Tower 42 Restaurant

Go to iHop for breakfast instead. It’s kind of hard to mess up breakfast, yet they did. Got both of our orders wrong, surly waitress. When I did get my breakfast done the way I asked, it wasn’t good. When my companion complained about her meal being COMPLETELY WRONG, the very rude waitress argued with her that it’s exactly how she ordered it. It wasn’t. I was sitting right there. They didn’t fix her meal, they didn’t deduct it from the bill and they certainly didn’t apologize. I will never return. Worst service, worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had.

What happened?!
My girlfriends and I made plans to meet at Tower 42 for brunch this past Sunday and it was… closed?
Now this Unilocal page name has been changed :(
Very sad — I really liked this place.

Well i was excited to try tower 42 based on pics and the menu. well i was sadly disappointed with the food and the service… mostly the food. the service was passable but very slow and not friendly. the food was all very bland. not seasoned and nothing stood out as really tasting great. all the ingredients seemed fine i think it was just a matter of a lack of good sauces and seasoning. The ahi crudo was good looking… but tasted like raw fish with no flavor. i love raw fish but it must have some seasoning or sauce to lift it up. same thing with the salmon. last we had the hamachi collar and scallops. same old story,. this chef does not sauce or season the food leaving me wanting to back in the kitchen and ask if they are actually tasting the food…

Gone day drinkin’ at Tower 42! Great beers on tap. Pretty cool menu. We only tried the fried risotto balls off the appetizer menu but everything at least sounded great on paper. Really cool back patio with daytime views of the beach and a pit for a personal bonfire at night. Take that Dockweiler! Very trendy and modern indoor décor. We loved Kristin!

I am real tired of people reviewing Tower 42 as «Overpriced» or Too expensive”.
Go to Moes (a sort of dive bar next door… which i like) and you will see equal to more expensive dinner specials on their menu. But nobody complains there???
Look this is a finer dining/​upscale restaurant than a lot of the others in the area. $ 15 — 30 is too expensive? I suggest you go to Applebees or the Olive garden.
If you don’t like the food that’s fine, but this place is NOT overpriced for it’s ambiance, Food, and Style.
They have a band and a good one. They sometimes have comedy. They have a freakin Library. They have an excellent happy hour from 3 – 7 with $ 3.25 drinks. «OH MY GOD THAT“S SOOOO EXPENSIVE».
I think this place is doing it’s best to try and bring an upper scale restaurant to an area that desperately needs it. Not another hole in the wall dive bar which we have plenty of.
Complaining about Valet??? comes with ambiance. Guess what it’s freakin free on the streets on the side and in the back. This is not Santa Monica where there is no place to park. Perhaps you could use some exercise anyway.

I am SO excited about the brunch they have here. Its only on the weekends from 10−2…and is so good. The back patio is really great to have brunch because you can see the ocean.
The Benedicts are really great… and the pancakes are OH SO YUMMY! They are like a cross between a pancake and a crêpe. :) Hats off to the chef.
What I don’t understand is why they have valet there… I really don’t think valet is worth it for the brunch… and if you are going to have valet… then this place needs to really consider having FRESH OJ (not tropicana) and a more sophisticated coffee machine that makes Latte’s and stuff like that.
Oh and also… please consider getting umbrellas for the back patio… as much as I love the sun on my face/​body during breakfast… everyone always seems to take cover for the shade because that back patio gets hot. Can you guys pretty please consider adding umbrellas?

Went her for brunch a few Sunday’s ago. Bottomless Mimosas for $ 10 is a great deal! I had the biscuits and gravy… a bit to foo-​foo for my taste, I wouldn’t order it again. Two of the others had eggs Benedict –one traditional ad one crab. They gave a thumbs up, but i don’t think the girl who had the crab one was as super pleased.
It gets a little loud on the patio, perhaps some acoustic panels. Overall I’d go again and try something different, every place is worth a second try.
service was good. and then it got busy, so we saw less of her. Maybe a few more bus boys on teh weekends to help with back prep would help so the wait staff can wait and not prep the mimosas.

I’m pretty obsessed with this place.
This review was prompted by the fact that tower isn’t open for Martini Mondays anymore! This makes me deeply saddened. I tried to go there last night, but to no avail. I immediately became nervous that they weren’t doing enough business to stay open. I would be extremely upset if they ever closed! Seriously, their food is perfection. I even blogged about it. Which really isn’t saying much, but still.

You cant go wrong with anything. Their happy hour is amazeballs, great live music, friendly staff, cute décor. UGH. FIVESTARSFIVESTARS STAYOPENFOREVER.
Love you, mean it.

we drove there on St Patrick day and it was closed what a joke! I hear their partnership is falling apart and it will be closed soon.
Btw original chef, the one who was creating all the menus, I know for a fact he is out, the other guy is loosing money and looking for a buyer.
They spend $ 300k in remodeling only to be closed down in 6 month.
This is a dead end location, and no real restaurant will survive it — there not enough local residents who wanna pay high prices for «boutique food» and there not enough tourists either.
So dont expect any consistency in their foor, chef Mayer, menu creator is already gone and not working there and not a partner. The other guy mentally checked out from the restaurant and looking to sell it.

Went here on a Saturday evening with my husband and our friends, and unfortunately didn’t have the best experience. Our first impression was good, as we easily got free street parking right outside. They also had a valet lot for $ 4. When we walked in, the atmosphere was intimate and cozy, with nice wood tables and a bar with a fire place. We were given waters, and our large party was easily accommodated. The trouble seemed to begin once the place started getting a little more busy…
There appeared to be just 1, maybe 2 servers working. We had a difficult time finding our waitress, and actually had to go up to the bar ourselves to order another round of drinks because we had waited so long without seeing our waitress.
My husband and I ordered the mussels, as did another couple. We had a few mussels and realized something was wrong. They just didn’t taste right, and their consistency was very liquidy — they tasted gooey, and we noticed that most of the mussels were closed up (not open as they normally are when served). We asked the other couple how their order was and, sure enough, they had the same issue with the mussels being closed and kind of liquified. We waited a while for the waitress, but it was obvious she was MIA. Finally, we caught sight of her and flagged her down. We are NOT the type at all to send food back (in fact, I think this may have been the first time ever) but we literally couldn’t eat these. The waitress took the mussels back to the chef and then came back out and told us that the chef said we were right, the mussels were no good. I am still a bit confused how 2 orders of obviously bad mussels went out in the first place, as you could see by looking at them that they were not right. In fact, he made us another order of mussels and this time it was like night and day — they were prepared perfectly, all of the shells were open, and the mussels were solid, regular mussels instead of the gooey mess we were served before. It was such a drastic difference between the first and second order that it really made me question why the first order ever went out — did they think we just wouldn’t know we were given bad seafood? I don’t get it.
I was disappointed that no one (including our waitress) apologized for their mistake. Back when I was a waitress, a manager would always go over to a table and personally apologize if a mistake like that was made on their end — particularly in this instance, when food was prepared incorrectly and resulted in me getting sick later that night. We paid for the mussels — nothing was comped, not even a free drink — and, like I mentioned, we have never had to send food back before, but I assumed if I ever had an experience such as this, we would at least be taken care of — not the case here. That was pretty unsettling.
Our first impression was very good, but our lasting impression, unfortunately, was not a positive one. I can’t in good conscience recommend this restaurant after the poor service and cooking error we experienced.

I was here on a Monday night for the restaurant’s $ 5 martini-​Monday special. I arrived at 7:30 and was informed that the kitchen was going to be closing at 8pm due to monthly kitchen cleaning or something like that. Fair enough, my friends and I were really only there for cocktails so we decided to order some small stuff right away.
I ended up splitting a charcuterie plate with a friend and we all ordered martinis. The best part was that you could select your liquor at no extra charge! Here, here Tower 42! The charcuterie arrived and it had a wonderful variety of meat and cheese and was a great deal for only $ 11.
This was basically the end of the good experience, unfortunately. After we had finished our first round of (very) strong cocktails, we were all debating getting another round. The waitress came by and asked if we wanted another round and we said we were still deciding.
THEN! 2 minutes later she swings by and says «I put in another order for you!» Um, what?!
We decided to take it in stride… until right after we receive our drinks they tell us the bar is ALSO closing early at 9:30. It’s now 9pm and we have full martini glasses. Are you freaking kidding me? We were reluctant to chug down our martinis in 30 minutes so we hoped they would give us some extra time since we JUST found out that they were closing the bar early too… but alas. They turned the music off in the bar area and made it extra awkward for us to remain there. Soooo we left our half-​finished martinis that we didn’t even really want in the first place.
Thanks, guys.
To top it off, two days later we found out they are no longer having martini Mondays as they will now be closed for dinners on Sundays and Mondays! Smooth.

Most definitely a fan of Tower 42!
Had a fantastic dinner here on a Wednesday night. Sat at the bar area, the ambiance was perfect, lighting, noise level and the fireplace. Definitely a date spot.
The service was attentive and efficient. The food. THE FOOOOOODDDD!
First they provide you w/​perfectly toasted pretzel bread, mustard butter and an olive tapenade. It is delicious! I’ve never had mustard butter before but it goes perfectly well w/​the salty pretzel bread. I couldn’t get enough of this!
For this evening they had 50% off bottle wines w/​an order of an entrée which we of course took advantage of.
What we ordered:
«Too Spicy» Ahi Crudo w/​Tarragon potato chips: MUST ORDER THIS. Perfect blend of fresh fish and spicy. I could have eaten this all night. Seriously!
Fried Oysters w/​cornmeal crust and jicama slaw: Delicious! The crust was cooked perfectly crunchy and the oysters were tasty.
Build Your Own Custom Delux Burger on a pretzel bun make sure to add the bacon onion rings: My husband ordered this and said it was a memorable burger. One of the best gourmet burgers he’s ever had. Trust him.
Skuna Bay Salmon w/​braised daikon, lemon risotto cake and blood orange maltaise: To be fair, I don’t like daikon (radish) and I don’t like blood orange to begin with. I ordered this because I wanted to give it a shot. I didn’t care too much for it. I only ate the salmon.
Brussels Sprouts w/​sauteed onions: Delicious!
House Fries w/​Oxtail gravy and cheese curd: My husband said he could just eat this all day everyday. He saved some to take home so he can have it again. It was THAT good.
As you can imagine we didn’t have enough space for dessert but will go back just to have it. They had Molton Chocolate Cake, Banana Cream Pie, Bread Pudding, Ice Cream Sundae and that’s just a few listed on their menu. They aren’t kidding around.
So go there, eat there, trust me you’ll be writing to me and thanking me.
Note: Park on the street, they charge $ 4.50 for valet parking.

First time back with the new new menu. Very happy to see they listened to the neighborhood feedback and lowered the prices.
The food is still just so so nothing special, it reads more interesting then actually taste. Not a good sign when the parmesan popcorn was the best dish of the night.
I did enjoy the spicy margarita, had a nice kick.

First the good: beautiful remodel. I love how they opened up the back into a patio with an actual view of the beach. Could never figure out why this property was across the street from the beach, but didn’t take advantage of it. Will be great for summer. Drinks were great too. Moscow mule was spot on.
The mediocre: the food. I can’t say it was bad, but it was nothing fantastic. The highlight was the curry mussel appetizer. Nothing else really stood out.
The bad: the price. For what you get, it is wayyyyy over priced. If the food didn’t land in the mediocre category, maybe it be CLOSE to reasonable, but given the «merh» quality it is borderline outrageous. I don’t mind paying a steep bill for dinner, but when I am willing to, I will go somewhere that will give me a better tasting meal.
I suppose I would go back, but will stick to drinks and (maybe) shared appetizers. No more dinners.

A coworker of mine who lives in Playa del Rey told me about this restaurant, and so I thought I would try it out. I’ve been here a few times now, when it first opened, and again when they changed the menu. It seems that they were listening to their customers because the menu offers items that are so different than what they originally had while keeping some of the favorites.
My favorite small plates so far are the mussels and the salmon tartar, which is so delicious. I also really enjoy the chicken pot pie. When we go we usually order a variety of small plates and eat family style, sharing the different foods. I always go with the intention to order a regular dinner, but we usually are full after the small plates. My son has ordered the flat iron steak, and he really enjoyed it.
I noticed that they have some new items, and I think they will be a hit. The burger allows you to choose two extras as part of the meal, and of course, you can add more. A lot of people like burgers, and the people sitting next to me told me that their burgers were delicious. Some day I might try them, but there are so many other things I want to try that I think it will be awhile before I get to taste them.
Another new item is the chicken and waffles. I have been hearing more and more how good chicken and waffles are, but seeing them on the menu surprised me. I think the variety of fish, good meat (flat iron, filet mignon, chili crusted bone-​in pork chops), and comfort food (chicken pot pie, chicken waffles) offer a nice variety so that everyone will be able to find something they like, and will want to come back for me.
I think the next time I go I’m going to try the stuffed trout (It looked really good) or the prawns, though, oh and the green beans. They looked so good on someone else’s table that they’re on my list to order the next time I go.
I was also pleased to see that they now have chocolate on their dessert menu. I had the lava cake with ice cream. It was to die for, so I don’t know if I am going to try a new dessert right away. This was really good.
As for the décor, I’ve sat out in the patio room (open sky), which is my favorite room, the private room, which my boss loved when our group went to the restaurant for dinner, and the regular dining room. Every time I go, the bar/​lounge area is full of people looking like they are having a good time, but usually I am with friends and family and we end up going into the other rooms. The only negative I really have to say is that I think the dining room can get a little loud (it was full the last time I ate there) and some tapestries or other noise absorbing material would help in there. During the summer I doubt this will be an issue because the glass double doors can open up to the open-​air patio room, but during the cold months something should be put in there.
I’m really glad this restaurant is here in the South Bay area. I love going to local restaurants (rather than chain ones), and this one looks like it is developing into a nice place to go.
I hope the word gets out about Tower 42. I think people visiting from out of town, arriving into LAX would find it a great place to eat since it is so close to the airport, and right next to the beach.
Okay, my mouth is watering for that salmon tartar and lava cake. I think it’s time to go back.

Ignore any previous reviews before Feb. 1, 2013. That is when they re-​opened, changed the menu and the vibe. It is not just seafood, and it is great.
The prices are varied so you can go for a hearty meal (including chicken and waffles or steak) or nosh on bar food. My first time back I just hit the happy hour menu and was quite happy. We shared fish tacos, brussel sprouts salad and a trio of sliders (pork, beef, lamb). All were excellent. They have some local IPA’s on tap and the crowd has relaxed. This upper/​mid level price location is just what the Playa Del Rey neighborhood needed. Along with Tripel, there is now places to take clients or impress friends. I love all the eateries on the street, but this is a welcome addition.

So, I am updating my review after the abrasive response I received from the owner regarding my first review. After reading his response, I thought it was aggressive. Thinking it was just me, I showed the same «cohorts» my review/​his response and of them agreed with me saying his response was inappropriate. The 4^th person was my brother. but I had let it slide since my brother who, in all honesty, is the most objective man I know.
But then, I got (several) comments from Unilocal users (and local friends who saw my review). They either 1. Agreed with my review after dining at Tower 42 and criticized the owner for his response or 2. Mentioned they would not dine at Tower 42 SOLEY because they thought the owner’s response was sarcastic and rude (and not because I originally gave it 2 stars).
I will be the first to concede and admit that «come on owners, get over yourself» comment was rough. However, the owner responded to a comment to which he WISHED I said– not to what I actually said. 1. I did NOT say that Tower 42 is the ONLY place in PDR that charges for parking. 2. I was upset that we were charged valet to park our OWN car. When we pulled up, the man directed us to the corner spot and directed us to park our own car. So, as mentioned «we had to pay to park our own car» and charged valet. Again. It is the first time at that location I’ve experienced that.
The man proceeded to defend his food. Fair game. But then he completely ignores the fact that multiple reviewers have alluded to the fact that tower 42 is suffering an «identity crises» and needs to either accept being fine dining with high prices, or scale the prices down to cater to those beach-​goers. If the owners want to stay as they are, enforce a dinner dress code or, separate the more casual diners. Patrons in heels and a gown don’t want to step over beach bags and towels while dining (at least in my case).
Unfortunately, he then becomes patronizing and condescending when he suggests that I look around the next time I’m in a «fancy place» and uses his previous history at Michelin star restaurants as an affidavit that he knows best. Quintessential Los Angeles man. Little does he know that I represented 5 diamond hotels and Michelin star restaurants, and recruited their international culinary/F&B staff for stateside locations. And currently, I serve as the liaison to local, state, and federal officials and practically live on fine dining. I am quite aware of the service and food standards provided at these types of establishments. Tower 42 has the prices, but in my opinion, does not live up the standards that they are trying to achieve. Yet.
Lastly (I know this is a long retort), but he attacks me for misquoting his prices. Others have quotes the same $ 14 crab cake, and his menu confirms the prices. My bf doesn’t remember the price, but he had the shrimp entrée and left starving. The man is 5’10 and 160. Not a huge guy. His dinner should leave him satisfied, especially if it is over $ 20.
All in all– I judged the restaurant– and as several people stated, I did it fairly. Though the food/​prices deterred me from the restaurant, the owner’s lack of professionalism dissuades me from even trying their bar.

It’s winning me over this place. After my review, I received an email to me apologizing for the food I ordered on my visit. The chef recognized that my complaint was fair, validated me and offered me a new meal. I haven’t taken him up on that yet, but I will soon…
I have been back at least 3 times, all for Happy Hour and I have to say this place is the place to be for HH in PDR. They have fun bar tenders and Martini Monday is the bomb, so is Thursday Happy Hour drinks all day for residents of PDR!
The HH menu is fairly good too, fries aren’t on there, but they should be, we always order them and it’s delicious. The lamb meatballs are my favy and the salmon tartar is delish. Looking forward to see if they add or change up the menu too.
Well done Tower 42, I’m glad you’re here and I hope you keep up the awesome happy hour :)

Hubby and I went last night. Agreed… it is the best of many tries at this location. As 30 year locals we were thrilled to see something classy established. That said, I was not knocked out by the ambiance. Terribly loud. When we walked in there were TWO empty bar tables with NO seats… just lone tables. The occupied tables had groups of four, so it’s not like the seats were moved by patrons. I love the bead board, moulding and hardwood floors; but its as if they just stopped decorating. Some candles, tapestry (to muffle the noise) and real chairs instead of lawn chairs might help. The whole vibe was loud, and uninviting. And it wasn’t even very busy. I can’t imagine how awful the noise would be if they were packed.
Food: I was so looking forward to the Brussels sprouts that received raves in the reviews. I love Brussels sprouts — these, not so much. Too much sticky sauce. My blackened shrimp and grits were superb. My husband’s scallops were good, but the lemon sauce was overpowering. And three shrimps or three scallops for theses prices is ridiculous.
Tower 42 is suffering from an identity crisis. Either dial up the décor, get some real furniture and admit to being an upscale $$$$ restaurant; or dial back the menu and be the beach scene restaurant with more reasonable prices and more mainstream menu items.

My husband and I went here on date night — and upon walking in, we fell in love with the ambiance and overall feel of Tower 42. very open and airy. We put our name in and walked over the bar — I ordered a vodka soda and he ordered a beer. Our tab was roughly 20 buckaroos. We had our drinks out on the entrance patio until our table was ready.
We were seated within 15 minutes and looked over the menu. Everything looked GOOD, but nothing looked SUPER DUPER GET-​IN-​MY-​BELLY now kinda good. So we ordered mac n’cheese, the gumbo and the salmon to split. Our bill was around $ 100 bucks and the food was — just as we thought… Good, but not spectacular.
We really liked the ambiance, but the price tag was a little steep for the quality. The venue in itself was comfortable and was pretty packed for Playa. We enjoyed our time and will definitely be trying the brunch when it’s «released» — happy hour seems promising as well.