Figaro Cafe | Los Angeles, CA
2/10

Though I technically reside within the zip code that defines Los Feliz, there is a reason I live, and enjoy living, at the far southern extreme of the area. There are times, primarily in the early morning, when the Feliz is a great place to be. The hipsters and urban mommies with SUV strollers aren’t out yet, and I can sneak in and out of the places I frequent—the post office, the health food store—before the hordes descend and I am surrouned by a seething mass of humanity. I can be done with my errands and safely ensconced in my as-yet-unhip neighborhood full of ethnic groceries and storefront Pentecostal churches before my neighbors to the north have had their first latte.

As you may have guessed by now, I don’t spend much time in the area known as the Los Feliz Village, primarily located on Vermont Avenue north of Hollywood Boulevard. It’s a melange of hip shops, restaurants and bars, mixed in with places that have been there forever, like the Dresden Room, Sarno’s and House of Pies. Among both the former and latter categories is the French bistro Figaro Cafe, a faithful neighborhood fixture for more than twenty years. Though I avoid the Village as much as humanly possible, I found myself at Figaro’s bar on a Friday night because of a dead man. Claude Bessy, to be precise.

Bessy, known widely as Kickboy Face, was the frontman of the band Catholic Discipline and a music critic for Slash magazine during the heyday of the LA punk scene. He was a, uhm, colorful character and could often be found at the Figaro Cafe, which he said was the closest he felt to Paris while he lived here. It was because of him that we discovered the impressive list of French wines still being poured there, and decided to take our chances with parking for a couple glasses of bordeaux.

We had our wine, and I have a litany of complaints:

Indifferent staff. We walk in and find our bartender deep in a personal conversation (which we can hear) with another member of the staff. We wait politely, looking at the happy hour menu sitting on the bar for lack of a wine list to consider. When the conversation is finally wrapped, she wanders over to inform us that we’re looking at a happy hour menu, and would we like a wine list? Apparently she feels that we are illiterate so I’m not sure what good a wine list will do us, but we say yes anyway. And this was only the first time she ignored us; it was a trend that continued for the entire hour we spent at the bar, with only one other patron vying for (and winning) all of her attention.

Bad wine. I don’t mean bad in in a general qualitative sense. The wines on their list are excellent, and we chose a merlot and a syrah-grenache-mourvedre blend. Two different wines, two different vineyards, two different bottles and both of them were oxidized. No nose, barely any flavor (but a strong, tannic, vinegar-esque finish!), edging on corked. We were very confused. Did we pick bad wine? Were we missing something? Looking around, we realized that the bottles being served by the glass were kept six deep on top of the bar. All standing straight up, and we had no idea how long they’d been there. Looking around some more, at the room ringed with wine bottles, we realized with dawning dismay that there wasn’t a single bottle anywhere in the restaurant being stored on its side. Danger, Will Robinson. Red alert.

Inferior bartending. This is sort of related to the indifference of the staff, as I believe it is born out of the same inattention. While assessing my poorly-cared for glass of wine, I overheard the bartender discussing a drink she was mixing—a perfect Rob Roy—and explaining to someone else that the patron who ordered it doesn’t like vermouth, so he orders it “perfect.” This makes sense to me, as if he doesn’t like dry vermouth the equal amount of sweet vermouth would temper it. She goes on to explain that the “perfect” version, like when you make a perfect Manhattan, uses less dry vermouth and adds extra bitters to counter the vermouth flavor. No sweet vermouth at all! I choked on my drink and started spluttering, and only the fact that she couldn’t be bothered to notice our existence kept her from a scorching indictment of her bartending knowledge.

Things only got worse when a waitress ordered a Cosmopolitan for a table. The bartender turned, opened a fridge and pulled out a glass…which was already full of a Cosmopolitan. Because they have a fridge full of pre-made Cosmopolitans. Row after row, shalf after shelf, filling an entire fridge. Apparently, despite the fact that the bartender has enough time to ignore customers at the bar in favor of personal conversations, she just doesn’t have enough time to be bothered to make a very simple drink. Then again, if she isn’t putting sweet vermouth in a perfect Rob Roy, I can’t be sure what’s going into the Cosmo.

On the upside, the decor is quaint and attractive but not overdone, with cozily dim lighting perfect for a date, and if you’re a smoker it’s one of the few restaurants in Los Angeles that still allows smoking (albeit only on the patio). I hear from those who have dined there that the food is excellent, though I’d hate to enjoy great food with a glass of the wine they are pouring. The only major downside to the decor was the bizarre, new-age, nouveau European music being played. It was distracting in an unfortunate way. Regardless, I won’t be heading back to Figaro for wine or anything else anytime in the future.

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