Open Sesame has been cooking Lebanese food in Los Angeles since 1999, which by the standards of this city's restaurant scene is close to geological. The West Hollywood room on Beverly Boulevard is the one to know, and its opening hours change halfway through the week.
Three o'clock some days, noon on others. Check before you drive over.
The split week
Monday to Wednesday, 3.00pm to 10.00pm. Thursday, 12.00pm to 10.00pm. Friday and Saturday, 12.00pm to 11.00pm. Sunday, 12.00pm to 10.00pm.
So the first three days of the week have no lunch service at all — the doors do not open until three. From Thursday onward the restaurant opens at noon.
That is an unusual split and it is the single most likely way a plan here fails. A Tuesday lunch is not possible; a Thursday lunch is.
The address is 7458 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles.
What the kitchen is
Open Sesame specialises in Lebanese cooking, prepared fresh daily, with all meats and poultry one hundred per cent halal. It has been operating since 1999 and there is a Long Beach location as well.
Lebanese food is the most mezze-driven of the Levantine cuisines — the tradition is a long table of small dishes eaten over a long period, with grilled meats arriving in the middle of it rather than at the end.
The halal sourcing is worth stating because it matters practically to a large number of people planning a group meal, and because restaurants are inconsistent about making it clear.
Ordering for a group
This is a room built for groups and the ordering should reflect that. Start with a spread — hummus, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, fattoush, labneh — plus bread, and treat that as the first half of the meal rather than as starters.
Tabbouleh is the dish to judge a Lebanese kitchen on. The Lebanese version is mostly parsley with a small amount of bulgur, not the reverse — if what arrives is a bowl of grain with flecks of green, the kitchen has made a choice you should note.
Then order grilled items for the table rather than per person. Chicken tawook and mixed grills are designed to be divided, and a group that orders individual mains ends up with too much meat and not enough of everything else.
Why it works socially
The mezze format is close to ideal for a group with mixed appetites, arrival times and dietary requirements. There is always enough vegetarian material for someone to eat well without a special order, the halal sourcing removes another constraint, and plates keep arriving so latecomers are not eating alone.
The eleven o'clock Friday and Saturday close gives a long evening, and the noon opening from Thursday means a weekend lunch that runs into the afternoon is possible.
For anything with a fixed start time later in the evening, the Thursday-to-Sunday noon opening is what makes an early meal beforehand workable.
Beverly Boulevard around it
7458 Beverly is in the stretch between Fairfax and La Brea, which is one of the more walkable commercial corridors in this part of Los Angeles and is dense with independent businesses.
The Original Farmers Market and The Grove are a short drive west; Pan Pacific Park is closer and free, with open lawns that are a reasonable place to spend an hour before a three o'clock opening on a Monday.
Parking on Beverly is street-based and manageable outside peak hours, which is another argument for the earlier openings later in the week.
Lebanese, Greek and Turkish, briefly distinguished
Mediterranean is a category broad enough to be nearly useless, and the differences between its main strands are worth knowing when you are choosing where to eat.
Lebanese cooking is the most mezze-driven and the most herb-forward: heavy use of parsley, mint and lemon, tahini as a base for sauces, and a table structure built around many small cold dishes with grilled meats arriving among them.
Greek cooking leans on olive oil, oregano and lemon, with more emphasis on whole grilled fish and roasted meats and comparatively fewer dips. Turkish cooking sits between the two, with more use of yoghurt, more bread cooked to order, and a stronger kebab tradition built on minced as well as cubed meat.
Knowing which one a restaurant is doing tells you how to order. At a Lebanese table, order wide and cold-forward; at a Greek one, order a smaller number of larger things.
Practical notes
Open Sesame, 7458 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles. Monday–Wednesday 3.00pm–10.00pm; Thursday 12.00pm–10.00pm; Friday–Saturday 12.00pm–11.00pm; Sunday 12.00pm–10.00pm. No lunch service Monday to Wednesday. Lebanese cooking prepared fresh daily; all meats and poultry are 100% halal. Operating since 1999, with a second location in Long Beach. Best ordered as a mezze spread for the table with grilled items shared rather than plated individually. Good for groups with mixed requirements. Pan Pacific Park is nearby and free. Hours change — confirm at opensesamegrill.com.
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know whether today is a noon open or a three o'clock one, and if there is room for a group tonight? Ask Karpo for Open Sesame's current hours and availability, plus somewhere on Beverly Boulevard to wait if you have arrived before the doors.
