Your Go-To Guide to LA Museum Restaurants — Hyperallergic

After a couple hours of trekking with the halls of a museum, fatigue can set in, even for the most seasoned art aficionados. Los Angeles’s museums offer a wide range of culinary options to get run-down aesthetes to recharge before they tackle the particular second half of that career retrospective. This being LA, those range from fast casual spots that serve avocado toast, in order to midrange sit-down eateries (also serving avocado toast), to high-end, chef-driven concept restaurants that come alive because soon as the museums they’re attached to shut down for the day.

To make sense of it all, we bring you the scoop on eight UNA museum dining places — some best pertaining to a quick, affordable bite, others better suited for power lunches in order to pitch the screenplay or an afternoon of celebrity spotting.

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Otium at The Broad

There are some museum restaurants that will seem like a sad afterthought ( cough, the particular café from the Guggenheim , cough), and then there are full-fledged restaurants that are almost better than the museum they’re attached with. Otium is within the particular latter category. Sure, it’s not cheap, yet it’s helmed by chef Tim Hollingsworth, who previously spent 13 years on the French Laundry in Napa and received the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year Award in 2010, so you’re in good hands, or even at least fancy ones. The restaurant’s name comes from the Latin word apparently suggesting “a place where time can be spent on leisurely social activities, ” which is reflected in its open dining room, centered around a wood-fired oven, and in the casual $19 you’ll pay for the bibb lettuce salad.

The menu vibes are usually described since “elegant rusticity, ” which could really mean anything, but specifically points to items such as naan accompanied by truffle butter, bone marrow emulsion, or caviar; honeynut squash along with burrata; a whole grilled branzino for $65; and a $190 32-ounce tomahawk steak. Make note that Otium is only open meant for dinner, so it’s not the place in order to get midday sustenance, but a good spot to relax, refresh, and impress your in-laws after a day at the Wide.

Otium ( otiumla. com )
222 South Hope Street, Downtown

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Lulu at The Hammer Museum

Lulu in the Hammer Museum is another restaurant with the lofty cooking pedigree, namely a collaboration between farm-to-table pioneer Alice Waters and chef plus writer David Tanis. As with a few other entries around the list, the website touts an emphasis on “sustainability through local, regenerative food” and sourcing ingredients from small area farms. (A refreshing contrast to the huge agribusiness run simply by major Sludge hammer donors Lynda and Stewart Resnick , whose facilities have been criticized designed for guzzling up “ more water than each home within Los Angeles combined . ”)

Located in the particular Hammer’s open-air courtyard with Jorge Pardo-designed lamps overhead, Lulu offers an à la carte menus of sandwiches, soups, plus salads, but their seasonal concept is highlighted by a three-course prix fixe menu that changes daily, available for lunch or dinner. An example from this past summer featured a tomato salad along with anchovy vinaigrette, ricotta gnocchi with zucchini and squash blossoms, and espresso granita for $45.

Lulu ( lulu. cafe )
10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Westwood

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Lemonade with the Art gallery of Contemporary Art

“Fast casual” are not words that generally inspire culinary confidence, but the branch from the chain eating place Lemonade located at the Museum associated with Contemporary Art may be an exception, with reasonably priced fresh fare that channels the healthy, SoCal lifestyle worthy of an influencer’s braggy post. (Their motto: “Eating your vegetables shouldn’t feel like punishment. ”) Tucked away behind the museum’s entrance staircase down through the street, this little restaurant along with outdoor seating offers signature chef’s bowls like “Mango Chicken” or even “Ahi Tuna” for about $15 (with special $7 bowls like “Hatch Green Chile” every single Tuesday), or other options such as a “Golden Cauliflower Sandwich” and, of course , avocado toast. Oh, plus they’ve got about a dozen flavors of lemonade. You know what these people say: When life gives you art …

Lemonade ( lemonadela. com )
250 Southern Grand Avenue, Downtown

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Getty Center

The Getty Center, LA’s cultural citadel on the hill, will be not one of those museums you can just pop into for a quick visit. After a short tram ride in order to the top, visitors disembark into the travertine-lined campus, seemingly a world away from the freeway traffic below. In short, you’re probably gonna need something to eat upward there. Luckily, the Getty has several options on different price points. For special occasions or energy lunches, there’s the deceptively humbly named “Restaurant, ” which boasts seasonal fare, views of the Santa Monica mountains, and 3 dollar signs on Yelp. Treat yourself to $14 classic cocktails like a martini or negroni while enjoying dishes want swordfish with sweet pepper emulsion. With regard to more cost-conscious visitors that just want a quick bite, there is usually the Garden Terrace Cafe and a couple of coffee carts.

Hot tip: Order online to pick up a latte or chai, brownies, cookies, salads or even splurge on a $21 charcuterie box along with soppressata, prosciutto, and purple mustard. Even hotter tip: Unlike many museums, the particular Getty allows you to bring your own food, so you can pack the picnic lunch to enjoy within the lawn or some other public areas.

Getty Middle ( getty. edu )
1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood

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Fanny’s on the Academy Museum

Named for iconic film actress and comedian Fanny Brice, Fanny’s at the School Museum gives old Hollywood a contemporary makeover with an interior inspired by bygone eateries like the Brown Derby , courtesy of Commune Design. By day, the café and bar serves museumgoers a selection of baked goods (fig and salmon tartines) and heartier fare like lamb-chicken meatballs. After the museum closes, the restaurant cranks up the Tinseltown charm with a deal-maker’s dinner menu associated with pasta, fish, and exponentially expensive steaks that culminate in the $155 Aspen Ridge Beef T-Bone. In conjunction with the Academy Museum’s newly opened exhibition focused on Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), Fanny’s offers a “Godfather Menu” just for Sunday supper featuring “Don Vito Corleone’s Bread plus Olive Oil, ” “Mickey Cohen’s Sticky Ribs, ” or gelato, which usually they’ve dubbed “revenge” — a dish best served cold. (Tragically, they missed a couple of perfect opportunities — may I suggest “ Luca Brasi Sleeps with the Whole, Roasted Fish ” and “ Leave the particular Gun, Take the Cannoli “? )

Fanny’s ( fannysla. com )
6067 Wilshire Chaussee, Miracle Mile

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Ray’s and Stark Bar at the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork

Ray’s and Kampfstark Bar is definitely located smack in the center of LACMA’s campus, just steps from throngs of museum-goers, crowds associated with selfie-snappers in Chris Burden’s “Urban Light, ” plus the bustle of Wilshire Boulevard, making the mid-century styled indoor/outdoor space perfect for people-watching. Called for prolific film producer Ray Abgefahren ( West Side Story, Funny Girl, Steel Magnolias ), the particular restaurant menus lists classics such as pizza, pasta, and roasted chicken, and a California-heavy wine list. They furthermore claim to have got “the nation’s most extensive water menu, ” yet with just seven choices listed on their menu online, that seems dubious. (Several reviewers also remarked that will costly bottled water was the only option. ) They average a four-star rating from 250 Google reviews, with mostly positive comments about the food plus setting peppered with complaints about bad service. The particular La Times mentioned that the restaurant can “easily hold its own against some of Los Angeles’s best Mediterranean bistros” when it opened a decade ago, an impression echoed by the more current reviewer who else wrote that it can be “the kind of place you would assume is certainly violently mediocre, but in reality is very solid. ”

Ray’s and Stark Bar ( patinagroup. com/rays-and-stark-bar )
5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Miracle Mile

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Meyers Manx at the particular Petersen Automotive Museum

The Meyers Manx Cafe is only a few months old, therefore it’s hard to get an accurate impression, but its 4. 8 rating on Google Reviews through nine latest visitors bodes well. The particular Manx replaces the Italian cuisine of Drago — the previous restaurant from the Petersen — with a menu associated with California classics such while burgers, breakfast burritos, and shrimp tacos. Inspired by the Meyers Manx, the popular dune buggy created in 1964, the menu reflects “the lifestyle the car embodies, ” according to General Manager Greg Scarborough, specifically a laid-back beachy vibe emphasized simply by surfing decor and vintage records upon the wall. Open from 9am in order to 3pm (and 4pm on weekends), Meyers Manx is a spot to start your day or re-energize mid-afternoon, not a place to see or even be seen right after hours.

Meyers Manx Restaurant ( meyersmanxcafe. possuindo )
6060 Wilshire Boulevard, Miracle Kilometer

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Zeidler’s Café in the Skirball Cultural Center

Zeidler’s Café seems like a museum restaurant having an identity crisis. The “Mediterranean-inspired menu” includes Za’atar flatbread and a good olive-oil poached Niçoise salad, but then throws in Ashkenazi Jewish staples like a bagel and lox or smoked salmon pastrami Reuben, a kosher substitute for traditional beef brisket pastrami. Add in order to that an entree selection that will includes nudeln, pizza, and a mushroom plus kale empanada, and you’ve got a rather uninspired, unfocused culinary experience. During the run of I’ll Have What She’s Having , the particular Skirball’s exhibit dedicated to the Jewish Deli in America, Zeidler’s did offer an associated menu along with matzo ball soup, blintzes, knishes, and a vegan corned meat sandwich, but that ended when the particular show did in September. It garners a fair 3. 5-star rating from 32 reviews upon Yelp, with visitors praising its affordability and healthiness. Given the diversity of Jewish cuisine from close to the world, it seems like Zeidler’s could offer a more adventurous menus as opposed to one that is just adequate.

Zeidler’s Café ( skirball. org )
2701 North Sepulveda Boulevard, Brentwood