Silver Lake will not give you a good salad shop. There is no counter here where you point at ingredients and someone tosses them in a metal bowl, and the neighbourhood has never really wanted one. What it has instead is a set of restaurants whose menus each contain exactly one very good salad, ordered as a side or a starter, and knowing which four or five those are is considerably more useful than knowing where the nearest chain is.
These are single line items rather than places, so the real question is which of the rooms holding them will seat you right now. Tell Karpo where you are and it will match the dish to a table.
The wedge
L&E Oyster Bar at 1637 Silver Lake Boulevard does a wedge salad that is heavy on bacon bits, alongside a solid burger, in a room that is otherwise about oysters. There is an upstairs space that runs its own happy hour, and most people who have been to L&E have only ever been downstairs.
A wedge salad is a specific and slightly old-fashioned thing — a quarter of iceberg, dressing, bacon, eaten with a knife — and it is exactly right next to shellfish. It is also, honestly, not a light dish, which is worth knowing before ordering it as the healthy option.
The frisée
Café Stella at 3932 West Sunset Boulevard is the neighbourhood's long-standing French room, set around a courtyard that is grungier and better than it sounds. The frisée salad sits alongside steak au poivre and a sorbet served inside a frozen lemon, and it is the classic bistro version: bitter leaves, something fatty, something acidic, and no attempt to be virtuous about it.
Reservations are recommended rather than required. Ordering a frisée and a glass of wine in the courtyard is a completely legitimate way to use this restaurant, and one that most people never consider because they arrive intending to have dinner.
The herb-forward one
Azizam at 2943 West Sunset Boulevard is a daytime Persian café with a patio, best known for a grapefruit-sized kofteh tabrizi built with walnuts and dried barberries. Persian cooking treats fresh herbs as a plate in their own right rather than as a garnish, which means the vegetable side of this menu is genuinely substantial rather than decorative.
It is also the only room on this list that is a daytime operation first, which makes it the correct answer when the craving arrives at one in the afternoon rather than at eight in the evening.
The cold-plate option
Bar Besito at 1710 Silver Lake Boulevard works on conservas and tapas — tinned fish served straight from the tin, such as mackerel marinated in yuzu koshu. On a hot Los Angeles evening, cold tinned fish with bread and something sharp is a better light meal than a salad, and it requires no kitchen at all, which is part of why it tastes right in that weather.
Ceci's Gastronomia at 2813 West Sunset Boulevard does focaccia sandwiches on thin, crunchy bread with a sidewalk patio under yellow umbrellas. Not a salad — but the patio is the scarcest resource in this neighbourhood at midday, and eating outside in shade is usually the actual thing people are after.
Choosing
Next to oysters, and you do not mind bacon: L&E's wedge, upstairs if the happy hour is running. Sitting in a courtyard with a glass of wine: the frisée at Café Stella. One in the afternoon, on a patio: Azizam. A hot evening with no appetite for anything cooked: Bar Besito. Shade and a sandwich rather than a salad: Ceci's.
Practical notes
Addresses: L&E Oyster Bar 1637 Silver Lake Blvd; Café Stella 3932 W Sunset Blvd; Azizam 2943 W Sunset Blvd; Bar Besito 1710 Silver Lake Blvd; Ceci's Gastronomia 2813 W Sunset Blvd. The Silver Lake Boulevard pair are walkable from each other; the Sunset Boulevard addresses are a separate cluster and a short drive away. L&E's happy hour is upstairs. Metered parking along Sunset is at its worst from about noon to 2pm at weekends and the residential blocks behind carry enforced permit restrictions. Shade on these pavements is genuinely scarce in the middle of the day, which is why the patios with it fill first.
Tags: #SaladNearMe #SilverLake #LosAngeles #LandEOysterBar #CafeStella #Azizam #BarBesito #SunsetBoulevard #EastsideLA #NeighborhoodGuides #LAEats #PatioDining #LALunch #SilverLakeEats
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Ask Karpo first
The best salads in Silver Lake are single dishes buried in menus built around something else, so searching for a salad place will not find them. Ask Karpo which of these rooms is open and seating right now, which has shade at this hour, and what else is worth ordering alongside.
