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The food is elevated Dominos (a compliment), and the vibe is “Craig’s but make it influencer” (not a compliment), which can mean only one thing: Bad Roman has arrived in Los Angeles.
Yes, Manhattan’s hottest reservation circa 2023 has made the cross-country leap to land in Beverly Hills, bringing with it a deeply unserious menu, pepperoncini martinis, and some of the best desserts in L.A. The whole maximalist ethos always felt more L.A. than Manhattan, and this new outpost only proves the point.
RECOMMENDED: The best restaurants in L.A.
Too bad the service during a recent visit fell into the “minimalist” category.
The atmosphere: packed tables and rushed service
Even at 6:30pm on a Tuesday, Bad Roman was packed with diners and drinkers standing at the bar, but the turnover seemed brisk enough not to warrant the rushed feeling to which my friend, G., and I were subjected. We were asked no less than three times if we were ready to order before our cocktails had arrived, until finally I made us sit in grim silence with the menu before our server committed another unsmiling drive-by.
As we did, we sipped a Bad Hombre (a riff on a New York Sour) and a Spritzy Spritz (prosecco, grapefruit and Cocchi Americano), which were perfectly fine but not as interesting or as WTF? as the rest of the menu. Eventually, I had a pepperoncini martini, and my friend switched to a glass of wine—which was all we had to drink. No one ever asked if we wanted another.
The menu: elevated comfort food and standout starters
As for the food… look, you’re either on board with dipping thick, fried rounds of pepperoni into ranch or you’re not. Since we were very into it, we had a great time. The wedge salad with antipasti was disappointing and impossible to share with any kind of grace, but the whipped ricotta with truffle honey was a creamy delight. The server-in-training who took over our table early in the evening even brought over extra bread, which is not always the case with a dip. It was a little odd that the dish dripped honey all over the table, but maybe that’s just my aversion to sticky tabletops. Someone did come by unpromoted to clean it, at least.
Main courses: hits and misses on the plate
For our mains, I had the oestra caviar gnocchi (a flavor combination that gained nothing from the pairing), and G. had the mandatory filet with a cacio e pepe raviolo on top, an inspired, idiosyncratic pairing that helped make Bad Roman a destination when it first blazed onto the scene. The steak was impeccably prepared, and the enormous raviolo made one wish for an entire dish of them to overeat. We also got the filet mignon meatballs (like I said: elevated Dominos), which were overwhelmingly OK.
Look, you’re either on board with dipping thick, fried rounds of pepperoni into ranch or you’re not.
Nothing about our apps or entrees prepared us for the huge size of our side of broccoli rabe, which practically demanded tongs to disseminate. Sadly, tongs did not accompany them, so we did our best. We made barely a dent in it, all while saying, “Am I crazy, or could this be more charred?”
The saving grace: unforgettable Italian desserts
Ah, but dessert! I had heard that the lemon cheesecake and the tiramisu ice cream cake were required orders, so when our server came over to ask if we wanted dessert, I asked for both. That was my mistake; apparently, there is a Bad Roman dessert menu, but since I ordered without it, we never got to see it. Too bad; in retrospect, I would have loved to try a housemade limoncello.
On our server’s recommendation—we’d been spotted chatting with the restaurant’s publicist, after which our service came with a smile—we also ordered the blood orange sorbetto.
I cannot begin to describe the mess I made, blissfully scrambling from one to the other as I came to grips with the idea that Bad Roman might have the idealized iterations of some of my favorite desserts. Tiramisu ice cream cake? Why did we have to wait until now to enjoy this perfect melding of flavors and textures? Even the lemon cheesecake—which comes in a once-trendy hard shell on a bed of graham cracker crumbs—felt like a fresh invention.
Accompanying our three desserts was the check, making sure that we didn’t get comfortable enough to linger. Too bad. I could have easily gotten another slice of that tiramisu ice cream cake. Maybe next time I’ll eat faster and earn one.
Bad Roman is located at 207 N. Canon Drive. Its hours are Tuesday–Thursday, 4:30pm–10pm, and Friday and Saturday, 4:30pm–11pm. For more information and to make a reservation, click here.