Azu

On a Saturday afternoon in Ojai, my husband and I ate here. They must have had the guy that wants to become a chef cooking. The Cauliflower was burnt, the eggs Benedict was tasteless, and the salad, (who messes up a salad?) was an overpoweringly greens mix. Service was fine.

Wanted to try something new this trip to Ojai. Azu was quiet and convenient. I had the Brussel Sprouts and Polenta. Sprouts were very tasty. Polenta was a tiny triangle. So small hardly worth mentioning as an ingredient. Hubby had the Chili Relleno, which he loved! Atmosphere was nice. Would visit again.

We had a group of 5 for breakfast– four of us ordered Eggs Benedict and all were severely over cooked and very disappointing. The other ordered the veggie omelette and it was basically a large scrambled egg. Very pricey food and an exciting menu but it fell very short. The menu made you Hungary and eager to return to try other things but failing on poached eggs is not very impressive. I mentioned to the waitress about the eggs being over and she had no reply. Bummer and hopefully an isolated event!

We were craving a drink and some small bites late afternoon and we couldn’t have chosen a more perfect spot! I gave my preferred flavor profile to the bartender, and he whipped up a drink that truly matched my palette. The food was extremely fresh and flavorful. The bacon wrapped dates were the best we’ve ever had and served hot! Do yourself a favor and order them! Next time we’re in Ojai we’ll definitely be back. Enjoy!

This is NOT a tapas restaurant, so do not expect it upon arrival. When we asked our server what was most popular and some of the favs, he replied… «everything!» First, I hate when a server says that. It clearly means he does not know and is trying to dance around the question to get our order in quickly. Note to owner: it really makes a huge difference when your servers can point out your signature dishes and most popular by regulars. I started with the fried curry cauliflower, which was good, but again, not tapas. My husband had the Cesar salad and he said it was decent. For our main course I ordered the Laurel’s chicken with saffron rice and he ordered the zucchini pasta with pesto sauce and the sautéed shrimp. I’ll start with his dishes first. His pasta was shredded zucchini with broccolini and asparagus added in with the pesto. Tasty, but nothing to get excited about. He did, however, seem to enjoy his shrimp he ordered with it.
Now to my chicken dish: one word… DRY!!! No au jus sauce, as our «server» claimed it to have, and the saffron rice was not saffron rice. It was more of a wild rice with zero taste. The portion size is generous, but seriously lacks any taste, flavor or wow factor when eating this dish. It was sooooo dry, I had to ask the busses for a side of au jus sauce to help eat it. Waited for 8 minutes for that and once it came, I couldn’t wait to pour it over my chicken and dive in. Wrong! Huge disappointment again on this. The sauce literally had no taste I just found myself adding more and more salt and pepper to help add something to help me enjoy it. That is NOT the WORST of it. My husband wanted to try some, so he took his fork and cut into the second piece of chicken that was on my plate and noticed the chicken was raw, pink and even almost bloody! So not only was my chicken tasteless, the other half was raw and so undercooked!!! I called over one female waitress and asked her to confirm if it was raw or if it was just the dark lighting. She did confirm it and said «that’s nasty, and undercooked for sure!». She said she took the dish back to chef and showed him and told our waiter. Did anyone bother to come apologize or address the issues… NOPE! Worst service by our waiter we had and he was so rude. When he finally came to our table, he only tried to get us to order dessert, which at this point I wanted to pay and get out. So I told him no dessert but did u hear about my raw chicken? He replies back «yes» and walls away grabbing our check. He drops our check off and tells me he removed the chicken, as if he did me a huge favor, and walked away again. I was furious with his lack of sincerity towards us, especially since this was my dinner and barely had any. Worst dinner and worst place for service in my opinion. I would not waste your time or money on it.

Had a good time. Particularly liked the dates and baked brie.

Wished I had read the reviews on here before going. Many poor ones reflect the same sentiments I have for this place. I ordered the roasted chicken. It was mostly dry and not flavorful. The wild rice that came with it was even worse, it was hard and tasteless. For a $ 27 chicken dish, I really expected much more. My friend ordered the steak, it was for sure better than my chicken, but it was still not at the level of steak that a nice restaurant could serve up. Then I thought only dessert might save this meal, only to be told by the waitress that they were out of a few of them. (I believe she said they were out of THREE of them, at least two for sure.) We had dinner reservations for 6:00 PM, and the place was sparse — less than half of the seats filled — when we sat down, yet somehow this place was out of some desserts already. Crème brûlée was on top of the dessert menu, and that was one of the ones they were out of. How is it possible to run out when I had dinner at 6 PM? Poor planning? Dessert chef called in sick? I felt like someone was not telling us the truth. Our waitress was courteous and we left her a generous tip despite everything, the ambience was good and we were comfortable, but we came for the food and left very disappointed.

Great service, great food. Been a frequent Azu patron and always been a pleasurable experience. My go to’s are the fried calamari and the filet. Prices tend to be a little less expensive during the lunch menu.

Brunch was amazing! The garden eggs Benedict was out of this world. Great service and excellent coffee. We will be back soon!

Visiting ojai for New Years we asked locals where Is the best place to go in NYE with a party of 6 and a child
Hands down we were told azu
We called and were told if we came at 530 we could be accommodated at the bar. We were so excited to be able to have an early NYE dinner with our daughter and friends. However the experience was disappointing as was the cuisine.
Upon entry the well suited manager Chris could not have been more rude and condescending.
As out of towners Chris could not have given ojai a more tarnished hue. He said good luck and basically said we lied and made us feel extremely unwelcome.
At 530 in the large restaurant the place was not yet full and he was so rude. But alas due to the kindness of a local ojai couple who made room for us at the bar.
The bar tender was lovely but the carrot soup was over salted and had to be returned. The roasted chicken while savory wsd underdone and the wild rice mush a total miss. Even my husbands bison slider slid off the mark.
The hummus lacked flavor and was too gritty
The shrimp was just ok. All in all if this is ojai’s best they need to try harder
Most disappointing was Chris’s rude attitude. We will be at deer lodge next year.

On a weekend getaway to Ojai from Los Angeles, my wife and I had dinner at Azu and it was FANTASTIC! We were only in Ojai for 3 nights and had dinner here twice. We even decided it would be worth the drive from Los Angeles.
The bacon wrapped dates were fantastic as were the croquettes. I had the mussels which were out of sight. My wife was drinking the broth with a spoon! My wife decided to order something she normally wouldn’t have and had the zucchini spiral pasta with a pesto sauce and sun dried tomatoes. We loved it.
Some Previous reviews had stated that they felt the portions were small. Some are tapas (small!) and some are entrees. And who cares!?! With food this good, the money you spend is worth it!
The servers were all great and JJ the bartender was a blast and made our experience even better!
Do your self a favor. Jump in your car and head to Azu.

Don’t go here.
On the surface the menu looks delightful with a variety of dishes and flavors. The food is less than average and the service is horrible. We had the wrong items sent to us and the staff was was not customer service oriented.
We were very disappointed.

My friend and I stopped for lunch. Cute place with patio. At the end of Main Street. A lot more comfortable seating around the back of restaurant. Has a full bar and a friendly staff. The reason for 3 stars was the menu. Not impressed with so much fat! Burrata, Brie, burgers.
It has great potential. Didn’t like the bitter lettuce in my mixed green salad or the beets, dates and figs. My friend loved the sauce in the mussels.

Some of the worst food we’ve had in a long time. We were excited to try this place, even though we were leary about the fact that this place had an infestation few months ago, ccording to the Ventura Health department.
We tried the Grilled cheese with tomato soup, and a couple of tapas. (jumbo shrimp and curried cauliflower.) The grilled cheese was two hap hazardly cut doughy white pieces of bread wirh smears of Marina sauce n bottled artichoke. The «tomato soup» was seriously like marinara sauce. Shocking! The shrimp were cooked in some taseless water and we were speechless. The curried cauliflower was the only thing even remotely acceptable. The cook should be fired. Absolutely NO love was put in to any of the dishes. What a rip off n a disappointment

We like to have our server surprise us with their favorite items on the menu. The items that our group had were well made, but very seafood heavy. It’s well made and all the food was terrific– for 5 stars we would have liked a better balanced list of courses.
I highly reccommend going here!

Food & service is just ok for lunch. I think I’d definitely give it another try on my next trip to Ojai but this time for dinner.

Herro!
Ordered the fried potatoes. Fryer was broken.
Ordered the lamb kabobs, might as well have been lamb jerky.
Ordered the Peruvian Chicken soup, waste of stomach space.
Ordered the shortrib sandwich and I was pleasantly surprised.
1 out of 4.
25%
Fail.
I can’t even review what my partner had. He was not impressed.

My mole pulled pork was awesome especially when paired with my pixie fire margarita!
The staff was friendly and answered all our questions.

I have eaten here several times, sometimes at their outdoor tables, but since we are finally getting a cool down tonight we sat at a table near the beautiful bar area to celebrate a friend’s birthday.
I am partial to their tapas and like that you can choose a large or small portion. We started with olives which had a nice variety but a pretty small serving. They had some interesting cocktails, and we were asked for feedback because they are fairly new. We tried the pomegranate cosmo, and it was a winner. They have some nice Spanish and local wines too.
I tried the panko encrusted cauliflower tapa in a flavorful sauce since the idea of fried cauliflower was new to me, and I loved it. I was also pleased with the patatas fritas with brava sauce and aioli because it reminded me of Spain. Our friend’s chile relleno was a full meal even though it was listed as a tapa. My husband enjoyed his smaller portion paella because a full sized order would have been too much.
We finished off with excellent gelato which tasted even better since the birthday girl’s was free, as was mine with the Unilocal check in offer. The vanilla gelato went perfectly with the churros which were light and tasted more like a fritter.
The service was pleasant and leisurely, and everything is spendy but hey, it is a pretty classy place with an upscale menu and nice for a special occasion.

Meh…
One of those «must visit» places in Ojai, Azu is a small tamps bar type restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating.
The menu was small but precise with most dishes ranging from $ 9 – 14 for the tapas and $ 18 – 30 for their entrees.
The hits:
Roast beat salad: this was probably the best dish of the night. The fried chickpeas were amazing in this and contrasted the sweet roast beats and soft cheese really well. Also the portion was decent.
The meh:
Mussels: The mussels were good, but the sauce was a bit over salted. Although it went well with the bread, it wasn’t something that I would crave again.
The misses:
Seafood paella was a bust. Thank god we order the smaller tapas size. Although there was a decent amount of seafood, overall the dish just lacked substantial flavor. The rice was bland and too mushy in my opinion and made the dish more of a risotto like dish than paella. I ended up dashing a bunch of salt on top to make it better. For $ 17, I would’ve expected the quality of the dish to be a little better.
Free Gelato with check in: well this was free thanks to Unilocal.For some reasons their gelatos were really gritty. and not smooth. Although the flavor was nice, the texture was a bit odd.
The Service:
Overall the service was a bit of a hit and a miss. Our waiter was nice and provided great suggestions for dishes. However. everyone else seemed almost annoyed to be serving us. Maybe we weren’t dressed for the part, but we definitely felt that we were judge considering I was wearing sundress and my fiend was wearing a t-​shirt. Regardless, service to all customers should be equal.
Oh and the older gentlemen serving the gelatos at the end of our meal was very accusatory when we showed the Unilocal redemption on our phones. Accusing us of not eating a meal beforehand, and therefore not eligible for the free scoop. MIND you.we just paid.
Honestly, I would save your money and maybe try the seafood grill down the street.