JETSETREPORT

Purple Palm

Poolside eatery at revived Palm Springs hotel

Hours 7am-10:30pm, daily
Phone (760) 969-1800
www.colonypalmshotel.com

572 N Indian Canyon Drive Palm Springs CA 92262 United States

restaurants

It's a tough reservation even by big city standards. This cozy one-room restaurant located poolside at the Colony Palms Hotel offers a stylish dinner destination along an up-and-coming strip of downtown Palm Springs. Through the interior courtyard of the hotel and series of metal latched-gates, guests make their way to a small entryway with hostess podium equipped with sassy desert staff. The restaurant features a glamorous wooden bar that divides the interior restaurant from the outdoor patio, offering overflow dinner seating and lively bar scene framed by the San Jacinto Mountains. Purple-painted walls are adorned with leather banquettes and colonial-inspired furnishings that lend a sense of nostalgia to this recently revived 1939 property. Black-and-white nudes hang on the wall that includes a series of photographs the property commissioned themselves with rippling men in nearly-nothing swags of fabric draped over various hotel locations.

The Food

Despite having two rooms at the hotel, we had to pull out our business card in the hotel lobby to avoid being seated at the bar. Despite being seated in a banquet room connected to the main dining room, the service was spot-on and barely missed a beat through the four-course dinner. Dinner begins with a selection of three breads, none of which were homemade or particularly noteworthy. The wine list is $10-overpriced; an $18 of Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio should sell for $38 and not $48. With only two bottles of French reds, the wine list all but ignores the world’s leading wine-producing nation. Appetizers are good with a dressed-up pizza flatbread and salmon tartare on awkward bed Jasmine rice. A lengthy salad selection includes a melange trio surrounded enveloped in fresh cucumber with crispy greens and grapefruit pieces. Entrees are over-the-top with a dramatic rack of lamb arranged on cheesy-potato gratin with red wine reduction or panko-crusted salmon on fruity lentil hash. Two dessert soufflés wrap-up the meal, the Grand Marnier and dark chocolate were not as fluffy or sweet as we would prefer but still delicious enough to devour.

Last Word

One-room dining room and tranquil patio bar offers all-day menu of continental and French specialties in hip 1930’s property yet to find its true following.

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