Noir Food & Wine

Awesome service from people who really understand the wines. Food was delicious. A bit pricey but well worth the ambience and unique wines/​flavors.

CLOSED as of this weekend.
Hate to tell you folks, but they are closed now. Due to poor ownership decisions, they died a slow death. I was told the general manager left several weeks ago, the wait staff has been stiffed out of back pay and then they stopped accepting credit cards. All signs of a death rattle.
It’s a shame, as this was a great little spot for an intimate dinner with a small/​good menu and an excellent wine list. You also couldn’t beat it if you were going to see a comedy act at the Ice House right next store.
FYI…the robbery reported in an earlier review was an employee who was owed weeks of back pay and decided to lift a few cases of wine and an espresso machine in lieu of getting paid.
A messy ending…

Went to Noir because of bloomspot! Chef Jackie is amazing… this up and comming chef offers a fresh delicious menu. the sea bass is amazing! Love the ragu sauce on the bottom to keep the crispy texture of the fish!
Wine flight rocks and offers a great variety of fantastic wine from the Santa Inez Valley! Pricey but well worth the atmosphere and quality of food.
Make a reservation and request the patio for a wonderful outdoor experience!

They change their wines every week and have some delicious things going on here! The service was really great too. The rose they have right now is pretty spectacular, plus I really enjoyed the beet salad and the charcuterie platter we had.
I love the neighborhood vibe and the intimacy. It feels like a little mom and pop place with yummy wines and good food.
As far as wine bars go, it’s not the best of the best, but it’s pretty darn adorable and the fact the food is so yummy is a nice plus. The super blonde girl that helped us was amazingly knowledgeable, friendly, and really added to the experience.
Adorbs.

So lovely back here
but so overpriced back here.
Waitstaff shy or snide?

I went to Noir last night with a friend to use my Travelzoo voucher. I made a reservation, as suggested, for 5:00. We arrived and were seated promptly as the place was small but totally empty. We used the voucher and received our tastes and meats and cheeses. This part was lovely. Where it went south was we ordered some items off the pre-​fixe menu. My friend ordered the arugala salad, and I ordered the Jumbo Shrimp which was $ 11. Little did I know it would be ONE SHRIMP on top of some onions and bell peppers! I mean seriously?!? This was a total rip off and near highway robbery!
Overall it was a nice place and the service was really good. I would just say it’s grossly overpriced. One shrimp… $ 11.00…smh…

We came here on Friday night. Our waiter was kind of an idiot. I brought a Nebbiolo for corkage, and he picks it up and is like what is this? I told him it was a Nebbiolo. He kind of looked at me blankly, and I told him «it’s Italian.» He just kind of kept staring, and frankly I wasn’t in the mood to educate someone who works at what is supposed to be a wine bar. Also, when I ordered an espresso macchiato, he said «we don’t do that stuff here.» So I had to explain I wanted an espresso with foam on top, not like a caramel frappuccino thingy. I received a really long espresso in a cappuccino cup with like ½ a teaspoon of foam.
Anyway! The food is pretty decent. I got the dineLA burrata and ribeye, and both were fantastic (although small portions). My husband ordered the lamb, which was perfectly cooked, but the accompaniments did NOT make sense. There was an olive «tapenade» which was basically mashed kalamatas that had not been rinsed so it was really salty. Then there were taro chips and grilled chippolini onions. Both were tasty but didn’t go with the lamb at all. He also got the gnocchi appetizer. The gnocchi were a little too big and crispy for my taste, but I still helped him polish them off. :-) Also, the bananas foster was tasty, but wasn’t boozy or very caramelly. Just call it banana ice cream dessert if you aren’t going to execute it properly.
Also, the food took FOREVER. They kept apologizing and gave us bread with butter to keep us happy between courses (kind of weird because they don’t bring it in the beginning). I might come back on a non-​weekend and try a couple more things on the menu.

DineLA day 3.
A party of 6 tonight. We arrived a couple of minutes late due to the fact that our friend was trying to find street parking. Don’t try this, just suck it up & park in the lot & spend 5 bucks. It’ll save you from going around the block a couple of times. Luckily our other friends were already at the table waiting for us.
The one hiccup of the night… a couple of our friends decided that before ordering a bottle of wine they first needed a thirst quenching beer. This is a wine bar so I wasn’t expecting much. They had 5 bottles of beer listed. Our friends ordered their beers, one Stone IPA & one Pilsner Urquell. Our waiter found that neither were available. The only two available were the Stella Artois & Blue Moon.: (. After they give him a hard time about it jokingly, they ordered one of each & we ordered a Quivira Zinfandel from the Dry Creek Valley. The wine was quite nice and seemed pretty reasonable for a restaurant.
Soon after that, what looked like a wonton chip appetizer came out, on the house. I wasn’t paying attention to the description when it was brought to us but it was delicious.
Here’s what my husband & I ordered:
Shaved Pear & Burrata Salad w/​hazelnut vinaigrette & chive oil– the Burrata cheese was a creamy delight but the pear & dressing were a little too delicate for my palate.
Poached Prawns Diane w/​Marsala wine caper reduction over grilled Ciabatta-​Wow! This was the winner in the first course! We asked for more bread so that we could sop up the sauce.
Grilled Rib Eye w/​grilled asparagus, pomme frites & porcini sauce– My steak was cooked to a perfect medium rare, it was tender, tasty and the sauce was delicious. Pomme frites were better at Bouchon but still good and my steak was better here.
Seared Blue Nose Bass w/​cauliflower cous cous, sweet Cipollini onions & coconut broth-​Very good but I was happier w/​my rib eye.
Chocolate Terrine w/​cream anglais & fresh berries– Rich & tasty.
Bananas Foster w/​Vanilla bean gelato-​This was the hands down favorite.
Our waiter Bruce was great, a quick witted formidable opponent for our smart *ss friend Michael. He threatened to put Michael at a corner table by himself for being rude to me. :). Ha, ha… all in fun. He also brought out the Chef de Cuisine Jacqueline Hynu to talk to us about our dining experience. She’s very young, sweet, and has a bright future ahead of her. She’s done well under Executive Chef Claud Beltran.
We’ll be back!

I think the food is pretty good. What gives this place 4 stars was the service. I’m not sure if our waiter was also the owner, but he kept sending our group free food… enough so that we didn’t even have to order appetizers. We did order 2 appetizers (cheese plate and soup), and everyone got an entrée. Food was pretty good but not amazing.
This place is really small and you could pretty much hear other people’s conversations. They used to be a tapas bar but the waiter said that most of the usual customers here wanted more an entrée type restaurant rather than a tapas bar.
Street parking was super easy to find. I love that this location is in Pasadena.

I remember the DineLA lunch menu being pretty decent…
For $ 15, I got the Gumbo
which was good but not so good as to be considered a specialty. Still, for what I can get for a cup of soup for lunch, it had some nice ingredients: shrimp, sausage, and nice trinity
. The base was a little too thin for me, I would have like to taste more filé…
The Cheeseburger was nice with the French bread and gruyère and came with fries that were as good (or as bad) as In-n-Out’s…
They get their bread from Lovebird’s around the corner…
It was sunny out that day, and the patio was a nice place to have a casual sit-​down lunch…

Unilocal reminds me that I left this review unfinished from a week ago, which I’ve been hanging onto in part because I superficially couldn’t decide between 3 or 4 stars, as I felt like I was somewhere in between… after a week, I still have a more favorable than average impression of my experience here, probably moreso due to the service, so 4 it is.
Summary:
+ Dine on the patio for a quiet and romantic date
+ The service is great, attentive, and never overbearing, and the entire meal is leisurely paced to allow for good conversation, which is nice if you like your dinner companion (s)
+ Our food was mostly pretty good and nicely presented
— The portions are on the smaller side which makes it a slightly expensive meal
My boyfriend brought me here for a surprise Friday date night… such a surprise that I had actually eaten two bowls of cereal and milk (one of my guilty pleasures, and also a sad excuse for a dinner) an hour before we arrived here, not knowing that I was going to enjoy an actual dinner. He assured me it would still be OK that I had already eaten because the dishes are small here anyway.
Our reservation was for 7 pm, but we arrived early around 6:30 pm and they seated us, as it seemed that it was still a little early for the dinner rush (it looked relatively full by the time we left around 8 pm, especially on the patio). I was pleasantly surprised when the hostess led us through the small front of the restaurant into the hidden back patio, which is where the majority of the restaurant’s dinner guests were seated.
Dinner on the patio is fantastic for a quiet and romantic date. It’s dimly lit with a few lamps and tea lights on each table, and some sort of elevator-​like music softly playing. We were fortunate to enjoy an intimate table next to the small waterfall fountain. I always wonder if I’m going to freeze if I dine outdoors, but I still felt comfortable (neither cold nor toasty) sitting on the back patio here in a dress and sweater.
We shared:
* Black Pepper Gnocchi ($ 12) — Delicious! I really liked this; I think it was my favorite dish of the night.
* Butternut Squash Arancini ($ 12) — It’s a breaded and deep-​fried ball of squash (3 ct.)… I probably wouldn’t have ordered it if I had known (that’s my fault for not knowing what arancini is, or asking), but it was actually pretty good as well. It’s listed on the supplemental dinner menu.
* Wild Boar Chile Verde Stew ($ 17) — I ordered it thinking, «How exotic, wild boar!» to which my boyfriend responded that boar is just pork. Oh yeah. So don’t get tripped up but the fancy name. It’s also more like soup than stew. The waitress asked if we wanted bread and butter with our stew, which we agreed to, and I enjoyed eating it together with the bread much more. I thought that some of the pieces of meat were tough, and while I enjoyed the flavor of the dish in the first few bites, I quickly grew bored of it. It’s not bad, but I don’t consider it anything special and wouldn’t especially recommend this.
* Farwell Burger ($ 16) — Classy, I know. It was actually pretty good! The patty was delicious and good quality, but not well-​sized for the foccacia bread it was on. The fries were thin and not special to me at all.
My stomach was satisfactorily filled after this (but then again, I also ate that cereal before coming here…), and while we contemplated dessert, in the end we decided that it was better not to stuff ourselves.
I felt that the service was attentive and above average, and the food came out at a leisurely pace, which allowed us plenty of time to eat and converse at our own speed. I liked that the waitress had asked us if we were sharing the dishes when we ordered, because the stew came out to us in two separate bowls and the burger came sliced in two. I appreciate the little things like this!
We parked on the street in some neighborhood on a different block from the restaurant… I wish that we had parked closer to the restaurant, because the walk back to the car after dinner was a bit dark and desolate, as there didn’t seem to be much foot traffic in this part of town, or at least on this occasion.

I’ve been to Noir a good handful of times, and I love their food preparation! Here are some of the highlights:
— Novel Ingredients: I like the attention to details and how they use novel ingredients to make their sauces to pair with their meat dish.
— Cheese! I’m a big cheese fan. This is one of the few restaurant in the SGV area that serves burrata (my fave cheese), and it’s probably one of my top 2 places for best burrata. Their burrata dish is served with arugula and sliced almonds — simple and delicious! The cheese is so soft and creamy that it just melts in your mouth! I also tried the fried cotiga cheese with chimichurri sauce. It has a salty flavor from the frying that makes it an interesting pairing with wine!
— Meats: The lamb chops and braised pork belly are my favorites. Caution with the pork belly though. If you don’t like fatty meats, I’d stay away from the pork belly.
— Wine: The wine selection is impressive. I usually get the wine flights with dinner to sample a couple wines. I’ll definitely be back to try their happy hour special, $ 5 wines, and another order of burrata! =D
Only drawback is that they do small plates, and the prices are kinda steep.

I have a love, hate relationship with Noir.
Street parking for this place is hell. The street is a one way street. As many times as we go round and round the blocks, it’s hard to find a parking spot because parking spots are so limited and it gets busy because Ice Age comedy club is right next to it.
First couple times we’ve been there, They sat us at the adorable patio with the waterfall. The most romantic and cozy part of the restaurant. Just don’t sit near the very end because it is very dark, and you hear crickets and moths flying by. On my birthday this past April, a good friend took me here and I felt overwhelmed with the 2 flights of wine. Although I’m not a big drinker, the Pinot Noir served was very good!
The bar room, where you check in with the hostess, has a few tables. But mainly a bar with a TV.
This past weekend, to pre celebrate my mother’s birthday, we brought her here. For the first time, that sat us in another little dining room next door. (I never even knew it existed)
Although Mother dear was not impressed with the restaurant’s simple decorated to make you feel cozy and sexy, I thought it was adorable .
Now the food part. There food are like tapas portion. Very small. They made some dishes to be a regular plate size but still it was very small portion. but elegance.
Crab Fritters — served with black pepper aioli dipping sauce. –delicious but not memorable.
Shrimp & Sausage Gumbo– sausage and shrimp with green onion rice– Very bland, just a spicy disappointment.
Seared Scallops– ratatouille, roasted garlic & Herb with olive oil– Very good but portion was so small.
The Farewell Burger– with tarragon, caramelized onion, remoulade sauce & melted cheese– Who goes to a fancy restaurant and ordered a burger? We did, but it was a bit over hyped for a $ 16 burger.
Braised Pork Belly– crispy, sticky rice, squash succotash & pan jus– Very tasty but aggressively seasoned with SALT. It’s so good because the meat is so fatty.
VERY SALTY that it may caused your blood pressure to rise so high!
Grilled Prime New York Steak-​shishito peppers, topped with fried garlic, mushrooms & soy garlic sauce– Delicious but also aggressively seasoned with SALT!
Pomme Frites (Shoestrings fries) — Served with Goat cheese chive, bell pepper ketchup & garlic aioli dipping sauce. The dipping sauces were so tasty!
Jicama, Mango & Watercress served with-​pumpkin seed & lime olive oil dressing– bland…
Overall ratings, Food 3.5 stars, service 4 stars, ambiance 4 stars.

Didnt know Noir was participating in DineLa, but regardless, we ordered from their regular menu and I think it turned out much better.
we ordered a salad, main course, side, dessert and a bottle of Rose
Fresh Burrata & Arugula Salad was made better by requesting grilled tomatoes (extra $ 2)
Ordered the sea bass. It was very good with the sauce and bacon
Sugar snap peas were over covered with spices
Sorbet (passionfruit, currant, and coconut) — it was alright, coconut was the best
Parking is mainly street. Also the restaurant is fairly small, best to make reservations.

My husband will never go to Noir and it was really starting to piss me off. «OP» he says (meaning over priced). I don’t think you can charge too much for good food, good service and good wine. Anyway, I was thrilled when my friend suggested Noir for dineLA week lunch time meet up. Yay, I can go and not have to listen to my hubby complain the whole time!
Four of us ladies met up and we all ordered off the dineLA menu. My companions all go the burger and ummed and ahhed their way through it (nom nom). I deviated and got the chicken sandwich. The chicken was pounded flat and marinated in some super tasty flavors. The bread was soft and lovely and delicate. The sandwich was very good. I started with the heirloom tomato salad that was divine. It had delicious fresh tomatoes and some basil oil and shaved parmesan. Perfect way to start.
I also had the Sauvignon Blanc wine flight. What a great option! I love that I got to taste three wines I would have never otherwise.
The only thing that I do not like is the room is SO small. I wish it was a bigger space. I’m sure the other diners were annoyed at the four loud ladies laughing their way through lunch. But if you know us, you know we didn’t care.

good wine, good food, great service. Had a good time hanging out at this restaurant. Tapa style food is always +! Remember to get the cauliflowers!!! so awesome~ and steak is awesome too! Duck foie gras was def’ an adventure for me since I am not a fan of duck… just had one for the experience which was good but I wouldn’t eat another one since I only eat chicken or occasionally turkey if I wanna be health conscious.
I say try this place out mos def’ if you are in the area wanting great service, food (tapas style) and wine!

DELICIOSO! The setting, the experience, the service, the food, exquisite!
Walked in, it was a small narrow area, hostess came to greet us and guided us to the back patio, which I would consider the preferred dining area. It is a nice setting with lights hanging and a water fountain, a really romantic setting if I may say, specially for a warm evening.
Our meal included:
Crab fritters
Seared scallops (Oh yes! they cooked perfectly, meet my expectations!)
Rib eye (OMG so tender and delicious! Really opened my eyes in regards to red meat…)
Chocolate brownie dessert with a drizzle of luxurious white chocolate. The fresh strawberries was a nice touch to balance the sweetness.
(I am a bit late in reviewing Noir, so its hard to be describe the meal in full detail, but one thing is for sure, I remember it was an experience I hadn’t EVER had, like I just wanted to cry of happiness of how scrumptious the meal was!)
I hope my BFF comes in town soon and takes me to Noir again (hint, hint Leon! jk)

50%
Pretty good $ 39, 4-​course Sunday Supper with wine.
***Short Review
Came here for a ‘Sunday Supper’ dinner on Sep’11.
I went with their $ 39, 4-​course Sunday Supper.
It includes two glasses of wine out of a selection of 4 options.
I had that, plus an additional entrée, and another side dish.
(Thus making it a 6-​course dinner @ around $ 70)
Food here is generally good, but not exceptional.
The quality of cooking is a bit inconsistent.
Some dishes were very good, while others were closer to average.
Food portion sizes are especially small.
I had to order an extra entrée and side dish to feel satisfied.
Therefore value is not that great (Comparing to other Sunday Supper options like Luques, and Eva Restaurant).
Spending another $ 5 for 2 glasses of wine for the supper is a great touch however.
Service is friendly, and the pacing of dishes appears to be consistently efficient.
Ambiance is very comfortable and relaxing in their courtyard.
Inside seating appears a bit more stuffy & cramped.
Detailed review will go further into the dishes.
***Detailed Review
Making use of a 30% off BBE coupon, I came here to try Noir Food + Wine’s Sunday Supper. Cooking here would probably be best described as Modern American. I feel the food isn’t bad, but probably not on par relative to my other current Sunday Supper favorites like Eva & Lucques.
On to the dishes;
Watermelon Amuse Bouche.
(Dish Rating, 45%)
Started with an amuse bouche of
watermelon with black sesame seeds and some sort of light dressing that I couldn’t identity. It’s not bad, being lightly sweet & sour, yet refreshing. Nonetheless, I felt it was a bit too simple. Probably something anyone can make with a decent recipe. It is good though, and a nice way to start.
‘Brulled Goat Cheese Salad’
w/​Heirloom Tomatoes.
(Dish Rating, 75%)
Very good appetizer. The goat cheese is great nicely seared goat cheese, quite sweet and tasty. nice soft texture under the brulle sear. heirloom chopped and served with a more light garlic dressing. nice blend of sweet flavors. very good dish.
‘Albacore Sashimi’
w/​Gr. onion, avocado & ponzu
(Dish Rating, 77%)
Another good dish, it was my favorite of this meal. simple combo of albacore and avocado work well. both have buttery textures and more subtle flavors that work in unison. Albacore quality is very good, fish is fresh, moist, and tasty. the green onion is a nice touch although a bit more would have been welcome. very good.
‘Duck and Andouille Gumbo’. ($ 10).
(Dish Rating, 35%)
Dish from the snack menu, recommended by my waitress & added to my Sunday Supper. What’s most noticeable at first is that it’s really spicy. There’s a prominent flavor of the peppers. The peppery and spiciness I felt were overpowering, to the extent that other flavors may have been muted. Consistency of the gumbo broth is moderately thick. It’s quite heavy. Inside the gumbo there were 3 prawns, still quite juicy and delicious. There was also some sliced Andouille sausage. I didn’t notice any duck. Maybe was in sausage or infused in the broth, but my palate couldn’t detect anything. The serving temperature was piping hot, which makes the spice levels a bit more challenging.
Ultimately it’s a so-​so dish. More average than unpleasant but without a doubt it was the low point of my meal. I really didn’t care for this at all. I felt the flavors were very 1 –dimensional and flat.
‘Pan Seared Grouper’
Mushroom, Corn & Bacon Ragout.
w/​Green Onion Rice.
(Dish Rating, 75%)
Fish is cooked nicely. I love the grouper fish. Fish is prepared in manner whereas its quite moist, fatty, flaky, and sweet. Minimal seasoning is used and there’s no sauce that I could taste. Its complimented well by the sweet & savory rice, corn, and mushroom condiments. bacon bits were not prominent addition to the flavor of dish. The rice served on the side was a bit dry and uninteresting, but it was nice to have a starch nonetheless. Good simple dish.
‘Grilled Hangar Steak’.
Asparagus & Grilled Potato.
Red wine shallot reduction ($ 19).
(Dish Rating, 50%)
I also added this course to my Sunday Supper. I was still hungry at this point. Steak cooked as specified to medium rare. Nice texture to the beef, with very little gristle. It’s a good 6oz or so portion. The meat was juicy, tasty, and quite lean. The sauce wasn’t bad, but a tad overpowering on a more sour note with the reduction. I felt the steak worked better on it’s own. I wish I had some wine with this. The pinot red I was using didn’t work very well here.
The asparagus and potatoes were okay, nothing memorable. The potatoes lacked a noticeable char for being grilled.
Not a bad steak, but really not exceptional either.
‘Brulled Plums’
w/​Coconut Sorbet
(Dish Rating, 55%)
Nice contrast between the sour, bitter, & sweet notes of the charred plums. The coconut sorbet tied everything together. Good, simple dessert.

The hub took me here for our anniversary, and we had a wonderful experience. The service was attentive, the food was exquisite, and the wine was delicious. We were seated on the patio near the fountain and enjoyed the ambiance.
We started with a cheese plate featuring Pecorino from Italy, Point Reyes from California, and Midnight Moon from Holland. All of them were delicious, but the Midnight Moon was my favorite. The Crab Fritters were next. Amazing! Light battered and succulent. The hub ordered the Farwell Burger and I ordered the Hanger Steak for our entrees. The red wine reduction with the steak was superb. We each had a wine flight as well and were pleased with the selections.
We will definitely be back. We noticed that they offer a nice happy hour selection Monday through Friday until 6, so we plan to try that out sometime in the near future.

My 100^th review in a matter of a month! Yay! I tend to get overboard when I’m fixated on something.
Bestie wanted to take me out for special dinner and we were going to go to Elements Café but they were closed on the day. So I trusted Unilocal on pointing me to new, yummy places and I found Noir Food and Wine and what a great find it was, I want to keep this place a hidden secret gem all for myself.
We decided to sit in the outdoor patio which is quint, romantic (yes, I like to set the mood, even if its a girl date) and has summer written all over.
We got the flight of wine tasting to start which consists of 3 types of wine of your choice. I got the rosé
and she ordered whites.
My lovely flight of rosé consists of:
2009 Château L’Afrique, M by Sophie Denante, Mediterranee Rosé, Provence, FR
2007 Arger– Martucci, Rosé, Russian River
2008 Luigi Giusti «Le Rose Di Settembre», Lacrima di Morro d’Alba Rose, Marche, Italy
AMUSE BOUCHE: Cucumber with pesto paste and some sort of charcuterie
it was bite-​size deliciousness.
CHEESE TASTING: (from right to left) Brillat Savarin, Humboldt Fog, Cabot White Cheddar. I loved the pecan, fig and honey that they serve to compliment the taste of cheese.
The Humboldt Fog was my fav.
AVOCADO CUCUMBER SALAD: served three ways with jalapeño vinaigrette
CRAB FRITTERS: with black pepper aioli & Carolina mustard sauce
OMG…this was sooooo good that I still dream about those fritters. They were hot, crispy and bundles of crab pieces. Between the two sauces, I loooved the black pepper aioli probably because I love pepper.
Carolina mustard sauce
wasn’t bad either, but the black pepper stood out more.
HALIBUT A LA VERACRUZANA: olives, onions, capers & tomato ragout.
The halibut was tender, moist, flavorful and grilled to perfection.
WARM PEACH COBBLER: with vanilla ice cream.
Sweet, juicy peach, lots and lots of cobbler bits… Hello, sweet taste of summer.
Service here was so nice and friendly. The innocuous location makes it a true neighborhood gem. I wish I can keep the secret goodies to myself but that would be rather selfish… so I’m sharing. *Pout*