Charcoal Venice - Marina del Rey

Love this place been coming here for years. They can have a piece of my pie anytime. The experience here is always worth the money.Vegetarian options: Salads and Vegetable menu!

While food is amazing, I feel that a certain waitress tends to upsell quite often, and pressure to order more than you need. Feels unauthentic-she is very social and makes you feel comfortable, but perhaps she is a great persuader, maybe without having your best intentions when the bill comes! Great food, though!

My 12 year old (mini foodie and I were staying in Venice for a fall break vacay and decided to try out Charcoal for dinner. Obviously the concept here is most everything is grilled or cooked in coals. It smelled delicious when we walked in! We sat in the dining room because it was a little cool outside. We loved the décor (trendy and also the music (lots of 90s hip hop thought it was unexpected, but liked it! .I had made a reservation online so we were seated immediately, but at 9pm on a Saturday night it wasn't too busy anyway. Our server, Pedro, was awesome! He gave us all the history about the chef and and the restaurant, and gave us recommendations on what and how to order, and how much (and he was correct! The food came out quickly and we had everything we needed throughout our meal.Everything is served family style so prepare to share!We started with the cabbage, which was so good! Soft, flavorful and it came with a yogurt sauce that was so good we were just eating it on its own.We also started with the arugula salad that had grilled peaches. The sweet peaches were such a nice offset to the earthy arugula. Loved it!We then got the main course rib eye, carrots, and a potato. The rib eye were ordered medium and it came out perfect nice and pink, almost red in the center. It was so soft you could cut it with a fork. There are several yummy condiments on the table (chimichurri, BBQ and steak sauces but we didn't need them the rib eye was so good as it was. The roasted carrots were also so good. Sweet and had ricotta cheese on them. Yum! The potato was the only thing that wasn't perfect. I think because it was the end of the night maybe it had cooked to long in the coals and the skin was charred all the way through so it was inedible. But the inside of the potato was scrumptious! So many toppings you got so much flavor in every bite. I would probably try the potato again, if I was there earlier in the day. All in all a worthwhile experience! I would definitely come back were I visiting again. (And try the collard greens, elote, mushrooms, and maybe the duck!

Yikes! This place has gone so down hill I used to love it. Took over 45 minutes to get our waiter to come to our table had to get up and ask for service. Waited over 30 minutes for a glass of wine refill. Asked for a lemon wedge and the guy brought it over in his hand? Just holding it. Steak was more medium than medium rare

The food and ambiance are incredible. The service for us that night was very slow at first (30 minutes before anyone took our drink order? To be fair our 2 friends we were meeting had been there an hour prior for happy hour at the bar) until we called someone over and they happened to be the manager. Then he helped us through most of the ordering until the end of the night....Must have been short staffed. Anyway everything was delicious and I am obsessed with the smoke and fire cocktail. Will be back!