood area though so it is what i expected. We will definetly be back soon!

+‘s
+Nice location in Westwood Village
+Beautiful venue — simple yet classy and romantic
+Great service /​friendly staff
+Food was excellent ~~ appetizers & mains. Portions were right on.
+Perfect date spot or large group gathering. We had a party of 6 and we were able to converse easily — noise level was nice and low.
+Found parking right away
-‘s
…can’t think of any…

This is one of my favorite places to eat in Westwood and I come here often. The menu is excellent for mid-​to-​upscale Italian, and they have excellent daily specials. Be sure to ask about their daily-​changing risotto special, which is always superb.
The wait staff, especially Anthony and Heather, are always friendly, provide excellent service, and make you feel right at home. And Ruben behind the bar mixes up some tasty cocktails and is ever increasing the bar’s specialty whiskey menu.
Also, depending on where you sit, you can have a different experience in this place each time. Sit in the main dining room beneath the skylight for a more formal dining experience, sit by the windows along the street for a more relaxed experience, or sit at the bar (full menu service) with its friendly atmosphere. They even have a formal banquet room good enough for a small-​medium corporate party or wedding rehearsal dinner. No matter where you sit the noise level is never loud (I very much dislike places that are unnecessarily loud!), so you can always have a pleasant conversation with your date or colleagues.
In all, it’s one of Westwood’s nicest restaurants that won’t break the bank. Cheers!

O ambiente é lindo e o serviço excelente. A cesta de pães traz deliciosas tentações incluindo crostines e ciabata, acompanhados de um azeite de primeira qualidade. Irresistível!
Para dizimar a duvida entre 2 tipos de I.P.A beer, nos ofereceram uma bem dosada prova de cada.
O cardápio é vasto inclusive para almoço (não estou certa de que é diferente para o jantar). As pastas variam entre 15 e 10 dolares e o restaurante cobra $ 3 para dividir os pratos. Cinco estrelas para o Strozzapeti morcina, sugerido por Jasson nosso excelente garçon e que foi muito melhor que a minhaxopção, o ravioli de ricota e espinafre que estava bom mas sem nenhuma surpresa. O café com leite foi cortesia da casa.
Certamente voltaremos quando estivermos nas redondezas

The staff here truly takes care of their guests like they’re family. Spectacular drinks and the food is utterly comforting. They treated us like relatives. Highly recommend for a delicious, romantic, and comfortable meal and environment.

I had been here before to drink many times but this was the first time I actually dined here. We got the insalata cioppatina and the pappardelle al telefono.
The insalata was very fresh, but the portion was small for the price ($ 17.00).
The pappardelle al telefono, on the other hand, was plentiful. The handmade noodles were thick and endless. I had to use a knife to cut through to get them into smaller, edible chunks. Good at first, including with the amazing sauce. However, soon after, the noodles started tasting like paper. No good.
Can’t say I’ll be back for the food. Do make reservations during lunch because it gets packed really quickly. I don’t know why, though.

First off — they make a good solid sandwich. On Sunday they only serve brunch so don’t expect lunch (which we did) or dinner. Brunch is your basic American brunch fair or sandwiches on Italian breads.
After that things just didn’t go very well. While the décor is enjoyable, the space is lots of tile and brick so lots of echoing noise. There was also a mix up with the reservation so after being seated we were informed we would likely be moved to make space for another larger reservation (fortunately they cancelled). The table service was also chaotic with lots of staff running around and trying to figure out what was going on. All and all not the experience we were hoping for, and probably not a repeat.
As many other Unilocalers have mentioned the place is not a college student hot spot, parking is limited, and the bread on the sandwiches was good.

My husband and I decided on Italian for our 2 year anniversary. My hubby was already familiar with the restaurant, having been there numerous times for happy hour after work with coworkers, but had never had tried the food.
We arrived at 09:15pm on Monday night without realizing the restaurant closes at 09:30. They sat us with no problem and didn’t rush us to order (we already knew that we needed to be quick out of courtesy for the restaurant workers/​kitchen). We ordered a few minutes after being seated.
I had the seafood risotto and my husband went with the traditional spaghetti and meatballs. We rate both of our dinners a solid 5. This was no ordinary spaghetti and meatballs. It was the freshest, tastiest, most robust marinara sauce you could hope to find anywhere. I’d say we were at a mom and pop shop in authenticity if I were blindfolded. My seafood risotto was simply divine. I had an inkling that the food was going to be wonderful, but it was so much more than that.
My hubby had recognized the waiter/​bartender from his many happy hours. The gentleman was so jovial and friendly and we told him we were there celebrating our 2 year wedding anniversary. To our surprise, he later brought us out a complimentary chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream (Hello? Chocolate? Uh-​mazing). It really did make our night.
All this, combined with a beautiful dining room really make our anniversary special. We are glad we decided on Skylight Gardens for our special day.

What an understated Happy Hour in Westwood! Affordable and not vriwded!
Parking can be a pain if you don’t work in the area, but if your staff/​faculty at UCLA this is the spot to go w/​out running into students: D The food/​snacks are cheap and delicious and the drinks are well made.
Rubin, the bartender, is so friendly and makes a mean (lean) margarita! Highly recommend! May be my new favorite libation location.

Nice option for fancier dining in the area. Sister and I came here later in the night so the restaurant was pretty empty, and unfortunately they weren’t sitting people in the main area where the gorgeous high ceiling with skylight is.
When we walked in, the first thing we saw was this mess of buckets, mops, and towels on the floor. It took a while for anyone to help us. Then once we saw ourselves to a table it took forever to get menus. Once we did get our menus we couldn’t even read them because of how dark it was in the restaurant (the side area that was open at that time). No joke we moved about three times trying to find a table where we could actually read our menus without shining our iPhones on them. It was frustrating in the beginning because of the lack of attention and service we were receiving but somewhat glad we stuck it out.
The food was delicious. Sister ordered the strozzapreti al salmone that she really enjoyed. I ordered the paillard di pollo. Wasn’t too sure what I was ordering solely based on the description. Loved the dish though. It’s kind of like an unconventional pizza, with the pounded thin and grilled chicken acting as the base «crust» layer, topped with the dressed greens, tomatoes, and lots of Parmesan. It’s the really good, freshly shaved Parmesan and the dressing was perfect and added a lot of flavor to tie all the components together. Perfectly hearty and satisfying but not too heavy. I feel like I didn’t get an authentic, full Skylight Gardens experience, especially since we didn’t even get to sit in the main area so I will probably give it another try at some point.

Came here for brunch because I saw it on gilt and decided to come here with the hubby! They had good breakfast options.
Service is really great, the restaurant is very nice inside. I enjoyed the tree they have inside. It’s really tall and has lights all over it. They also have bottomless mimosas which are everyone’s favorite!

You won’t see many students here, that’s for sure. That’s because it’s a little pricy. However, I really enjoyed my experience here (someone else was paying…). I came for lunch, and although it looks kind of barren from the outside, the inside is lovely. You eat in this central atrium-​looking area with a big skylight (yes, creative name).
In any case, we had to be in-​and-​out, so we speed ordered. The food did come out very fast, although toward the end, I had to be kind of pushy to get the bill at the very end.
The food was absolutely delicious! Possibly the best fancy-​food place in Westwood Village.
1. Arnold Palmer: This option was rattled off by the waiter after a list of soft drinks, so I was quite pleased. Delicious. Free refills.
2. Bread sticks AND bread: Both came with our meal, which I thought was interesting, but awesome.
3. Asparagus soup: A thicker soup, but surprisingly light flavor with cut up asparagus at the bottom. Came beautifully presented in a white porcelain bowl.
4. Short rib risotto: Yum! Two slices of short rib over a deliciously seasoned risotto. It’s the perfect size for lunch.
5. A chicken salad with avocado on top (can’t remember name): My friend really enjoyed it. It’s huge! I didn’t get to try this though, so can’t comment.
6. Chicken pesto panino: Loved it! Flavorful, had avocado in it, and came with a side of salad or fruit.
7. Calamari: You have the option of getting it grilled or fried. I highly recommend the fried. It’s calamari, after all, right? This was one of the most impressive dishes. Very fresh, perfectly fried, and large portions.
8. Tiramisu: It’s a very good tiramisu, although not the best I’ve had. It doesn’t have much rum flavor at all, but is more creamy.
9. Chocolate mousse cake: Comes with a scoop of ice cream. The chocolate cake itself is small with a molten center. Also decent, but not amazing.
Overall, a solid 4 to 4.5. Some dishes are fantastic here. Nothing was bad at all, and it’s a really nice ambience.