Restaurant: Chelsea [1, 2]

Location: 2460 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90403 | (424) 238-5102

Date: October 22, 2025

Cuisine: New American with Global Flavors

Rating: Family Night Foodie Club Excellence!

It’s always a joy when the Foodie Club can get the extended family together, and this time we managed to wrangle Joe, Bonnie, Howard, and Ploy for a family night at Chelsea in Santa Monica. Located on Wilshire Boulevard, Chelsea has been making waves with its globally-inflected New American cuisine—the kind of place that offers both the comfort of familiar preparations and the excitement of unexpected flavor combinations. With a menu that spans oysters to lamb chops, handmade pasta to steak frites, it seemed like the perfect spot for our diverse crew.

The restaurant itself strikes a nice balance between upscale and approachable. There’s a warmth to the space that invites conversation and laughter—exactly what you want for a family gathering. Chef Behdad Eghbali has crafted a menu that’s ambitious in scope but grounded in solid technique, drawing on his Persian background and international training to create dishes that feel both refined and accessible.

The menu offers a modern American progression, opening with a raw bar before moving through shareable starters, handmade pastas, and globally influenced entrées.

We dove in with an impressive array of starters and small plates.

Oysters with lemon ginger mignonette—a bright, clean start to the meal.

Escargot Stuffed Mushrooms with pecorino polenta—a rich, earthy combination that showcases the kitchen’s comfort with French technique.

Albacore Ceviche with corn, coconut milk, chilis, mango, and chips. Strong flavors here—the coconut milk adds a creamy richness to the citrus-cured fish, while the mango and chilis provide tropical heat and sweetness.

House-Made Ripple-Cut Potato Chips—corrugated fans of golden potato with that satisfying dry crunch and perfectly judged seasoning. These arrived alongside the ceviche and proved dangerously addictive.

Crispy Lobster Sliders with arugula, truffle aioli, and Hawaiian rolls. Delicious! These were a table favorite—the lobster perfectly fried with a delicate crunch, the truffle aioli adding luxurious umami, all nestled in those soft, slightly sweet rolls.

Burrata with heirloom tomato, plum, pistachio, lemon olive oil, and polenta croutons—a beautiful summer-into-fall composition with the stone fruit adding an unexpected sweetness.

Harissa Lamb Tartare with rustic bread, mint aioli, and crispy capers. I liked this—spiced with North African heat but balanced by cooling mint, the raw lamb silky and clean. For some reason I was the only one eating it, which meant more for me.

Then came the pastas, and this is where Chelsea really shines.

Boar Ragu with tagliatelle, crisp rosemary, and pecorino—a hearty, gamey sauce clinging to perfectly cooked ribbons of pasta, the rosemary adding aromatic punch.

Lobster Linguini with squid ink linguini, half a lobster tail, leeks, peas, scallions, and lobster sauce—dramatic black pasta showcasing generous chunks of sweet lobster in a rich, oceanic sauce.

Sweet Corn & Ricotta Ravioli with Thai green curry. These were awesome! Now I really like curry, and this was a lovely mild one but it added a creamy goodness to the sweet corn filling. The marriage of Italian technique with Thai flavors shouldn’t work this well, but it absolutely does—one of my dishes of the night.

For mains, we split between surf and turf.

Pistachio Crusted Lamb Chops with whipped eggplant and roasted heirloom carrots—the pistachio crust adding both texture and nutty sweetness to perfectly cooked lamb.

Steak Frites—a 16 oz. prime bone-in New York with cognac peppercorn sauce and shoestring fries. Classic French bistro execution on a generous American-sized cut.

Pommes Frites arriving golden and crisp, each slim baton shattering with that perfect contrast between crunchy exterior and fluffy interior, properly salted and begging to be dragged through ketchup.

We finished with classic desserts.

Key Lime Pie—tart, creamy, with that essential graham cracker crust.

Apple Turnover—flaky pastry wrapped around spiced apple filling, served warm.

We brought some serious Burgundy firepower to the meal. From my cellar: 2009 Henri Boillot Meursault Perrières (Premier Cru) and 2021 Coche-Dury Bourgogne Chardonnay—the Coche-Dury proving that even at the regional level, this producer can do no wrong, with layered stone fruit and that signature mineral backbone. We also enjoyed Billecart-Salmon Champagne to start, Louis Jadot Clos Saint Denis Grand Cru for the reds, and 2009 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande from Pauillac—a Second Growth Bordeaux showing beautiful elegance and structure even at this relatively young age.

Chelsea delivered exactly what we needed for a family Foodie Club night: a menu broad enough to satisfy diverse tastes, execution solid across the board, and an atmosphere conducive to the kind of lingering conversation that makes these gatherings special. The standouts for me were those curry ravioli—unexpected and brilliant—and the crispy lobster sliders, which disappeared far too quickly. The handmade pastas show real skill, and the kitchen’s willingness to play with global flavors (Thai curry, harissa, miso) while maintaining classical technique keeps things interesting.

Is this groundbreaking cuisine? No. But it doesn’t need to be. Chelsea succeeds by doing a lot of things well, offering quality ingredients, thoughtful preparation, and enough variety to keep a table of opinionated food lovers happy. For a family dinner in Santa Monica, you could do a lot worse. And when you’re gathered with good people, good wine, and food that delivers on its promises, that’s really all you need.

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