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Bottle Rock

6 Ratings: 1.8
A Wine Bar in Culver City, CA

Bottle Rock is a wine bar located in downtown Culver City, that combines a tasting room, a bistro, and a retail space. Featuring a selection of wines from all over the world, Bottle Rock stocks over 800 labels, in addition to several sakes and handcrafted … see full wiki

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Rock and Roll Wine Bar

  • Jan 9, 2009
  • by
Rating:
+3
Bottle Rock is a rough diamond (pun intended) in the emerging downtown section of Culver City. One of a handful of destination restaurants and bars that have popped up in the last couple of years, Bottle Rock is one of several good reasons to check out Culver City, whether you're coming from east or west. But you're going to want to make sure you know what you're getting into before expecting a pleasant night of wine tasting.

Bottle Rock is geared toward presenting wine in an unconventionally casual setting. The high-low mix of merging upscale wine with downtown attitude looks pretty good on paper. It even kind of works in a setting run by scruffy malcontents who were clearly hired to uphold the establishment's motto: Breaking the Rules One Bottle at a Time. It all functions to take a little of the pretense out of wine culture, which can often scare a lot of young people away. (And I don't want to say this place is necessarily for young people, but a casual glance at the clientele might support the theory.) Waiters are all reasonably informed about the broad range of options, and recommendations for food pairings are helpful (if a bit formulaic). All of that said, flagging down a waiter for 20 minutes while waiting for your check gets old pretty quickly.

Having been to Bottle Rock three times now--on a weekend day, and a weekend evening, and on a midweek evening--I find it hard to believe that anyone would experience great service at this place. As mentioned above, waiters are informed and helpful, but it's always a little difficult in this place to shake the feeling that you are wasting a waiter's time. The staff would clearly rather be outside smoking cigarettes or showing each other new tattoos. And that's fine--it all fits the tone of this place really well. But everyone appreciates a little respectful service when they're paying for it.

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February 11, 2009
Weird - I commented on this once upon a time, didn't I? Anyway, long story short, the place is so full of promise, and falls short on so much of that promise (sneaky corkage, crappy service, uncomfortable seats...oh, I could go on), that I think I just have to call it: fail. Go to Vinoteque on Sepulveda or Saluté on Main or, geez, even Lilly's on Abbot Kinney. Bottle Rock is a great idea, but seems to believe its own hype so much that it barely even considers the ways in which it could improve. Sigh.
 
February 06, 2009
I have been hearing SO MUCH about this place, so either it has something to offer or a really good PR team. Either way, my affinity for wine and guys with tattoos will probably lead me here eventually.
 
February 04, 2009
We used to go all the time for drinks. Last time we ordered the 'chicken' and 'duck' and got two mini slices of each. The bill was near 50$ Never going back!
 
January 09, 2009
Completely agree. Poor service. I did, however, really enjoy the L'Artisan du Chocolat ... you can choose 9 different chocolates to try with your wine ... including clove & maple, habanero, pomegranate and lavender. Yum.
 
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