CUT Makes the Cut on Bon Appétit's "Hot 10" of Best Celebration Restaurants

By Andrew Simmons Wed., Dec. 1 2010 at 2:00 PM

Categories: Food in Magazines, L.A. Restaurants

Cut Beverly Hills

The meat tray.

The December issue of Bon Appétit shares its list of America's ten best "celebration restaurants." For the requisite Los Angeles area inclusion, the magazine's restaurant dude Andrew Knowlton presents CUT, Wolfgang Puck's sumptuous steakhouse at the Beverly Wilshire, a "spot" where feeling "special" will give even a moderately flush diner's bank account a wicked case of the runs.

Knowlton breaks down his criteria: "Whether it's your birthday, your anniversary, or time for a holiday meal with friends," he writes, "you'll need a special-occasion restaurant--a spot that takes its service as seriously as its food, that coddles you and makes you feel, well, special."

Maybe we're just cheap, but we could manage a pretty memorable celebration without the help of a $70 rib-eye, a $12 side-dish of sauteed wild mushrooms, and a couple of $17 elderflower martinis. By most accounts, CUT is stellar (Knowlton references the "Richard Meier-designed room, the Hollywood clientele, and the dry-aged rib-eye steak") but we have to believe the bottom 99% of Los Angeles's taxpayers make their celebrations elsewhere.

So tell us -- where would you go for a celebration?