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Categories: Pizza, Italian, American (Traditional)
Neighborhood: Toluca LakeMon. 4:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.
Tue-Fri. 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.
Sat-Sun. 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.
Man i wish I could have eaten here and met this guy.
Here's the video and review of the show:
http://www.misanthropy...
The owner was absolute nutso and the food was worse. Everything was frozen.
20 combinations of flavors LOL
should've listened to Gordon you dingleberry...
I had previously written and posted a review of Sebastian's. Yelp has deleted the review. Needless to say (well, not needless 'cause I just said it (ok, wrote it)), I am not happy with Yelp. Well, here's my replacement review. Sebastian's is a horrible restaurant. Don't go there. You will not have good food or good service. Also, the owner acts like a lunatic. Take care, Jon
---UPDATE---1/15/2008---
Hi folks, I got this e-mail through Yelp today from the owner of Sebastian's, Sebastian himself. Here is the e-mail:
"your an ass"
"i wish i saw you in the street so i could slap the shit out of you. your from boston...you got your ass kicked all your life if you lived in boston. your fat and ugly"
I did not edit the e-mail for spelling or grammar. Anyhow, the guy is trying to threaten me. What the **** is that?! Tsk, tsk.
---UPDATE---1/29/2008---
Well, I just found out from a fellow Yelper that Sabastian's is in the process of closing down operations and that the owner has moved back to Boston. Well, I'm not so happy about this 'cause the guy is a psycho! I wouldn't be surprised if the guy actually came after me. Anyhow, I think I should invest in some type of personal protection. I wrestled for years and was an expert marksman in the army but I'm still not so happy about any of this. Am I being facetious? I'm not even really sure. Yikes!
Wow, I'm surprised to see such bad reviews. We went to Sebastian's at 5pm hoping to have a nice dinner with my friend and beat the crowd. Well, it wasn't crowded. There was only one other party there. It was weird. We sat on the outside patio which was really nice. After talking to our waitress we found out that the restaurant was on Kitchen Nightmares and the patio was redecorated. It had a beautiful fountain with plants, nice soft couches, and little bistro tables. What was interesting was she said the show only left half decor when they were done saying it is to show what "could" be done with the restaurant. That's funny. But it was still really nice.
The food was good. We had a Gourmet Cheese pizza which was really good but that's hard to mess up. Our caesar salads were bland and did not have a lot of dressing. We had bottled beer so I'm not sure about their drinks.
The waitress was extremely nice except she talked to us a little too much. She told us about the show, how she is an actress, where she is from, where she lives, about her boyfriends career, about her job at the restaurant.
I went to Sebastian's and the food and service sucked at life.
Needless to say, the food was inedible and we sent it back to the kitchen untouched and our meal was comped.
Had there been a problem with getting that disaster comped, I would have kindly reassured Sebastian that the only payment he'd be recieving from me would be in the form of these items:
An apron that says, "My wife gave me $300,000 and all I got was this shitty restaurant."
A pair of balls/ bollocks. Not for Sebastian, but for his dumb ass wife for funding her husband's ego induced failures.
A bottle of massengil because he is the epitome of a douchebag. He can gargle with it! I hope he can taste the 21 flavor combinations!
A Gordon Ramsey book - but when I hand it to him, I'll throw my hands in the air and tell him, "And as Gordon Ramsey would say, "I have never, ever, ever, ever, met anyone who I believe in less than you!"
A Michelin tire - God knows that's the only Michelin ANYTHING that restaurant will get.
A salad spinner with a black wig in it. Because nothing gives a salad fresh flavor like a long strand of hair!
An actual box of barf/sick bags to give out to the customers!
A Department of Health Restaurant rating with an F on it and when I hand it to him, I'll tell anyone within earshot that "you won that one!".
Gordon Ramsey for the motherfucking win.
I got burned by Yelpers on this place. I think a few might be groupies of Sebastian who is very outgoing and has a friendly warm personality. But when you look at fellow Yelpers and they rate Yamashiro as outstanding you know to question their taste..
So on with it..
It's nearby to home and have been dying to find a casual place for dinner that is good. I have been three times so I feel I got a good taste of what the place is about. Pizzas are good but the fries are weak at best, every time they where soggy and not all that tasty.
The worst thing has got to be the service. First time Sebastian and his wife where there and service was slow but passable and the food decent. Second two times neither of them were present and the quality of food suffered but the service was downright insulting. The staff could have cared less that they had customers even though they were dead.
Stay away unless of course Ramsay has had a good impact on them.. But then again I think Sebastian has been quoted as saying Ramsay does not know anything about the restaurant business, funny.
-Update 01/12/08-
Received e-mail notice today that Sebastian's is closing it's doors JAN 20 2008. The owners are moving back to the East Coast.
Note to new owners; don't make the same mistakes Sebastian did.
-------------------------------------------------
I worked in Burbank last year, and I've eaten at Sebastian's exactly three times.
One time someone referred me there as a place where I could have a quiet lunch. They were right as it was very quiet, like a ghost town. I was the only customer in there during my 12:30 to 1:30 pm lunch hour.
I had a sliced steak sandwich which was just OK. It was not a very memorable experience for the food quality, but very memorable for the service - It was non-existent. I had to get up and walk over to the counter and ask for my tea refills and the check. I don't remember seeing Sebastian there, or his wife for that matter. I wouldn't have known who they were anyways.
The second time I ate at Sebastian's was right before Xmas in 2006. my wife and I were meeting friends from Pasadena. They suggested Sebastian's for dinner. After my experience with them a couple months earlier, I felt no harm to try them for dinner... couldn't be any worse.
That dinner was a stressful engagement. Our friends, who said they had been there before, had a really difficult time understanding the menu options. After ordering, they kept second guessing themselves as to if they ordered the "right" entrees. One of our party is a vegetarian and ordered the mushrooms with some kind of onion sauce on it (I don't remember exactly what kind of sauce it was, but it had onions in it). The point is, when our vegetarian asked if the "onion" sauce was vegetarian, she said yes. When it came to the table, our vegetarian took one taste of the mushrooms and proclaimed there was a meat broth of some kind in the sauce. Our other entrees were again, just OK at best. Timmy Nolan's would have been a better choice in the area that evening, but again it wasn't my call.
The third time I went to Sebastian's was at the insistence of my wife after she watched the Ramsey show last week and I watched a TIVO replay of the same last weekend. After watching the show, I was bound and determined not to pre-conceive any judgment if we ever went again. Guess what, we went tonight (in fact, we just got home 30 mins ago).
Yes, the menu has changed and most of the Ramsey inspired items are still on the menu. As to the decor, the change wasn't so great that I detected a big difference from the last time we were there. They do have a full bar now (we don't drink, so it's no impact to us). Sebastian's seems to have pared down their combination selections to 5 or 6 and not 20. It's still a bit confusing to the un-initiated I suppose.
I had the rib-eye steak, wife had a red-sauced margarita pizza, we each split a large house salad. My wife insisted we only try the Ramsey inspired entrees and to bypass the menu items from the past.
Compared to other quality Italian/American bistro fare in the Valley and Westside, it's still only OK and not great. My wife kept comparing her pizza to one she had at an Italian restaurant in Nagoya, JP - it's her experienced reference for pizza as being the best ever. My steak could have been seasoned a bit more, a bit more aged... and med-rare like I ordered, not med-well as it came out. The potatoes were good, but the veg was a bit undercooked and cool.
The service this evening was better than my previous lunch experience, but somewhat less attentive that the last time we ate dinner there in DEC.
I would suggest if your curiosity gets the best of you, then try out Sebastian's. If you are not controlled by media hype both pro and con, then try somewhere else. There are many other Italian/American bistro joints out there offering a better dining experience.
- Added 12/21/07 -
Well, I visited Sebastian's today for a client lunch meeting, it was their choice. Like most, they wanted to try the place after watching the Ramsey show from last month. Although I had been before, I thought it might be worth trying again to see if changes have been made since last month.
I am sorry, but the customer experience is still only worthy of 2 stars. Absolutely nothing has been learned, or changed, in regards to service and food quality. My plain cheese pizza was the best thing I tried (and only fair at that), but my salad had sand in it. Another in our group had the same complaint about her salad (she described the salad as "gritty"). Another lunching partner described his fries as having been cooked a second time after getting cold.
Don't look now, but It's a bad case of Deja'vu - once again, someone in our group had to get up and ask for soda and tea refills.
I can sum up in one word...FAIL. Sadly a lot of people run businesses like the Sebastian's guy. He got what was inevitable. Twenty combinations of FAIL.
Why does the service have to stink?
Seriously people, this place is interesting with a capital I. Wait, let me hit backspace and fix that. Oh, but that would take effort...nevermind.
So you walk in to their big courtyard with couches on both sides and round tables and heatlamps and it seems pretty funky.
The inside part of the restaurant looks very CPKish but as soon as I walked past the bathrooms and saw Ms. Pac-Man on the ladies' room door, I knew it would be different.
So the concept is interesting -- they give you a whole bunch of different ingredient listings and you pick one, then you pick if it goes in a pizza, salad or sandwich. They offer six different kinds of fries and an ok wine list. Beers were good and cheap (and it appears to be a Red Sox bar, bonus for me.)
So we order...and then the cigar smoke starts. We didn't realize this place is also somewhat of a cigar bar. Some of them reeked to high heavens but I didn't care; me and Tristen P can entertain each other til the cows come home, or die. Either one.
We ordered Greek Fries and the Hawaii-5-O pizza. First they bring out the fries...they were different than what we ordered. Hungry, we ate them. Then they came out and said "oopsie, we made a mistake, do you want the greek fries?" I said "sure, lets try them." Pizza came out, it was good. When we were almost too full, out came the greek fries. Barely touched them.
It seemed like hours between asking for the check and getting the bill. Oh man, you want to tick me off, keep me waiting. So we get the bill and those butt trumpets charged us for both fries! WTF?
Some experiments bring about great things, like the first time somebody thought "macaroni AND cheese, I'll give it a shot." Sadly, this experiment is more like softcore pornography. The intended result leaves you feeling empty and not entirely satisfied.
+1 for the patio
+1 for the patient waitress as I overheard her explain over and over again to different customers how to order from the confusing menu.
-3 for the pregnancy scare
My friend and his wife threw a wedding reception here 2 summers ago. The menu was more difficult than it needed to be to order a shrimp salad. Some of the shrimps were burnt around the edges.
I'll cut to the chase. A couple of days later, I threw up and was freaked out that I might be "in the family way." Then my newly-married friend asked me a day or two after that if I got sick. I told him "yes." He said a few of his other friends who'd gone to the same reception had also gotten sick. Yup, we got food poisoning. Apparently, the incubation period can be a couple of days.
Funny enough, they will be featured on "Kitchen Nightmares" in a few days. It'll be interesting to see what, if any, improvements were made.
The same people who say Reality T.V. is real---think that the person with whom they are chatting with on the internet is REALLY who he or she says they are. Come On. Are people really losing the ability to reason?
Gee, I took the old fashioned approach. I got into my car and drove to Sebastian's, partly because the show was such a RIOT. I never laughed so hard in my life at the entertainment of it. But, Gosh, I walked in. I was greeted by Sebastian, who, by the way, was very friendly to us. And Yes the place is comfortable. The vibe was friendly with each waiter/waitress. And OH-MY-GOD the staff thought --that we were such a nice family too! Even Sebastian talked to us about his kid, as I talked about mine. How normal. The world is what you make it to be.
Horrors, our food was Good---the pizza "Niky" was excellent! And you know what?---I think I'll go once a week to dine at Sebastian's---that way I can make a fair and reasonable assessment to share what is in fact true.
"I'll take a slice of REALITY, please, and could you give me a side of Humor with that???"
This place recently got a complete make over. The food, the service and the decor are much improved now.
I had a great sirloin sandwich here for lunch and will be back again. The sandwiches are huge and all of them are good, beware the fireman it can be really, really spicy.
Parking in the rear and on nice days they have a good patio.
Lunch runs about $16 per person.
After a long morning of helping a co-worker move, nothing is quite as rewarding as having them buy you pizza, especially when it's "sit-down pizza on a couch" at a semi-nice restaurant.
The pizza is nothing to write home about, but the calamari was fairly tasty. In addition, I'd like to award bonus points for the out-of-place use of "pop" instead of Coke or soda, or whatever else.
If you're in the area on a Saturday afternoon like I was, make a trip to sit down on a couch and enjoy, otherwise, don't go out of your way.
Love the ambiance - the big comfy couches, the chill room in the back.
The menu is a little....confusing? Once you've been there it's old hat, but the first time you go it takes a few minutes to orient yourself with the menu. (You pick the flavor - of which there are MANY - and then you pick the entree you want it to go with)
And all though I like most stuff (awesome Chili Fries and Pizzas) you just have to learn to accept that EVERYTHING will be salty. EVERYTHING.
I'm stuck on whether or not I like this place. First off I like the out door patio area, until it got cold. The couches are nice along with the smoking and non smoking out door patio section. Kudos for that.
The menu is weird, that's it, just weird. Your given an option of what you want, then decide if you want that in a salad, and entree or in a sandwich. Due to the whole E Collie break out they were not allowed to serve salad. They also have some tasty gourmet fries and pizza.
We ordered some feta fries which I'm still stuck on from the Greek Fest. They gave us some fries covered in BBQ sauce, pepperchinies, onions and cheese. Those don't look like feta fries but they did look tasty and ate them anyways. After we devoured the fries in seconds they came over and realized we had got the wrong order and asked if we wanted the feta fries still. Sure why not? Bring on the feta fries!!
Then came the Hawaiian pizza. It didn't taste like any other Hawaiian pizza that I'm use to it but it was good. Again weird is the key word here. I was too stuffed from the fries to eat anymore.
They don't have a full bar. Just beer, martinis and a wine list. They have a really tasty sangria. If your not into that take yourself over to Timmy Nolan's next door. When we got the check we were under the impression they wouldn't charge us for the wrong order but they did.
We were here for two hours. Way too long for dinner. The place wasn't even busy but they seemed too busy to take care of us. They weren't even under staffed but yet it still took FOREVER to get service.
In conclusion. This is a nice spot to chill and watch a game with a group of friends, smoke cigars, smell like a cigar and watch people on dates. Yes it's a singles bar from what we noticed. Would I come back? Yes...... when the service is better.
The other review here sums it up perfectly. I'm here to just post my star rating and say that the food is fresh and tastes gooooood.
Oh, and it's a great place to just sit relax and enjoy. I guess that's why it's on their sign.
Too bad this place is now closed........
I like the chef...who is actually the owner? also is he Sebastian?
we will never know. We went there for after work dinner and loved the place.. the got our orders right...we had some pizzas.....
sorry....but we did....they were not bad....
The ambiance was relaxed...the noise level ok....the bar complete...
the food selections...great...we had too much wine before the food arrived....so sorry
But too bad we will not be able to see this place again..
Or willwe?
You have to check this place out for the gorgeous outdoor patio alone. It's got comfy velvet couches, a back room with plasma TV's and pool tables, and a cool, different type of menu. I highly recommend the gourmet french fries.
However the restaurant has terrible service. If I were to go back, it would be to chill on a couch & enjoy a glass of wine.
Sebastian's restaurant and lounge
Boasting a spacious and beautiful patio area with a relaxing fountain, two plasma televisions as well as three more plasma televisions inside, plush sofas and club chairs both inside and out, small and large VIP rooms, cigar menu, a pool table, live music and much more.
The menu centers around chicken, beef, shrimp and portabella mushroom tips. Choose one of 23 savory flavors Sebastian personally developed and decide if you'd like that as a gourmet sandwich, as a salad on a bed of wild baby greens or as an entree.
**BREAKFAST SERVED SATURDAY & SUNDAY ONLY**
Maddox.Xmission aka The Best Page In The Universe reviewed one child's artwork submission that I feel can closely relate to that of mine for Sebastian's:
"Vrrrroooooooooooommmmmm! F"
1 Star - because the website is an ad.
0 Star(s?) - the worst and most pathetic loser in history failing to take reasonable and successful suggestions from proven professionals. This Sebastian is an absolute lunatic, skitzo, and failure at life in general!
-Mr. Harsh
really neat atmosphere. You forget you are in a city. Very intimate and well set up. The pizza was SO good (I recommend the bbq chicken) and great drinks (very stiff). good service too
I actually love this place- I go there with my boyfriend all the time, and we always have a lovely meal. The ambiance is fantastic, i LOVE the lounge style- we go watch football on the weekends there sometimes, and have caught a comedian or live music there on occasion.
That being said, the food is good but not amazing. I am always happy with my meal, but it is the atmosphere that makes it wonderful. Also, I went there recently for a friends birthday with a large group and the service was REALLY slow. The owner did send some free food over though, and everyone was polite.
All in all, I think the pros of such a cute casual place far outweigh the cons- I just love snuggling up on a couch with my sweetie and having a nice meal!
Yes well. I'm another sucker who thought Gordon Ramsay would've saved the day. Sadly, one cannot save someone from themself. What an absolute TOILET! Bad food. Horrendous space. Bad lighting. Incompetent staff. Oh and did I mention expensive? 2 pizzas, 2 salads 2 drinks 80 bucks and change.
#1 I am not related to the restaurant, the owner, or any of the staff. I have no vested interest in this business at all.
With that said, the comments here that I have read are pretty disrespectful about the owner, his business, and his wife and that to me is disgusting. Some of these comments reflect on those that typed them and some of you people have no class whatsoever.
Prior to the show, the reviews for this restaurant were good.
This is entertainment, pure and simple. You folks watched the show and now there is a buzz surrounding Sebastian's restaurant.
A lot of you people have very short memories, and pretty screwed up priorities.
Do any of you remember the countless other restaurants that had FILTH, INSECTS, LACK OF HYGIENE, and many other MAJOR HEALTH risks??
There wasn't ONE SECOND where Gordon Ramsay had ANYTHING to say about the cleanliness of Sebastian's restaurant. Sure the food may have been frozen, but you know what I will take that ANYDAY along with a kitchen I can eat off any surface, versus a high brow made to order business crawling with roaches and nasty old food.
Sebastian is an actor, and who knows if he was acting on the show.
I can tell you for a FACT that I've eaten at Sebastian's over 300 times.
I was the guy who came up with the saying on Sebastian's restaurant shirts, "Without Sebastian's I'd Starve"
Sebastian has been NOTHING but class to my fiance, my friends, and my mother who visits us from the east coast and we go to Sebastian's for brunch or dinner.
Sebastian has heart. His wife is class and his family are warm people from Boston.
Give the man a break. EVERY RESTAURANT in that section where Sebastian's resides has FAILED. I think Sebastian's has lasted the longest.
I don't know who this other character is posting that they are Sebastian but all of you people are truly NAIVE if you believe everything you read on the Internet.
Go meet the man, talk to him, eat the food or not.
There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears in that place.
Sebastian may be a big blowhard some times, but if all you can fault him for is his frozen food and big mouth, he is shoulders above his peers running filthy s*itholes and laughing their way to the bank.
Ramsay is an award winning, globally recognized chef, but NOBODY knows everything and Sebastian's quirky menu worked for me and my friends. Perhaps that's his niche and the rest of you can go eat at Sizzler.
First off, if you have never been the restaurant and never tried to food - don't rate the place. That is like a movie critic giving their opinion based on a review by someone else.
I too watched the Kitchen Nightmare show and was curious to check this place out. So, I suggested that my girlfriend and my cousin go check this place out. I was very excited to see Sebastian behind the counter working on food when I first got there. I overheard him speaking with some customers next to us about the Kitchen Nightmare show. He said that it was all editing. One thing I did notice in the show is that when he blew up, he was vacuuming a room in the restaurant. This was obviously after the place was closed. Why would he be vacuuming his restaurant if he has customers there???
To the food.... we had 1/2 pepperoni and 1/2 sausage pizza... the pizza was ONE OF THE BEST that I've had in Los Angeles! We also has Parm fries which had tomato sauce and I am assuming parmesan cheese. They were also delicious! This place is really good and the ambience is nice.
Next time you review a place make sure you actually step in the door!
I LOVE everything about this place: the service, food, ambiance - seriously, everything ;)
I've been here at least half a dozen times & not once had I had bad food or service.
The outside with the couches is so sexy, relaxing plus you can smoke cigars which is also sexy & the smell.....YUM!
Go and have the buffalo chicken (anything) it's super tasty!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update 11/6/07
So the work crew & I (about 17 of us) decided on Sebastian's for a crew member birthday. We show up, all is set & then all the crew decides it's TOO cold & we wanna sit inside, so me being the 'director' of this impromptu gathering asks the hostess & our waitress if we can all move inside (after these 2 lovely women did all they could to make it comfy for us outside) the hostess said she'd check with Sebastian as she knew the room was spoken for 'But just in case' well, they let us have that room & let me tell you, our waitress was the awesomest! Always on top of things & it was pretty hectic. Food came out in good time & we all ordered an entree even after 15 different appetizers came out, she was a super pro! Plus, of course the food was fantastic! EVERY person there & about 10 of them had never before gone to Sebastian's raved about it & loved it. So we are now in the process of doing our work Xmas party here ;) Kudos Sebastian, you freakin' rock!
omg what an azz! *ding* one order of humble pie and karma ready for pick up...
My friend had his birthday at Sebastian's just yesterday. We got the room with the pool room to our selves because he had so many people. The atmosphere is nice. Its casual but still nice to look at. There are tons of cool paintings on the walls and i LOVE the Mr. and Ms. Pac Man on the bathroom doors. SO CUTE! I only saw the patio as i was entering the restaurant...but it was very nice. Great place to gather with friends. The birthday boy ordered a bunch of pizzas for every one to eat and ceasar salad. They salad was okay but the bread it came with was sooo bad. It tasted old and for some reason it was sweet. Ew. The pizzas were so so. Nothing to get excited about. I tried the pizza margarita (bad) and the bbq chicken pizza (not so bad). I also had a apple martini...and it was THE WORST apple martini i ever had in my life. It was heavy with syrup and made me feel sick for a good hour. Anywho aside from that I liked the place. I will probably go back...not so much for the food...but more because its a fun place to hang out.
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