The husband-and-wife duo steering the ship — creative director Lily Rosenthal Royal and chef Mason Royal— explain
One Angeleno couple was on the way to the hospital to deliver their baby when they had to make a pit-stop: one last meal at Max & Helen’s.
“That was pretty surreal,” says Lily Rosenthal Royal, creative director of the Larchmont Village diner and daughter of TV writer and producer Phil Rosenthal, who is co-owner with L.A. restaurateur grand dame Nancy Silverton.
Max & Helen’s opened last November and quickly became a hit, serving up “comfort food, but with quality ingredients and more technique” (as Silverton told Los Angeles last fall) in the former Le Petite Greek space. It seats up to 80 guests, including the back patio, meaning a Saturday morning has been known to result in a four-hour-plus wait (Max & Helen’s does not take reservations).
In less than six months, the diner has attracted visitors from around-the-world, a celebrity clientele and national media looking to understand the phenomenon, resulting in headlines like “The Power Diner Where Even Spielberg Has to Wait” from The Hollywood Reporter and “Would You Wait 8 Hours for This Waffle?” from New York Magazine’s food and restaurant outlet Grub Street.
With Max & Helen’s mission to mix the power of diner nostalgia with best-in-class ingredients and cooking, the reason for the buzz is evident. Max’s Fluffy Eggs deliver three ultra-soft scrambled eggs, while the waffle with maple butter tops the griddle item with a butter-maple syrup concoction. “Our tuna melt is unbelievable,” says Rosenthal Royal of her favorite savory menu item (She’s also a big fan of the pancake). “We use new school American cheese, and it’s just my favorite tuna melt I’ve ever had.”
Credit: Catherine Dzilenski
Meanwhile, her husband, chef Mason Royal, deems the patty melt as his favorite. “I think the one we do is a great representation of what a patty melt should be. It’s dry-aged beef blend, so it’s really meaty. It’s a lot of short rib, dry-aged scraps, high fat content, so it’s full of flavor. And we melt some great Gruyère cheese on it, and we do these large, caramelized onion rings on top of it. And the bread is amazing. It comes from Suzanne Goin’s bakery, Larder.”
There’s also the social media-hyped (and just plain excellent) Lily’s Hot Chocolate, which the team served at Los Angeles’ Best New Restaurants event in February. “There’s a common misconception that it’s my recipe,” Rosenthal Royal says. “I really just have a wonderful husband who wanted to call it Lily’s Hot Chocolate because I begged him to put it on the menu.” The Parisian-style beverage, Royal explains, is made from a blend of Valrhona chocolate, milk and cream that reduces over the stove for a few hours until thick. Torched homemade marshmallow fluff is served on top.
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“It’s fun because it’s really like a big kids menu,” says Rosenthal Royal. “It’s all things that we just know and love from childhood.”
Max & Helen’s success is largely in credit to a hard-working team. Rosenthal Royal says her favorite part of the process was hiring staff. “So much of this job and working in a restaurant is about interactions with people,” she explains. “You have to have people that are kind and warm and embody what we are trying to embody as a restaurant, as a brand, as a culture.” The duo set out on hiring a mix of newcomers and experienced staff, including kitchen staff and managers from previous restaurant groups Royal ran.
“If you have the right attitude and we felt like it was a match from a service standpoint, we felt like we have the tools and the systems to bring these people in and train them and get them to where we need them to be,” Royal says.
Credit: Catherine Dzilenski Wilson
During peak busy hours, like weekend mornings, two to three hosts will take on the crowd, alongside the help of Rosenthal Royal, Mason and other managers as needed — and handy dandy OpenTable to organize seating.
“This is certainly a high-volume restaurant,” says Royal, who helps maintain the pace by jumping on tables or at the kitchen pass whenever staff is feeling overwhelmed. “Ultimately, they want to be heard, and they want to feel like they’re supported, and so a lot of times it’s just as easy as asking them, ‘What can I do for you in this moment?’”
The same goes for dealing with frustrated guests. “We just want to make them feel heard, and so it’s taking the time to hear what they have to say, making sure that it’s a reasonable request, what they’re asking of you, and doing our best within the confines of what we do … to be able to best accommodate them.” By the time they leave, the goal is that the food and service prove to be worth the wait.
Rosenthal Royal recalls a man who came in and brought them a gift as a thank you for seating him at the counter by himself, right next to a woman who was also dining solo. The two are now dating. “Love blossoming from our restaurant, it’s a dream,” she says.