Crossroads Kitchen Melrose

I’d been dreaming of visiting Crossroads Kitchen for Years!! As soon as my family and I stepped in we were greeted by the friendly hostess, that is always super important! I let her know how thrilled I was to finally be there, I think she could tell haha she was really lovely! She sat us at a really nice spot and right away we got water and our server took over. The vibe there is so good, it’s so beautiful and just relaxing. We went for lunch time so it was so bright and I couldn’t stop looking all around. My kids aren’t full plant based yet but there was food that made them very happy, PASTA with butter for my son, IMPOSSIBLE CHICKEN NUGGETS and fries for my teen and they absolutely loved the raspberry SORBET! To start, for my husband and I ordered the WEDGE salad and WOW I can’t stop thinking about that amazing salad especially the blue cheese on it! We also ordered the CALAMARI FRITTI, my husband isn’t fully vegan (yet) but he said he liked it a lot more than the squid calamari. Afterwards we ordered the TAGLIATELLE BOLOGNESE and it was so good I don’t think anyone eating it would not realize it was vegan. And we ordered the BURGER and asked for TRUFFLE FRIES instead of regular, so freken good!!! We’ve gone twice this year and from now on any time we visit beautiful LA we are definitely coming here!!

The lions-mane steak is something my household talks about on the daily. We love crossroads! It’s our go-to for celebratory nights or when we want to treat ourselves. Obsessed with the wedge salad ?

Sitting in the restaurant while writing this and the overall vibe is nice but the pasta here absolutely sucks. We ordered the Cacio e Pepe and it is so so bland. We’ve had cacio e Pepe in some of the best restaurants in LA like Felix/scopa etc. but this literally tastes like butter pasta. The server is rude and refuses to make any substitutions at all. We asked for extra cheese after telling her that we’re confused because the pasta doesn’t taste good at all and she has the audacity to tell us that they’ll charge us extra for the cheese on top of the $25 pasta. It’s absolutely ridiculous. The apps are good but stay away from their pasta. Would not recommend.

I’ve tried every vegan and vegetarian place in town and Crossroads is incomparable. You know a place is great when you take meat eaters who find themselves asking time and time again “are you sure this is vegan?” The standout dishes include the lions mane skewers (or the lions mane steak if you get there before it sells out each night), the carbonara with a vegan egg on top that’s too realistic to believe, and their calamari which had connoisseurs say it was the best calamari they’ve ever had! Their cocktail AND mocktail selection is equally as spectacular with the bartenders knowing exactly what to pair with your meal. And last but definitely not least is the service. Friendly staff everyone from the host to the bussers appear happy and proud to be there. They treat every guest like a VIP even when there’s A List guests dining!

I'm sitting here writing this. The water leaves a aftertaste maybe it needs to be infused I'm a water connoisseur sorry. Pros: They seated us pretty quickly for a Saturday. Get the blossoms ! Cons: the bathroom was dusty and dark nowhere to hang my bag, but this affected my impression greatly. We waited quite some time for someone to come ask if we'd like water, definitely should just bring it no matter what. I'm very confused about the music. It's great 50s 70's music, but it is clashing with the more classic vibe idk sorry it's not horrible I was singing along in my head but I thought this was for a younger crowd. My friend says the drink was strong. The food was amazing so yea made up for everything else.