Melisse Restaurant   

If you want simple French bistro food, this is not the place for you. If you want wonderful, but not stuffy service, stay home. Melisse is not inexpensive..that said it is a wonderful dining experience. The food is fantastic and the service outstanding. I spend a great deal of time in France and while I generally go for local restaurants which never fail to delight, it's ironic I went to Santa Monica for a true 1Star French restaurant which I would never do in France. The chef is not only excellent, he happens to be a pretty nice guy .

This restaurant is more about the chef's ego than it is for the food or the diners. He appears to take great pleasure splashing his website with awards he receives. So what? The French have a word for this...bourgeois (def: marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity). Small portions, high prices, long wait at the table to have food order taken. Lots of excuses for this and that like, "I am sorry, we make mistakes." At their prices, there should not be mistakes. This will never be a special event place to take a loved one as much as the owner/chef would like to try. Providence and Bastide are much better choices Michelin 2 star and the reviewers (diners) here give it a 3 star (good) rating (not even a very good rating)...now, who do you believe? I'll take a chili dog with kraut and a cream soda please...it is always worth the wait to eat at Pink's

My husband and I are always looking for new restaurants and I have to say we have tried fantastic cuisine all around the world. Melisse was certainly NOT one of those places. The service was good but very, very slow (even though the place was half empty) and the chef tries too hard to be impressive and as a result you get dishes that are not impressive at all (specially the over buttered sole fish!). The prices deserve a chapter on their one since they are totally outrageous! Our bill was more than 250.00 and we went home extremely disappointed. This is a place we will never go back to. By the way, their idea of Crepe Suzette is a very dry, heavy and tasteless small tart (yes tart, not crepe) and we had to wait for it for about 20 minutes. Do not waste your special occasion going here.