Need some help please. Coming up to stay for 3 nights and meeting a friend from SF next month.
We have a concert at the Staples Center and I’ve never been. The restaurant list doesn’t look particularly exciting, but maybe I’m missing something? Looking for a fun place with good cocktails. Broken Spanish seems to get love for close by.
Disney is the next night, and normally I just go to one of the Patina spots. Was thinking of Redbird.
Thoughts? Friend is a pretty sophisticated diner and when I visit her she always takes me to great spots. No budget restrictions. TIA.
Broken Spanish is certainly the closest good option, if that matters. It’s an interesting LA-specific restaurant, and the cocktails (and mezcal list) are awesome.
There’s also Shibumi, and the Centeno restaurants (Baco Mercat may be best among them for this kind of thing?), or you could head to the Arts District and do something like Officine BRERA (Italian), Bavel (Israeli-ish), Bestia (Italian), Simone (Modern California veggie-focused), or Manuela (Southern-ish I guess?), each of which are a quick Lyft away and good to great.
Myself, I might do something like a bang-bang at Guerrilla Tacos and Everson Royce Bar, or a drink and a snack at Mikkeller (a very good beer bar, but they do have wine and a couple cocktails) beforehand then tacos or ramen after…
For the Staples center I would pick Broken Spanish w/out hesitation.
The restaurant is wonderful, food is great and cocktails are as well, and it is walking distance from the Staples Center.
And you can leave your car parked there and have some after event drinks.
As for Disney, only Otium and Patina are really close.
I would try orsa & winston - it is a short ride/drive away.
Officine Brera, Church & State, Bestia, Bavel, Majordomo, Shibumi, etc and many others are also possible but I guess you have to make the earliest reservation to make it to Disney on time.
Unexpectedly, I’m shifting from a mellow Miyazaki double feature to the opera tomorrow.
So . . . reservations are not happening. Anyone have any boots-on-the-ground intel about likelihood of being seated as a walk-in at Bavel or majordomo?
I feel pretty confident we can get a seat at the bar at Redbird as an early walk-in and Badmaash is a solid fall back. However, I’d love to see if Bavel or majordomo are realistic.
Never tried it myself but I know people who got to both just before opening and didn’t have a problem snagging a seat at the bar. I would be inclined to try Bavel instead of Majordomo because the latter is further out. If you strike out at Majordomo you need to uber elsewhere, whereas at least with Bavel, you can walk to other passable restaurants easily like Manuela, Wurstküche, etc.