text: As a somewhat lazy person I typically do not write Yelp reviews But after eating at LAtelier I felt a bit deceived by its stellar Yelp ratings that I felt the need to clear the recordnnAlso a low Yelp rating typically involves bad service but my star rating is not about the service LAtelier is a trendy restaurant with great decor and courteous servers Granted the wait time between each course was quite long it took us hours to finish dinner and the dishes consisted of such tiny portions that of the time was spent waiting at one point I had to walk up to one of the hostesses out in front to ask when the entrees were coming because there were no servers in sight for half an hour after we finished the appetizers They admitted that the kitchen was a bit backed up that evening so I will give them a pass on the wait time I am leaving stars solely based on the disappointing quality of the foodnnAs matter of background our group of consisted of working professionals in our late s We enjoy fine dining and we hit up Vegas times a year so this is not a situation where a guy who eats regularly at Outback chooses to complain about a Michelin rated restaurant I have been to a bunch of restaurants with Michelin stars in LA NY Vegas and Hong Kong and every single experience had been phenomenal until LAtelier nnIll just focus on the food I have already mentioned that the portions were tiny but that did not really factor into the bad rating either because we had a huge lunch that day so I was not extremely unhappy about the small portionsnnWe chose appetizers to share la durade cold snapper salad seared foie gras and suckling pig with crispy skin I was not a fan of the snapper salad I love Japanese food and had my share of top grade nigiri and sashimi and the raw snapper was just ok compared to other raw seafood dishes I have had To be fair though some people in my party liked the dish The seared foie gras was just ok too this is starting to become a theme I enjoy foie gras in its paste form The foie gras at LAtelier was seared so it had a slippery livery consistency but the searing process made it lose most of its rich gamey taste Why cook an expensive piece of foie gras so it tastes like a chicken liver No idea The third dish was just ok again The pig was tasty but did not blow anyone away My friend commented that it tasted like any Asian stir fry dish at Panda Express and his description was slightly harsh but nailed it on the headnnWe ordered main courses and one of us ordered an appetizer as an entree hanger steak steak tartar stuffed quail with foie gras my dish and a smoked salmon appetizer Let us start with the smoked salmon It was by far the worst dish that night It tasted like something from the supermarket The hashbrowns on the side were wet limp greasy and salty My gf told my friend not to finish it but he ate it anyway because once again dinner took hours and we had to do something to kill time I did not try the hanger steak because I felt bad taking the ounces of meat from my other guy friend The steak tartar was not bad but kind of salty another unpleasant reoccurring theme Given the overall disappointing food all night the tartar was the best dish and the only dish I would recommend The fries on the side was nothing special Seriously they were just fries If I did a blind taste between the LAttlier fries and McDonald fries I am not sure I could tell the differencennMy quail dish was supposed to their signature dish Four little pieces of quail I think only two were stuffed with foie gras because the other two were wing pieces But it was really hard to find out which ones were stuffed because they all tasted the same The problem was the seared foie gras again it was cooked in a way that it lost most of its flavor I had to cut one open to make sure the chef did not forget to add it The quail was average It was not salty thank god But I have had better quail at other restaurantsnnOn a side note we ordered a Riesling and at the end of the night there was a fruit fly in one of my friends glasses I was going to complain to the server but once again there was no one in sight for minutes after dinner so I just decided not to bother with it It is not the restaurants fault that a fruit fly decided to crash the party but fine dining establishments are supposed to be insect freennIn conclusion every dish at LAttlier was average and on the salty side My meal was free bc one of the party picked up the tab but just think it must be bad if I am leaving a scathing review for free food Granted if we had gone to a random French bistro and ate the same food we would have given it stars But this is a one star Michelin place with a Yelp rating It is terribly disappointing in that respect