Cafe Beautiful

Chef Mel provided my wife and I with an anniversary dinner that left us wondering if we had ever tasted food before. Truly, the experience and quality of the food was far above and beyond any dining of my lifetime. Just learned that Cafe Beautiful has been closed due to a massive rent increase. Good luck to Chef Mel, I hope you recover and rebuild. If you reopen somewhere, I would be honored to be among your first guests.

A gorgeous dining experience. Chef Mel had us reschedule due to technical problems with the building and (in her words) made it up to us in a fantastic manner. We had a seven-course meal comprised of small plates with explosive flavors over a leisurely couple of hours. Mel was personable, understanding and accommodating and provided us with dinner experience that was truly special. Definitely will be back!

Great experience. The food was delicious and unique and the presentation was beautiful. You need to bring your own wine (nor corking fee) and must make a reservation. There is no menu but the chef asks about dietary restrictions in advance.We celebrated our 15 year anniversary here and highly recommend it. I would say that if you are picky it may not be the place for you. If you cannot relax and go with the experience you will likely not be pleased. But between Google and Yelp the reviews are almost unanimously glowing. And I would not give much weight to a 2 star review from a reviewer who clearly only writes negative reviews.

We had a lovely dinner for two on a Thursday. We were the only ones in the small cafe for the first hour and we enjoyed personal service from chef Mel. She was gracious in sharing her story but also left us with plenty of time alone to enjoy the tasty dishes. She served us a leisurely nine-course meal with an Asian influence: orange-infused wasabi peas, steamed edamame, coconut curry butternut squash soup, fruit salad with ginger dressing (see the photo), savory custard with homegrown mushrooms, shrimp and lobster, crab cake, seared scallop on arugula, tuna tartare on avocado and crispy rice cake, a killer dish of steak tartare with mushrooms (the soy, mirin, sugar & butter sauce is out-of-this-world) and tiny but oh-so satisfying scoops of blueberry, Meyer lemon & red bean coconut sorbet. Descriptions cannot do justice. We'll be back for more!

My boyfriend had been wanting to eat here for over TWO years. It apparently has more recently (past year or two?) been taken over by a young woman chef. She clearly doesn't know how to provide customer service. We came to the restaurant with high hopes and great expectations and my boyfriend was VERY excited to be eating at this restaurant that has received nothing but rave reviews. Needless to say we were disappointed. My boyfriend exchanged messages (emails) with the chef prior to coming, alerting her that I was a little more picky than most, she advised IN WRITING that she would be able to accommodate and that it was "no problem at all." Guess what? She KICKED US OUT of the restaurant after serving three of the nine dishes as I did not eat COLD duck. I apologize as I am a picky eater, but when a chef is made aware of this, advises it wont be a problem, and then even acknowledges she knows that it is us when we sit down to dinner, you would expect her to not serve cold duck. She advised us "I do not want to continue" while making odd and uncomfortable gestures with her hands as if there was something wrong with her. She also mentioned "this is awkward for me, I don't know how to handle this situation." CLEARLY she didn't. How appalling! Lets just say...there is a reason that COOKS don't serve. We will never be going back and have advised may of this experience. I honestly have never been so upset and embarrassed in my whole life. Not to mention my boyfriends frustrations with not being able to eat there because, shame on him, his gf is picky. Too bad we advised her of this before hand and were made to feel welcome and as if this would not be an issue. HUGE disappointment and skip it because if you 'offend' the rude chef, you're out.