GC Marketplace fashions bold dining experience

Imagine the most high-end cafe you can think of. Now imagine a culinary boutique, which also provides a wide selection of delectable charms. Combine these elements, and you might conjure an image of GC Marketplace, located in Hollywood Hills.

Founded by Gary Arabia, GC Marketplace is a fairly new restaurant that offers a unique dining experience. Not only does the restaurant offer high-end meals, customers might also pay the restaurant a visit to purchase pastries, buy cheese, taste wine or for a quick drink at the coffee bar.

The premise of the restaurant is ambitious; however, crucial dining aspects, such as communication are lost amid the restaurant’s features.

The exterior of the restaurant is just as intriguing as the premise; one cannot drive down Cahuenga Boulevard without setting his eyes on the silver, sleek building. Likewise, the interior layout of the restaurant seems less like a traditional restaurant and more like a cosmetics store. The interior layout, combined with the natural lighting and the simple yet sophisticated decor contributes to the restaurant’s posh atmosphere. Though customers are given the freedom to sit inside or outside, the interior of the restaurant provides one with the complete GC Marketplace experience.

The music playing throughout restaurant serves as a reminder that the restaurant is just as fitting for casual affairs as it is for formal, though the food and decor might lead one to believe otherwise. The volume is loud enough to drown out other customers’ noises, but not too loud to interfere with conversations with dining companions. Though the music is a comforting touch to the atmosphere, it also makes it difficult to communicate with the staff.

For the most part, the staff is ready to help. However, given the restaurant’s spacious environment, customers will be put off if they are not given immediate attention. Restaurants such as GC Marketplace require a staff that is quick and attentive to everyone as soon as they walk through the door because basic components, such as figuring out whether one needs to walk to the back register or proceed to sit wherever they please, become unclear. When the staff helps, they do so with sincere smiles and helpful suggestions, but the music drowns out their quiet voices, making for awkward moments.

Like any restaurant, GC Marketplace’s primary focus should be the meals. The menu provides a vast array of dishes. Customers might be pleased to choose from French, Italian, Thai, Greek and American meals, and then watch the chefs prepare their food as they sit and wait. The meals were ready within five minutes, which might seem more appealing to those who prefer to dine at home rather than in a restaurant. Whether one prefers upscale cuisine or is in the mood for a hamburger and fries, the menu provides a wide range of food suitable for anyone’s taste. The price to portion ratio might be the greatest factor keeping GC Marketplace from being a restaurant to go to less frequently than often. However, given the restaurant’s atmosphere and amenities, one will not necessarily find themselves asking for more from GC Marketplace.

With a menu with eclectic selections, it is difficult to see where GC Marketplace goes wrong. The restaurant itself has plentiful of features and the menu has a wide range of choices. Both factors contribute to an underlying theme of quantity and ambition, which transitions to the meals. Take the panang curry, for example. The amount of sauce poured over the vegetables and tofu soon dismiss the initial delectableness of the panang curry. The sauce furnishes the meal with an acquired, albeit zesty kick. Perhaps too much of a kick. Perhaps more of a kick-from-a-horse-to-the-chest kind of kick. The sauce makes for a strong impact that can be balanced with more use of basic components such as vegetables and tofu, which are cooked to a delightfully warm temperature.

Evidently, GC Marketplace thrives with ambitious ideas and notable executions. GC Marketplace’s many features are enjoyable to some, though they remain off-putting to customers who prefer simplicity. Perhaps a trimming of ideas would make for a more intricate and cohesive restaurant experience. Perhaps if more emphasis was placed onto the basic components such as the meals rather than on maintaining an already-sleek atmosphere, the dining experience could be more favorable.

Whether one is in the mood for a quick pastry and coffee, or to wine and dine, GC Marketplace is sure to provide all customers with a memorable, unique experience that is difficult to encounter elsewhere. Restaurants such as GC Marketplace are in no way short of ideas, but the experience can only be strengthened once the founders recognize the age-old question: how much is too much?

GC Marketplace is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Monday through Saturday, and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays. It is located at 3315 Cahuenga Blvd. W.