The long lunch is structurally better suited to Los Angeles than dinner is and almost nobody does it. The weather is reliable, the light is at its best in the afternoon, the restaurants are quieter and more attentive, the tables are available, and — the part that actually decides it — the drive home at four o'clock is a completely different experience from the drive home at ten. It is the meal this city is built for and it is treated as an afterthought.
The long lunch is the meal this city is actually built for and almost nobody books it. Ask Karpo which rooms near you will let you stay.
Why it works better here
Three reasons. Weather: outdoor dining is viable nearly year-round, and a patio at one in the afternoon in October is the best seat in Los Angeles. Traffic: a lunch that ends at three avoids both peaks, which is worth an hour of your life compared with an evening booking. And capacity: the rooms that are impossible to book for Saturday dinner frequently have a two o'clock table available on the same day.
There is a fourth, less obvious one. Kitchens are calmer at lunch. The brigade is not in the weeds, the floor staff have time, and a chef who would never come out to a table at eight-thirty on a Saturday might well do so at two on a Sunday. You get a better version of the same restaurant.
Which rooms will let you stay
The variable is table turnover, and it is visible from the outside. A room with a patio and a bar will let you sit for three hours because the space is not scarce. A twenty-four-seat dining room with a queue outside will not, and will be right not to.
Wine bars and restaurants with substantial wine lists are the most reliable category, because their business model assumes a longer stay. Patios and courtyards are the second, because outdoor seating is usually additional capacity rather than core capacity. Market halls and food halls are the third and the most flexible of all — nobody at Grand Central Market on Broadway, open since 1917, has ever asked anyone to move along.
The category to avoid is the fashionable small room at weekend lunch, which is running the same turnover pressure it runs at dinner.
How to book it
Book for one o'clock rather than noon. The noon seating is the first turn and the restaurant will want the table back at one-thirty; the one o'clock seating is frequently the last of the lunch service, which means nobody is waiting for it and you can stay until the room resets for dinner.
Say what you are doing when you book. A phrase as simple as we are planning a long one changes the way the table is allocated, and most restaurants would far rather know than discover it at three o'clock. If there is a limit they will tell you, which is useful information rather than a rejection.
The afternoon that follows
The mistake is to treat the lunch as the whole plan. What makes this work is having somewhere to go afterwards within a short walk, so the afternoon continues rather than stopping in a car park. In Los Angeles the neighbourhoods where that works are the walkable ones: Santa Monica around Main Street and Montana Avenue, Venice along Abbot Kinney and Rose Avenue, downtown's Historic Core and Arts District, Highland Park along York Boulevard, Culver City's downtown blocks, Silver Lake and Los Feliz along Sunset and Hillhurst, and the Larchmont Village strip.
Each of those has a bookshop, a record shop, a park or a gallery within a few minutes of a good lunch table, which is all the structure an afternoon needs. And each of them lets you leave the car in one place, which in this city is the whole trick.
The autumn window
September and October are the best months of the year for this in Los Angeles. The inland heat has broken enough that a patio at one in the afternoon is comfortable rather than punishing, the light in the last hours of the afternoon is the best it gets, and the summer crowds have gone. If you are going to do this once, do it now — a long lunch on a Sunday in October, finishing as the light goes gold, is one of the genuinely great things about living here and it costs no more than a rushed dinner would.
Practical notes
The long lunch suits Los Angeles because outdoor dining works nearly year-round, a meal ending at 3pm avoids both traffic peaks, tables are available that are impossible at dinner, and kitchens are calmer and more attentive. Rooms that permit a long stay: wine bars and restaurants with substantial wine lists, patios and courtyards where outdoor seating is additional capacity, and market halls such as Grand Central Market on Broadway, open since 1917. Avoid small fashionable rooms at weekend lunch, which run dinner-level turnover pressure. Book 1pm rather than noon, since the later seating is often the last of the service, and say plainly that you are planning a long lunch. Walkable neighbourhoods that support an afternoon afterwards: Main St and Montana Ave in Santa Monica, Abbot Kinney and Rose Ave in Venice, the Historic Core and Arts District downtown, York Blvd in Highland Park, downtown Culver City, Sunset and Hillhurst in Silver Lake and Los Feliz, and Larchmont Village. September and October are the best months for it.
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Ask Karpo first
A long lunch needs a room that will let you stay and a neighbourhood worth walking afterwards. Ask Karpo which places near you have a 1pm table today, which will not rush you, and what is within a short walk once you are finished.
