We found Zaytinya at The Shay in Culver City on a Friday night when Brad and I were looking for somewhere different. The restaurant is José Andrés’s mezze concept, which started in DC and has since opened several outposts, including this one inside the Shay hotel, doing the small-plate format the Andrés organization is known for.
We are a José Andrés household. We’ve followed his restaurants for years and have a lot of respect for his cooking and his work with World Central Kitchen, so we walked in with high expectations. The restaurant itself is beautiful, with a spacious, airy design that makes you feel comfortable and uncrowded, a real luxury in a city where most popular restaurants pack tables in tight.
So, with visions of perfectly crafted Mediterranean dishes dancing in our heads, we booked a table, bundled up our girls, and headed to Culver City with the highest of hopes. Unfortunately, what followed was an evening of “just okay” food, “interesting” drinks, and a resounding realization that this beautiful restaurant is one we likely won’t be returning to. It’s a classic case of a restaurant that looks the part but, sadly, just doesn’t deliver where it counts most, on the plate.
First Impressions: Ambiance, Service, and the Bread
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of the food, I have to give credit where it is overwhelmingly due. From the moment we pulled up to the valet at The Shay Hotel to the moment we left, the service was impeccable. Every single person we interacted with was warm, attentive, and professional, without a hint of the scriptedness you sometimes get at a restaurant this polished.
The room itself is a big part of why Zaytinya’s first impression works. It’s dressed up but not fussy, warm without feeling dim, and we were seated at a comfortable table with real space around it, not the elbow-to-elbow squeeze you get at a lot of Los Angeles hot spots. None of that is an accident, a restaurant’s lighting and spacing change how you experience the meal that follows, and Zaytinya clearly designed for it. It feels like a place where you’re about to have an exceptional meal.
The Bread
Our server was lovely and, almost immediately after we sat down, a basket of hot, fresh-out-of-the-oven pita bread appeared on our table, accompanied by a small dish of olive oil.
This bread turned out to be the best thing we ate all night, and it wasn’t close.
It was pillowy, warm, and utterly perfect. We devoured the first basket in minutes, and a new one appeared without us even having to ask. It kept coming, a seemingly endless supply of fluffy perfection. In an age where more and more restaurants are cheekily adding a “bread service” charge to the bill, I was so impressed and appreciative that Zaytinya offers this simple, wonderful gesture of hospitality for free. It was a fantastic start.
The Cocktails
Feeling good about the room and the bread, we ordered a round of cocktails. I chose the Minoan Sour, a mix of tsipouro brandy, lemon, olive oil, and egg white, finished with a dusting of citrus ash; my husband went with the Ankara Rye Club, built on rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, thyme, and cumin. They arrived beautifully presented, and we each took a sip.
Our immediate, shared thought was, “Hmmm… I don’t think I love this.”
What was strange was that we kept sipping anyway. The flavors were layered and unusual, closer to a puzzle than a crowd-pleaser, and we couldn’t decide if we actually liked them, but we finished both. Drinking something out of curiosity rather than enjoyment turned out to be a preview of the rest of the night.
Zaytinya’s Mezze: A Few Hits, More Misses
For anyone who loves Mediterranean, Turkish, or Greek food, the heart of the meal is often the mezze. This tradition of serving a variety of small dishes to kick off the meal is meant to be a celebration of flavors, textures, and communal dining. We ordered a few classics to get a feel for the kitchen’s capabilities.
Dish by Dish
Baba Ghannouge: This is a benchmark dish for me. A good Baba Ghannouge should be silky, deeply smoky from the charred eggplant, and balanced with tahini, lemon, and garlic. Zaytinya’s version was… fine. It was definitely smoky, but lacked the depth and richness I’ve come to love from other places, a perfectly acceptable dip, but not a memorable one. In a city like Los Angeles, with its incredible array of Mediterranean restaurants, “acceptable” just doesn’t cut it.
Falafel: Here, the kitchen found its footing. The falafels were excellent. They arrived piping hot, with a perfectly crispy exterior giving way to a fluffy, herb-flecked interior. They were flavorful, not at all greasy, and served with a very good tahini sauce. It was a solid, well-executed dish. There was no creative spin or unique twist, but it was a classic done right. We all enjoyed these.
Seared Halloumi: I love halloumi. That salty, squeaky cheese, when seared to a golden-brown crust, is one of my favorite things. This version, however, was just… ehh. It didn’t have the satisfying texture or the flavor punch I was hoping for. It was another dish that, while technically fine, was entirely forgettable.
Adana Kebab: This was perhaps the most disappointing of the mezze. Adana kebab should be juicy and flavorful, with a pleasant heat from the spices. This version was overwhelmingly gamey and strong. The flavor was so aggressive that it was difficult to enjoy. It was another “ehh” in a growing list of them.
How Zaytinya Compares
The mezze experience felt like a summary of the entire meal: a few glimmers of quality surrounded by a lot of mediocrity. For a far more impressive and consistently delicious Mediterranean experience, our recent visit to ORLA in Santa Monica, was frankly better across the board. Every dish there felt intentional, perfectly balanced, and created with a passion that seemed to be missing here.
Is Zaytinya Kid-Friendly? Not Really
Now we come to the most critical part of the review for our readers at Culinary Passages. As a family-focused blog, we are always on the lookout for upscale dining experiences that also welcome and accommodate children. Seeing quite a few other tables with kids, I initially thought Zaytinya would fit the bill.
I could not have been more wrong. I highly do not recommend taking your children to this restaurant.
My first red flag was the absence of a kids’ menu. Now, this isn’t always a deal-breaker. Many high-end restaurants, especially those in hotels, are brilliant at whipping up a simple pasta with butter or some plain grilled chicken for younger guests. We figured this would be the case and asked our server for her recommendations.
What We Ordered for the Girls
She suggested the Halloumi Pide (which she described as being similar to a cheese pizza) and the Shish Taouk (a chicken kebab skewer). This sounded reasonable, so we ordered both for our girls to share, along with a side of plain fries.
The fries, thankfully, were a hit. But when the main dishes arrived, our girls each took one polite bite and then firmly refused to eat any more. My husband and I exchanged a puzzled look. This was unusual. So, we decided to try their food ourselves.
Why It Didn’t Work for Them
The dishes weren’t bad. In fact, for an adult palate, they were quite good. The problem was that they were heavily spiced and seasoned. The chicken on the Shish Taouk, while juicy and flavorful, was coated in a complex blend of Middle Eastern spices that is simply too overpowering for most children. The Halloumi Pide wasn’t a simple “cheese pizza” at all; the tomato sauce had a surprisingly sweet, almost apple-like flavor that was jarring and not at all what a child would expect.
Children’s palates are naturally more sensitive to strong and bitter flavors, which is why they often gravitate towards simpler, more familiar tastes, a biological preference that fades with age and exposure. Zaytinya’s “kid-friendly” options completely ignore this fundamental aspect of childhood eating. They seem to be simply smaller versions of their adult dishes, with no consideration for a child’s palate.
Not Even Dessert Saved It
The disappointment continued when it was time for dessert. Surely, there would be a simple scoop of vanilla ice cream or a basic chocolate cake? No such luck. The gelato flavors were cherry, pear, and (I kid you not) olive oil. The cake options were an olive oil cake and a Turkish coffee chocolate cake.
My girls looked at the menu with utter confusion. Nothing appealed to them. It felt like a final confirmation that children, while physically present in the restaurant, were a complete afterthought in the menu’s design. This is a perplexing choice for a large restaurant located in a major hotel, a place that naturally attracts traveling families. For a hotel restaurant that truly understands how to cater to everyone, our guide to the best 5-star resorts in Orange County highlights several places that get it right.
Our Zaytinya Entrées, and a Disappointing Finish
After the kids pushed their food away, my husband and I finished their dishes. As I mentioned, the Shish Taouk had great flavor for an adult, and it came with a tasty whipped garlic sauce on the side. The Pide, however, was not for me. That sweet sauce was just too strange.
For our own main, we had ordered the Celebration Rice with Chicken. It arrived beautifully plated, a colorful mound of rice and chicken that promised so much. But the promise fell flat. The dish was a huge disappointment, lacking any real depth of flavor. It was just… food on a plate.
By this point, we’d stopped expecting much. We decided to order one dessert, the Olive Oil Cake, hoping for a single dish to end the night on a high note.
The cake was good, light, moist, and fresh. You can’t really go wrong with a simple olive oil cake. It was probably the second-best thing we had after the pita bread, though even that comes with a catch: it never had a “wow” factor, just a nice, simple flavor.
The Celebrity-Chef Problem, and Our Final Verdict
As we paid the bill, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of deflation. The whole experience felt like a mediocre hotel restaurant playing dress-up, leveraging a celebrity chef’s name to justify high prices for underwhelming food. The beautiful plating, the hot and fresh delivery of every dish. It was all surface-level polish. The soul was missing.
This brings me to the celebrity chef conundrum. Does a famous name guarantee a great meal? Increasingly, the answer seems to be no. The business model often involves a celebrated chef lending their name and concept to a restaurant group, which then replicates the menu across various locations. While this can work, it often leads to a dilution of the original vision, a sort of culinary game of telephone where the final product is a faint echo of the chef’s true genius.
I want to be clear: my respect for José Andrés remains immense. His work with World Central Kitchen is heroic, bringing hot meals to people in crisis zones around the globe. He is, by all accounts, a phenomenal human being. This review is not a critique of him, but of this specific restaurant bearing his name.
Our Final Verdict on Zaytinya
So, would we go back to Zaytinya at The Shay? It’s a hard no.
Is it a terrible restaurant? No. The service is wonderful, the room is beautiful, and the falafel and pita are very good. But in a city as culinarily rich as Los Angeles, “not terrible” is a very low bar. There is simply no reason to return when there are dozens of other Mediterranean restaurants (from small neighborhood spots to other upscale restaurants) that deliver a far superior and more authentic experience. Perhaps this is a good spot for someone staying at The Shay who wants a convenient and pretty place for a drink and a snack, much like the sophisticated spots we highlight in our Grown-Up’s Guide to Santa Monica. But for a destination dinner, especially with a family, it’s a pass.
It’s a shame that a restaurant with so much potential, from its location to its namesake, misses the mark so completely on the food. Our search for the next great family meal continues, and Zaytinya just isn’t it.
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