Four days a week, the line for Wilde's stretches down the block, even in the rain. At one of the city's busiest new restaurants, guests line up for lightly battered sea bass fried to a crisp, or discs of tender duck rillettes, or rich slices of Welsh rarebit, a rarity in Los Angeles. Wilde's modern British menu is making waves far beyond Los Feliz, and so is the line to get in.
Owners Natasha Price and Tatiana Ettensberger envisioned Wilde's as a kind of walk-in restaurant built for the neighborhood. They had never imagined the immediate clamor for their 10 tables, nor the lines that begin to form before opening the doors each day.
“The response and participation we've gotten has been deeply flattering and incredible,” said Ettensberger, former manager and wine buyer at Café Triste, “and also painful because there are only so many people we can seat.”
The pastry case, and the line outside, during daytime service at Wilde's in Los Feliz.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
About 80% of its seats are reserved for walk-ins, and 20% of reservations are spread out overnight. Guests enter their names and receive a text message when the table is ready, usually an hour and a half to two hours later. If seating is available at the small counter by the front window of the restaurant, one can sit and order wine and small plates until the table becomes available.
At 9 p.m., Ettensberger said, there is almost always room for walk-ins in the dining room. Their best advice is to line up early or arrive late, or write down your name expecting a wait, and then stop by for a drink at one of the many other family-friendly bars and restaurants in the neighborhood until you receive the text notification.
During the day, the white tablecloths disappear, the turnover time is faster, guests order at the counter, and small glass pedestals of sausage rolls, persimmon tea cakes, scones, and quiche line the shelves near the cash register.
Price and Ettensberger see British cuisine as the centerpiece of their menu, but Wilde's also incorporates the light touch and seasonality of California cuisine.
“There are a lot of interesting flavors found in British cuisine,” Price said. “At the same time, to me, a lot of it is just rustic and uses local ingredients, and we have that here too.”
Homemade coppa di testa with pickled golden beets and whipped lardo at Wilde's.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Their whole-hog program includes cracklings in kohlrabi salad, homemade coppa di testa served with garlic-whipped lardo, and freshly ground sausages (or sausages) over mashed potatoes with brown gravy mostarda. That program is inspired and led by chef de cuisine Sarah Durning, former pastry chef at Dunsmoor and butcher at Gwen.
They agreed that British cuisine has a bad (and false) reputation for being bland. They try to add those “surprises,” like nods to curry or HP sauce, in hidden ways to form what Price calls “this little question mark that happens,” keeping diners intrigued or on their toes.
Their association is long. Price and Ettensberger met when they were 1 and 2 years old; Their families spent every Friday night together, usually dining at independent restaurants in Los Angeles.
“It was all we knew,” Ettensberger said. “That's how you socialize, that's how you spend your weekends: going to restaurants and enjoying it with the people you love.”
That shared foundation is what led them to open a restaurant together, and the restaurant is named after Price's niece: the first child in a new generation of either of their families, who grew up together around the table.
Ettensberger and Price moved separately to the Northeast in their youth, with Price cooking at Mina's NYC at MoMA PS1. When the two returned to Los Angeles, they launched a popular ticketed backyard dining series called Seconds and began planning their full restaurant.
A scone with jam and clotted cream, right, with bacon bread during Wilde's daytime service.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Price was born in England and visited his family there throughout his life, but when he began his culinary career, British food was never a focus. It wasn't until they began mapping out Wilde's that her mind kept drifting toward what felt most like home: savory pastries, hearty food, and “simple food on a plate,” all of which synchronized with Ettensberger's wine tendencies toward rustic pairings. His attention to independent winegrowers, he said, echoes Price's local agricultural mentality.
Desserts are by Durning and are what Price calls “rustic but really intentional,” like a fluffy slice of sticky toffee pudding with a freshly bruléed vanilla brown sugar crust.
That menu is what draws guests to Wilde's to wait for hours. But the team hopes he will become a neighborhood stalwart once the initial fever subsides.
“I don't think it's always going to be that way,” Ettensberger said. “Obviously it can't. If we're lucky enough that people still want to eat here so often, we might have to switch to reservations somehow. But it's definitely something we're experimenting with and trying to figure out.”
Wilde's is open Wednesday to Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
1850 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 284-8178, wildesla.com
Grilled oysters at Clark's Oyster Bar in Malibu.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Clark's Oyster Bar
The first Clark's Oyster Bar landed in Montecito and the Bay Area. Now, the popular Austin-founded seafood restaurant is shucking oysters, slicing raw and serving thick New England clam chowder in Malibu.
Daily specials are served at Clark's Oyster Bar in Malibu.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Clark's restaurant group, MML Hospitality, operates more than 20 restaurants in Texas, California and Colorado, but Clark's is the company's seafood gem, serving grilled Spanish octopus, drawn butter lobster rolls, rock fish with grits, linguine with clams, crab omelettes, cioppino and more. Their Malibu location also highlights Pacific Coast seafood, along with their wine list that also hails from the Central Coast. Non-seafood options include meat, a burger topped with Gruyere, and salads.
The Malibu location sits along the edge of the new Cross Creek Ranch development project and features a bar, 175 seats, an aquarium, a fireplace and a patio. Clark's Oyster Bar is open in Malibu Sunday through Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
23465 Civic Center Way, Suite 210, Malibu, (310) 879-8508, clarksoysterbar.com
Echo Park amaro bar's intimate bar area is the Ramona Room.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
The Ramona Room
Echo Park's Elf Cafe closed in the spring after nearly 20 years in business, but its owners recently brought the space to life with the Ramona Room.
A nopales taco with Dune hummus and pickled jalapenos at Ramona Room.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
The new amaro bar team also owns Middle Eastern restaurant Dune and European cafe Bar Sinizki, and their latest venture features some nods to both. Bar Sinizki's beverage director Shawn Shepherd also runs the show at the Ramona Room, where he's built a menu around California and Italian amari, as well as European ports and sherries. They can be ordered a la carte or as highballs or house cocktails.
Head chef Marc López, formerly of Little Dom's, Budonoki and Mírate, is preparing a globe-trotting menu of bar bites, such as house-smoked escabeche mussels, a Cuban sandwich and a variety of tacos on fresh tortillas, including a nopales variety that comes slathered with Dune hummus. The Ramona Room is open daily from 5 to 11 p.m.
2135 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, instagram.com/theramonaroom
A variety of matcha drinks and modern Japanese pastries at Studio City's Matcha Café.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Matcha Coffee
A restaurant-inspired matcha riff is now open in Studio City, offering pastries, smoothies, whimsical drinks and a selection of imported tea from a family-owned coffee brand.
Staff prepare freshly shaken matcha drinks at the Matcha Café.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Cafe Matcha is a new project from the prolific Alfred Coffee chain, and from a corner of the Laurel Promenade shopping center in Studio City it serves matcha milk jam waffles, curried ham buns, and hojicha apple galettes along with creamy matcha lattes, hand-shaken rare matchas, and more.
It is based on the tea approach of Alfred Tea Room, the tea-based subsidiary of the coffee chain that operated from 2017 to 2023. But at Café Matcha it is exclusively green tea powder, which the shop sources from various provinces in Japan. Matcha devices such as whisks, stirrers and cups are also sold. The food menu, created by Konbi veterinarian Kiyoshi Tsukamoto, fuses traditional Japanese ingredients with American stalwarts, resulting in items like miso and cinnamon buns under a vanilla shio koji glaze. Café Matcha is open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
12070 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, cafe-matcha.com
