Neighborhoods Alfresco Dining Guide

When it's raining, these restaurants drop away from our list of candidates for the evening (or morning, or afternoon). Which is why we're so, so glad when it's not raining. LA is almost unrivaled in its number of alfresco delights—or at least in the number of days per year they can actually be enjoyed—so this list culled from a long list of bright, breezy options is impossibly subjective. Still, since we didn't feel right leaving out the institutions (sigh, do you really still need us to tell you about The Ivy?), be sure to check the sidebar for more classics.
—Lonny Pugh

Alcove Cafe & Bakery

Pretense-free and impossible not to love, Los Feliz's courtyard café opens early and closes late; coffee, breakfast, coffee, lunch, coffee, dinner and coffee can all be enjoyed amid the bricks and the trees and the interesting conversations of the casual Eastside crowd.

Wilshire Restaurant

Find us a review of this Santa Monica oasis that doesn't fawn over its huge, twinkling patio, and we'll eat our linen.

Design Cafe

Situated in front of the Pacific Design Center's imposing façade so that the sky's rich blues seem to drip right down the building to our feet, Design Café is an order-from-the-window pitstop that serves sandwiches with a side of great people-watching. After an hour of watching design junkies and pros flit to and from meetings inside, we inevitably get motivated to renovate our dining room.

The Abbey

Find us a local gay guy whose brick-backdropped MySpace picture wasn't taken here, and we'll eat a vat of mortar.

Abode Restaurant & Lounge

Chef Dominique Crenn's fine cuisine in brunch form under strings of lights in the courtyard? Yes, please.

Cliff's Edge

Cool points go to the date who can find this signless spot, tucked away through a door at the back of a small parking lot. It's not atop a cliff or anything (the name is a play on the cross street, Edgecliff), but it's secluded in a way that very few LA restaurants can manage.

Kings Road Cafe

Many a pair of track pants can be seen here on any given Sunday morning, though they don't come from Old Navy. An eager, scruffy but cute crowd litters the sidewalk clutching scripts, leashes, strollers and papers from the adjacent newsstand while waiting for a table. The coffee straightens our spine without fail.

Cobras & Matadors

Just a few tables litter the sidewalk outside this bring-your-own-wine tapas joint, but they're prime real estate for the bottle-clutching crowd circling like vultures. (Reservations are taken inside, but outside is first-come, first-serve.)

The Blvd

Under the Regent Beverly Wilshire is this pricey but fun restaurant that, on any given day, caters to nip/tucked 90210 grandmas and/or Usher. In terms of people-watching, what better location for a patio than the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive?

10.

The Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air

Special occasions are marked with grace on the bougainvillea-lined terrace outside this classic, flourishing hotel. Then there are the pinkies-out ladies who elbow in for a spot of tea.

11.

Knoll at Le Parc Suites

There's hidden homey dining to be found just off Melrose—and that rooftop!

12.

BIN 8945

Settle in. The best way to enjoy this restaurant is to submit to a tasting, and to not have anywhere else to be aside from this sidewalk table.

13.

The Little Next Door

The charming courtyard is almost as overstuffed as the glimmering counter within.

14.

Frittelli's Doughnuts & Coffee

Well, look at that. A huge, sceney patio in Glendale.

15.

Grub

Though kitschy knickknacks make the dining room and charming patio feel like the home of a sassy grandma, our grandmother usually caters to fewer studio execs and "Bachelor" alums.

16.

Hatfield's

The front of this patio is perfect for impressing a refined, unfussy date. But the side alley, probably not so much.

17.

Koi

Which is more important? The lush patio with actual tables, or the front sidewalk where rich people wait for their rides and paparazzi sniff out the famous?

18.

Malo

Walled-in. Loud. Fun. It's hard to hate Malo, especially after a couple margaritas on the patio.

19.

MINX Restaurant & Lounge

In a space that looks massive enough to host a Dodger game, chef Joseph Antonishek serves globally inspired cuisine to an entertainment-starved Glendale crowd not wanting to relocate for the after-dinner portion of the evening.

20.

Whist

The Kelly Wearstler decor, the thoughtfully concocted poolside hair, the extravagant cabanas: Though this indoor-outdoor Viceroy restaurant has no ocean view, there is most certainly a view.