Restaurant: Teleferic Barcelona Los Angeles
Location: 11930 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049. (424) 832-7595
Date: March 14, April 8, & June 4, 2023
Cuisine: Spanish
Rating: Tasty contemporary Tapas
Good Spanish in Brentwood — woot!
Teleferic is located in the old Vincenti space. The shape is essentially the same but they’ve given it a nice modern makeover.
The interior.
The menu.
Albarinos.
Amuse of some kind of cheese and mushroom tart. This was very well baked, but oddly used a sweeter shortcrust pastry than I’d use in a dessert tart.
Zoom.
Pan con Tomate. A traditional Spanish dish of toasted bread with tomato. dressing & chorizo butter (gfa). A bit “foamed” and soft as opposed to the more tradtional “minced” totmato version of this dish. Bread was moderately soft as well and I don’t think scraped with garlic. I’m not a big fan of pan con tomate in general but this wasn’t my favorite. Chorizo butter was interesting though.
Secret Kids Tortilla. Classic Spanish Tortilla, aka fritata with potato and onion.
Hidden Gem Salad. Little lettuce gems, Idiazabal, Iberian bacon, basil vinaigrette. Nice light salad.
Taquitos de Tuna & Avocado. Marinated ahi tuna, mashed avocado & wonton shells (gfa). Nice crispy tuna tartare taco. Great with the lime.
Great priorats.
Patatas Bravas. Crispy potatoes topped with homemade brava sauce & aioli (gfa, v). Interesting presentation of the “brave potatoes” and quite delicious. Gotta love that mildly spicy mayo.
Gazpacho Porrón. Watermelon tartare, gazpacho & basil oil served in a porrón (v, gf). Very refreshing and quite unexpected and lovely combo.
Ham Croquetas. Croquettes with Iberian ham & aioli. Fluffy and nice with a very soft bechemel.
Empanadas. Roasted chicken empanadas served with spicy aioli.
Spanish Meatballs. Tender beef meatballs in flavorful ‘canary masala’ sauce & cream. Maybe not the most traditional, but I love a nice curry and the masala really took it up a notch. Quite excellent.
Crab Croquettes. Crab croquettes topped with tuna sashimi & spicy aioli. The croquette would have been fine without the tuna and maybe with a saffron mayo or similar. So a little odd as a kind of croquette nigiri, but still excellent. Nice crabby flavor.
Dragonballs. Chorizo pops filled with Mahón cheese & corn crust. Great crispy texture and intresting chorizo flavor.
Catalan Cod. Black cod ‘a la llauna’ style, served with ‘romesco’ sauce
& butter beans (gf). Solid.
Truffled Cannelloni. truffle beef cannelloni coated in rich black truffle sauce & demi-glace. I thought I’d love this dish and I did. Great meaty inside and awesome semi-sweet creamy sauce.
This second time it was cut into threes and not quite as great — but still good.
Bruselas. Brussels sprouts with a touch of aged cheese. & lemon-honey dressing (gfa, v). Loved these sweet and savory brussels. Could have eaten the whole bowl myself.
Cali-Flower. Crispy cauliflower pops with a deliciously tangy ‘romesco’ glaze. These were great with a nice tang to the glaze.
Artichoke Hearts. Crispy artichoke with light pistachio foam & red curry. Crispy and nice.
Maine Lobster Paella. Freshly caught Maine lobster, gulf shrimp & octopus (gf). Mix crispy texture and fresh seafood so one of the better paella I’ve had in LA — which is a town full of crappy paella. Enjoyable and I need come back and try the negro version.
Paella Veggie. Seasonal mushrooms, cauliflower, artichokes
& seaweed stock (gf, v). The veg version had the same nice crispy texture. Quite addicitive and off my diet. Could have used even more garlic aioli.
Ibérico Pork Paella. Acorn-fed pork chop, pork belly & mushrooms (gf).
Garlic aioli for the paella (I asked for this as I love it).
Gambas al Ajillo. Gulf shrimp, lemon zest & crispy garlic. Very nice whole shrimp version of the classic. Head sucking good with lots of garlic butter. Unfortuantly I missed on the focus.
Forgot to photo my bottle. 2010 Espectacle.
Tondonia!
Catalan Tomahawk. 40 Oz Prime rib eye ‘chuletón’, potatoes & a set of dressings. Cooked properly rare. They left in the big fat strip between the ribeye and the ribcap but it was a nice piece of beef and the sauces were great, basically the potatoes bravos sauces (aioli and romesco) and a pesto.
Mirella womans the bone.
Secret Kids Mac & Cheese. Very creamy, no breadcrumbs.
Prime Wellington. Braised short ribs & Ibérico ham encased in a flaky puff pastry roll, served with Spanish-style potatoes.
I’m not sure what goodness they injected into the Wellington but anywhichway it was awesome. One of the best dishes. The cold savory meatballs were also amazing and the sauce on them fabulous and nutty/sweet.
Paella Negra. Squid ink, gulf shrimp, scallops, octopus & clams. This was probably my favorite paella of the three I tried with a nice sweet & briney quality. It needed more aioli but this time I asked for (and recieved) some. They ask you if you want it crispy or not.
Zoom.
Torrija. French toast, Catalan cream & vanilla ice cream. Awesome (and very sweet) donut with amazing crema catalana. I total sugar bomb but great.
They came around and poured this conconction of cava and fruit juice into the mouths of willing participants.
Overall, I very much enjoyed Teleferic. It’s not perfect, but it is fairly classic spainish with a bit of a modern twist. Flavors were bright and good. They gave me no trouble over my (Spanish) wines. I’m good. It’s awesome to have a solid Spanish so close to home.
I think I might have enjoyed Teleferic even more the second (and third) time. Jeffrey went without us a month ago and then forced our planned dinner over to the rather uninspired MyDogPoo. But I’m very happy to have this right in my neighborhood. A big menu and almost everything was great. Probably the best Paella in LA right now too, even if it isn’t up to Spanish standards, it’s at least pretty crispy. Service was great too, although things came a bit fast — which wasn’t a problem with the kids tonight but I don’t love when it’s all adults.