LA Restaurant Review: Meteora
You all know I love a good dining experience, so I was extremely excited to try out Chef Jordan Khan’s new restaurant Meteora, which is on Melrose in West Hollywood. Especially because I have already been to some of his other restaurants like Vespertine and Destroyer, I already had pretty high expectations of what the food/ambiance would be like. And let me tell you, he did not disappoint.
First starting off with the interior:
It was absolutely soooo stunning inside and I literally felt like I had entered some kind of oasis or spa. While the vibe of the restaurant is very earthy and organic, I like that it still looked sophisticated and put together. Like you can’t tell me that the these pictures I took don’t look like they came straight out of Pinterest. Also, I don’t know how other people might feel about this, but they had a person come around the restaurant every so often with sage, which I think was to probably like cleanse the energy or something. I don’t know the exact purpose, but I thought it was cool.
Now for the drinks & food:
At first when I came here I thought that it was only going to be a tasting menu, but actually it’s just a regular sit down restaurant where you can order whatever you want (which I kind of prefer because I usually can never finish all the courses on tasting menus). But, seriously before I show what I ordered, I just want to say that everything that I was served was so beautiful, like this meal was legitimately art.
When you first sit down they serve you these little cups of stone-fruit kombucha. It was so yummy and I literally could have had a whole glass of it.
The cocktails that we ordered were:
Arjuna: heirloom banana nectar, coconut water, roasted cacao, aged malt spirit, grilled pineapple
Zea: ancient purple corn, pressed plum juice, plum pit, avocado leaf, opuntia, barrel-aged corn spirit
Both cocktails were really good and unique, but they were not really that sweet. So, if you are more of a sweet, sugary type of cocktail fan, just be aware that these are not that.
Food:
Bigfin Squid: quickly grilled and seasoned with wild spruce and bird’s eye chile, with young coconut, ripe cherimoya, crunchy jicama, and a vibrant dressing of macadamia nut milk. On the side was like a little puffed rice thing to go with it.
This was the first course and it was so light and refreshing, but also was surprisingly spicy from the bird’s eye chile.
Snap Peas: cooked over hot stones with spring onion tops, pumpkin seeds, and burnt garlic, smoky pulses, cured pork fat, hemp, coriander, and thyme.
Okay you can’t tell me this dish doesn’t look like an actual garden. Also, they put the pork fat on the hot rock at the table so you can literally see it sizzling and become crispy. It tasted like bacon, but better and I’m a sucker for snap peas, so obviously I loved this dish.
Caramelized Lobster Rice: heirloom brown rice crisped in black clay, grilled lobster glazed with black jaggery and sugar kelp, roasted fruits of the moment, black butter, sea lettuce, and sour orange
This was probably one of my favorite dishes of the night. The lobster was cooked perfectly and the rice was so flavorful, especially with the black butter sauce that gets drizzled on top. Also, the roasted stone fruits gave it a really nice sweet element since the rice and lobster were more on the savory side.
Wild Fire Morels: grilled over smokeless coals, served with Swiss chard stuffed with a jam of roasted duck jus, overripe plantain glazed with tamarind, spruce tips, and a griddled flatbread of young coconut and burnt wheat
In general I’m not the hugest mushroom lover, but these morels were so delicious especially with the super sweet plantains, which I would never even think to put together. Also, the Swiss chard was amazing too. It had so much flavor from the duck jus and didn’t have that nasty vegetable taste. Also the way this was plated made me feel like I was eating in the jungle, but in a good way.
California Lamb: coated with a paste of roasted cacao and ounce chiles and slow-smoked over live oak embers, served with candied green papaya, charred collard leaf, roasted beets, and a sauce of elderberries and aged rum
At this point in the meal I was already pretty full, but this dish also was chefs kiss. I don’t typically eat lamb that much, but this was super yummy. They put like pieces of crispy fat on top (which are those three little things shown in the the picture) and omg they were heavenly.
For dessert - Frozen sweet corn custard, crispy ancient cereals, raw tiger nuts, roasted pecan butter, wild handicaps, and a light cream of aged rum
This was definitely unique, but to be honest I would not order this again. Like I definitely am a sucker for some frozen custard, but I’d rater have rainbow sprinkles and chocolate sauce all over it, not little quinoa seeds. But I get it, they’re trying to curate that earthy vibe. Also, one critique I also have is that they put like candied nuts in it and they literally became so sticky and chewy from being in the cold ice cream, so they would not stop getting stuck in my teeth. But other than that, it was good, just not my favorite.