Searching for al fresco dining here, not much on the “LA restaurants open for seated dining” thread, wanted to get a sense of where you guys are eating now that there’s no inside dining. Specifically, who has created a good dining ambience, not just thrown some benches, tables and chairs onto the sidewalk or parking lot and called it a day. Something that took thought and planning like Lady Byrd Cafe’s cool greenhouse setup.
I’m looking for places around Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park, and Atwater and bonus if open later than 9pm, but also want to create a new thread to aggregate LA al fresco dining.
Marino (on Melrose) is great. They converted their valet parking lot to a lovely spacious outdoor dining area. If feels very safe dining there, under the canopy of their grand olive tree.
Chef Sal (AKA Sergio) is there pretty much every day, and his famous summer tomato dinners are starting back up. On Tuesdays, he will usually have Fumio-san or Yoshi-san doing precision knifework on the fish for the crudo (and an off-menu sushi nigiri box for takeout). Enjoy!
Bavel was just great – with some of the tables on the next door Verve patio. Very spaced out. For me, a way better dining experience than pre-coronavirus.
Has anyone been to Hippo? I guess I assumed they would have converted their parking lot to dining to make more open-air space, but it looks from Instagram like they’re just continuing to use the existing small patio which imo looks too cramped and enclosed for my taste. Any first hand accounts?
I’m not going out to restaurants so can’t speak to what it’s like currently, but AOC’s patio was my favorite seating area in LA before the pandemic and it’s open.
I have not been myself to the latest iteration, but Fia Restaurant is operating at what used to be Wilshire Restaurant in Santa Monica. I assume the patio is unchanged, and the website specifically says that the patio is open for dining.
Brendan Collins is still there. If memory serves my correctly, he also was there before the latest name change, and I rather enjoyed the one meal I had there awhile back.
Correct. Fia’s patio is open and welcoming and Chef Collins is still in top form–killer lobster bolognese (even better than Citrin’s and better than memory serves of his version at Waterloo & City). The menu is available as a scannable code (paper available on request for us Luddites) and the servers are gloved and masked (with face shields as well). Water is still pure by the server rather than the bottle being left on the table as at some other places. Only surprise was that they still offer a tableside chopped salad (I passed).
The Rose in Venice also converted part of its parking lot into another open-air patio and is serving excellent food with interesting preparations that change often.
DAMA - Most of their seating is already outdoors, and they added even more in the courtyard area of City Market South. Had a great meal here for the first time a couple of weeks ago.