Qusqo Bistro and Gallery

This restaurant was a real surprise: the food was absolutely delicious, fresh and authentic. We ate it all before we realized we did not take pictures of the entrees. The place has a familial atmosphere with hand-​painted wood tables and wood benches. High ceilings, very bright. Nicely located on Santa Monica boulevard. The service was excellent and the waitress was adorable! I would definitely recommend this place. Very good for a date too!

We went and were seated and then we waited. Nobody asked us for drinks or provided us waterr or bread. We waited and then noticed several other tables were doing the very same thing. This is a Saturday night, if you can’t handle the traffic either hire more or better staff or close down and let a real restaurant in the space. After 15 mins we said adiós

This isn’t my idea of a restaurant I look forward to going to. The music was LOUD and made me feel like I was in a discotec. The waiter, as other people noted, demonstrated great service skills, so I feel guilty being honest about the other aspects of the restaurant, which were not so great. But there aren’t a lot of Peruvian places in this area of town. I was happy that I could at least explore a new cuisine.

Salgado tacos. $ 3 each on Tuesday and they are delicious!!! Great service. Fun atmosphere. The dessert, chocolate cake, was frozen. And I asked if it was made there or purchased or frozen because I want fresh chocolate cake if I’m getting calories for it. So that was disappointing. But the tacos!!!

Words cannot describe how bad this place is. I went there last night with some friends, after driving past it plenty of times and being intrigued by the beautiful exterior paint and their fun Instagram. They also boast about their healthy menu. How awful it was. First of all, it was empty, just my table and then one other. Despite this, the waiter had no efficiency whatsoever. We waited so long for our food, and the only snack he had to offer us were these corn nuts, which were not even complimentary, and as basic as they were, they were still the best part of our meal. I had the parilla plate with steak (they never asked how I wanted it cooked) and it was very bland, and a very small portion for the price. They also made a mistake with my order, and when he brought the «complimentary» fries to make up for it, he brought about 6 fries on a plate. My poor friends had the chicken which was even worse. I tried some and I was nearly ill at the table, it was incredibly dry and tasted off, and smelt awful, I’m surprised I don’t have food poisoning after it. All in all, we spent $ 70 at this place, and we left incredibly hungry, dissatisfied and disappointed. Jack in the box (which I despise) would honestly be a better option than here. Awful food and awful service.

Qusqo is excellent Peruvian — a lot of Peruvian restaurants in Los Angeles lean toward the greasy-​spoon/​cheap side (yes, I’m talking about Mario’s Peruvian in Hollywood), or the Pollo Inka fast-​foody experience … but Qusqo is organic, fresh, flavorful and authentic — with recipes from the family of Lucy, the wonderful owner. And it isn’t expensive. The place itself has a funky, colorful hip feel — low-​key, friendly — with art by local painters on the wall, and the occasional special tasting nights for Peruvian wines. A very special spot.

Good: The nice Peruvian waiter
Bad: The food
As a Peruvian, I’m offended by the grotesque poor imitation of Peruvian gastronomy.
A ceviche with no onions and a tart lemon juice taste that left me with an unusual aftertaste. Fortunately it was small enough to be left behind.
The causa was a tinted yellow mashed potatoes totally flavorless.
The ‘pescado a lo macho’ was just it… I couldn’t eat it. It looked like some thick pepper sauce with a few sad looking calamari and a couple of shrimps that were too young when they ended on my plate. Sinking at the bottom was a piece of fish but I just couldn’t eat it.
The ‘chicha’ drink was good. The ambience is nice and if they hire a good Peruvian chef, there may be hope for this bistro.
The alfajor dough was very good although the filling was a poor imitation of ‘dulce de leche’.
Peruvian food, well prepared, is out of this world and Qusqo holds promise if they hire a new chef.
BTW, the dessert was on the house but it won’t change my review although it was appreciated.

The Good:
–Cute atmosphere! Cozy, comfortable, and low-​key.
–Excellent yuca fries, lomo saltado, shrimp tacos (Taco Tuesday special!), and plantains.
The Bad:
–Weak drinks. We ordered the sangria (mostly juice) and the Peruvian purple-​corn drink (I forget the name, but again, mostly juice). Neither of us could taste any alcohol whatsoever, which was disappointing because we came specifically for the happy hour.
–Our waitress. On top of giving off the weirdest vibes, she didn’t know anything about the menu! My friend asked her if there was meat in one of the dishes (he’s vegetarian) and she said, «I don’t think so!» Well, turns out, there WAS meat in it, and my friend had to panic-​order a (wimpy) quinoa salad at the last minute because we were running out of time for happy hour. She also asked us where the tacos were on the menu (I mean, I get it lady, it’s your second day on the job, but at least TRY to learn the menu…).
–This is petty and doesn’t influence my rating at all, but: it’s kind of a bummer this place is closed on Sundays. My weekly empanada cravings always happen to fall on Sundays, and each week, I am sadly reminded: no empanadas for me.
The Short Story:
–I would go back for the yuca fries, lomo, tacos, and plantains, but would cross my fingers for a different waitress.

1 Star.
$ 15.26 for a Lomo Saltado that was meh at best. Hardly any veggies in with the meat. You could tell the meat wasn’t of great quality and overall the portions were tiny. The water tasted like dirt and they even got my simple request of subbing the rice for a side salad wrong. This place is basically a ripoff.

Came for a quick lunch, ordered a rice/​chicken dish and tamale. Food was good. wouldn’t say amazing, but can’t complain .
However, $ 5 for ONE tamale ??? I thought I’ll be getting multiple for this price. I mean, it’s just corn and meat. costs like 25 cents to make. Why the hell are they $ 5 each?

Came to this little restaurant for Paint Nite and only ordered a couple of appetizers and drinks. Overall, I enjoyed my experience here though the service was quite slow and our food was a bit pricey for what we got. But then again, it is Peruvian cuisine, which is exotic (to me, at least), so perhaps the price may be justifiable?
The Causa Limena was really good, but again the portion was really small. A potato purée with lemon aji chili, tuna, peppers, and avocado on top, this dish was really flavorful and the cooks even prepared it into the shape of a heart for us.
We also ordered the chicken bites appetizer and was really sad at the amount of chicken we got. Dipping sauce was good, but I just wish we got more chicken!
We were almost halfway done with our painting by the time the food came out. The server was nice enough to check up on us to refill our waters and even brought us roasted corn nuts while we were waiting for our food.
I would advise you to pay a couple more $ and order an entrée (some other Unilocalies suggest any steak entrée) and maybe skip the appetizers.

I really wanted to like this place because the staff is so friendly and I know the kitchen is trying their best, but service is sooooo slooooow. I came on a weekday evening with my boyfriend and we were seated promptly because A. they were not busy and B. it’s self seating.
We ordered the purple corn drink which everyone was raving about. It was different and I liked it, but boyfriend and I agreed there are better Peruvian drinks out there.
Appetizer: Papas a la Huancaina were different than what I’m used to. The potatoes were boiled and pan fried as well and the sauce was much thicker than the usual. Overall it was tasty, but the sauce could have been more flavorful.
Main Course: So it took more than an hour after we ordered to get our food, but when we finally got it we ate it pretty quickly (I think it had to do with the fact that we were starving after waiting so long).
Lomo Saltado — I ordered this which is basically strips of pan seared meat mixed with fries in a light pan sauce with white rice on the side. Sadly the wait didn’t make it taste better. The steak could’ve been more tender and the dish overall lacked flavor. For the price, the rice couldve been more special, but it was just plain.
Pollo Saltado — *Please see above*
After making us wait so long (boyfriend had to pay for the meter for street parking twice :/​) the waiter offered us dessert on the house.
So I thought to myself, ok. shot at redemption for Qusqo!
FAIL…Arroz con leche took forever to come out. We were about to leave to avoid paying for the meter once again, but waiter brought it out just in time. It was yummy. Very good, even the raisins were tasty.
Sadly…that amazing arroz con leche could not make up for the awkward wait for mediocre food.
This is one of those places that you wish you liked because the people are nice and it seems family owned, but I gotta be honest. I’ve had better Peruvian food with better prices and better service.

This is not a negative review — the place has friendly staff, good food and drinks. The service is just slow and our order was wrong a few times. We ordered sparkling water for two but got one and a tap water. Ordered sangria for two and got one. I had to ask for my beer twice before I got it.
HOWEVER, the food was fantastic. The chicken bites appetizer was fantastic! We split the quinoa salad and that was also fantastic. Please order any dish with steak — you won’t be disappointed.
This is easily a 4 star place with just a little bit better service.

PRO:
My wife lived in Peru for 3−½ years so she is a pretty good judge of what authentic Peruvian flavors/​food is. She said that the Ceviche was true to what she had back in Peru. She said the Aji de Gallina was okay, but that the sauce was more runny and chicken more unshredded than what she recalled.
CONS:
1. The server [kind of looks like the Dancing With the Stars Pro Max Chmerkovskiy] made us feel like we were annoying his existence when we told him we were a party of 4 but wanted to use our Groupon [good for a party of 2]. «I’m really busy right now and I can’t deal with that». o_​Oa — Then should we be two parties of 2 and use the Groupon for one table, not the other?
So yeah — if you’re going to use the Groupon here, go in parties of 2.
2. The picante de camarones was SUUUUPER salty. You ever eat something so salty that it would sting your tongue? Yah. SUUUPER salty.
3. The Veggie Tallarìn Saltado was suuuper greasy and was almost comparable to the chow mein from Panda Express. That made me sad.
4. Parking sucked. But hey, it’s Santa Monica Blvd — it’s going to suck.
5. The portions are small. If they doubled their platas grandes’ portions, then it’d be worth the price they charge. But again, they’re on Santa Monica Blvd, they have to charge a bit higher.
Not really an evaluation of their actual dish, but the calamari we received was borderline cold, which means it had been sitting around for a while, so the 15 minutes we waited for our first plate of food wasn’t because we were waiting for the calamari to fry.
Our party of four went with the intention of sitting down, chit chatting, and taking things easy, so the suuuuuper slow service lended for great conversation time. But I can understand how, if you didn’t go under those circumstances, that people would be pissed about the slow service.
One guy running the front of the house with probably one other person running the kitchen. We saw two female servers surface from time to time, but they didn’t seem to be taking care of front of the house matters as much.
Pretty doubtful I’ll come back. Slow, salty, and simply not good.

Last night we went to Qusqo for our 19 year anniversary using a Groupon that offered food and drinks. My wife ordered a Parrilla with Salmon. I ordered the Lomo Saltado
Strike #1
Instead of Salmon, my wife got a small strip of what looked like cheap Tilapia fish. It was small and looked like leftover food. The waiter did not mention anything about the switch, so we asked him why, he just very casually, and as if it was no big deal, told us that they do this when salmon is not available. WTF!!! at least have the courtesy to let your customers know that you are serving them something else, or offer a different meat before you serve and charge for the meal.
Strike# 2
We ordered a second round of beer. The waiter and the cashier just went on chatting instead of bringing our beer. After they finished their more important conversation, the waiter came back with the beer.
Strike#3
The white beans that came with the Parrilla plate had a bland taste.
Strike #4
The Lomo was good, but frankly there are so many other places that offer better tasting food and bigger portions for the same price. I cannot think of a reason why I would ever choose their place again
Strike#5
The service was bad (slow and uncaring)
You will think that on a Saturday night the owner or manager of the restaurant will be on top of things as anyone who comes inside is not there because it is convenient or close to work, but because they chose the place for a night out. You should at least have your best waiter and cashier crew attending the place.
Not worth the price for mediocre food and poor service. Sorry your place does not deserve more than two stars. Never again…

Best best best restaurant in west la
Love the music and atmosphere
Pretty friendly staff and very nice owner :)
The best sangria and chicha that you can get
And oh my god you must try Lomo here
Amazing

This little corner joint has wonderful atmosphere and a friendly staff. However, the wait time is pretty extensive and the food wasn’t that flavorful.
I think the happy hour is a good deal and worth coming back for. It would be nice if they improved quality control on the flavor of the food and got another waiter or two to cut down on service time.

I was having a WONDERFUL day until I sat down at this restaurant, Sorry to say I will never come back here again. The service was horrible, the waiter was unapologetic and all he continued to say was that the food was cooking when in reality they hadn’t even started it yet because they were so backed up with many others orders waiting to be served. It took 45 mins for our appetizer to come out, which was just fried calamari! The bread was hard and stale. After nearly waiting almost an hour we decided to just get up and leave! This is def. NOT a kid friendly place either, no high chairs or boosters. NEVER AGAIN!!!
If you want authentic fresh Peruvian food with great/​quick service go to El Pollo Inka in Torrance! Never disappoints!

Decent Peruvian food on a trendy area of Santa Monica Blvd. Love the décor and the dishes are decent. I love Peruvian Salsa. It is next to one of my all time favorite joints (California Roll Factory) so I knew I’d check it out one day since every time I walked past it, the restaurant seemed pretty lively. Wasn’t disappointed when I went. If you live in the area don’t miss Mike’s Video Store Named Desire two stores down. Classic West LA.

My mother is from peru, that’s why I wanted to try the place. From outside it looks so nice. The decoration and the whole inventory is made which so much love. Edgy and romantic.
The sangria would have been good, if it would have had any alcohol inside. The food has a good quality, very organic, but the preparation was just wrong. They saved a lot on the seafood and part of it was cold. The waitress who also was the owner, was not very friendly and impatient. We were disappointed about the food and won’t come again.