{"id":281838,"date":"2026-04-23T10:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/281838\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:40:17","slug":"review-can-max-helens-ever-be-a-laidback-diner-do-we-care-when-the-waffle-is-so-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/281838\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Can Max & Helen’s ever be a laidback diner? Do we care when the waffle is so good?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You have probably heard of Max & Helen\u2019s<\/a>, the homage to classic diners opened in Larchmont six months ago by Phil Rosenthal, creator of \u201cEverybody Loves Raymond<\/a>\u201d and host of \u201cSomebody Feed Phil<\/a>,\u201d and culinary juggernaut Nancy Silverton<\/a>. If the algorithms pick up even your slightest interest in L.A. restaurants, you know the early waits for tables reached an absurdist eight hours, and probably that Silverton resequenced the DNA of the breakfast waffle into something more closely resembling yeasted pastry.<\/p>\n

An immutable law of L.A. dining: Crowds subside, at least during less popular time slots. Weekday lunch waits these days seem to average about 45 minutes. Double or occasionally triple that on weekends. I\u2019ve also been twice recently when the only lag between me and a seat was the beat a server needed to grab menus and say, \u201cRight this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Long waits (up to eight hours) for tables in the Max & Helen\u2019s dining room have become more manageable since the restaurant first opened six months ago.<\/p>\n

(Ron De Angelis\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

On a drizzly February morning, two of us landed along the deepest bend of the dining room\u2019s curved counter. Soon I was smearing a whipped blob of butter and maple syrup around a waffle\u2019s bronzed edges, and it was freakishly delicious, honestly the best of my life. The batter, fermented for three days, yields a fine-crumbed crispness and depths of flavor that sway between sweet and savory.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, three of us arrived on a Monday at 6:30 p.m. and were shown right to a plaid upholstered booth set against a wood-paneled wall. We divided a Cobb salad, its classic ingredients arranged in generous piles over iceberg lettuce, and shared several toasty sandwiches: patty melt, tuna melt, a Reuben on rye. We stuck long spoons and wide straws into a thick strawberry milkshake, while our forks shattered the crust on a generous wedge of cherry pie.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Classic sandwiches signal classic diner: The tuna melt is one of several sandwiches on the Max & Helen\u2019s menu, which also includes a dry-aged patty melt, pastrami reuben and turkey club.<\/p>\n

(Ron De Angelis\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

At moments like these, when the mood in the air has easy, genuine cheer, I can relish the earnest intent of the place: a steady, there-for-you neighborhood diner.<\/p>\n

But I understand, too, why the project has been a magnet for spicy social-media takes and carping about its facsimile of a dying genre of American restaurant culture. Max & Helen\u2019s, named after Rosenthal\u2019s parents, looks like a diner, serves food that lands like diner food, but probably isn\u2019t a diner in the purest societal definition. The whirl of celebrity about Rosenthal and Silverton courts outsize opinions, and Americana diners are not about opinionating.<\/p>\n

Diners are about being serviceable, in the literal terms of availability and of adequacy. Diners aren\u2019t baiting first-bite TikTok reaction shots. Our judgments should take a breather while we rest on a diner\u2019s swivel stool. We\u2019re there to feed our nostalgia, our basicness. We order what we want: flapjacks, hot links, Denver omelets, gravy-covered hot plates, no-big-deal cheeseburgers, chocolate malts. The food is designed to be enjoyed just enough. What a relief not to overthink while we catch up with friends, or hand fries to our children, or stare hard into the void at 3 a.m.<\/p>\n

In Southern California, we might also frequent diners and Midcentury coffee shops<\/a> as an act of preservation. Our chrome shrines to Googie architecture, built in the heyday of neon signage and Naugahyde and Formica, have been vanishing for decades: Pann\u2019s<\/a> in Westchester, Norms<\/a> in West Hollywood, Foxy\u2019s<\/a> in Glendale, Bob\u2019s Big Boy Broiler<\/a> in Downey. The arrival of Max & Helen\u2019s doubles as a reminder to patronize these institutions before more of them disappear.<\/p>\n

\"Chef <\/p>\n

Chef Nancy Silverton, left, helped bring the menu to life, along with TV celebrity Phil Rosenthal, who created Max & Helen\u2019s in honor of his parents and where his daughter, Lily Rosenthal Royal and her husband Mason Royal, work alongside. <\/p>\n

(Ron De Angelis\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

A restaurant with Silverton\u2019s name attached can\u2019t help but set near-impossible expectations. She is the virtuoso whose cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche brioche tart with wine-poached peaches made cool-headed Julia Child cry tears of joy<\/a>! Silverton tests recipes until they rise to her perfectionism. Precedent demands that her waffle push iron-griddled cakes into never-before-seen dimensions.<\/p>\n

All that said, the diner tenet of not overthinking things serves me well at Max & Helen\u2019s. I\u2019m not partial to cottage cheese or egg salad sandwiches, and I don\u2019t feel the pressure of conversion here. But chili cheese fries, my diner go-to? They\u2019re great \u2014 carefully proportioned so some fries stay crackly while others sink into appealing sogginess \u2014 without being distractingly great.<\/p>\n

Max & Helen\u2019s<\/p>\n

127 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, maxandhelens.com<\/p>\n

Prices: Most breakfast dishes $8 to $27, lunch and dinner salads $16 to $23, sandwiches $17 to $27, hot plates $18 to $27, desserts $5.50 to $18.50.<\/p>\n

Details: Open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Street parking.<\/p>\n

What to drink: The chocolate egg cream, straight from Phil Rosenthal\u2019s New York childhood; excellent milkshakes. Alcohol-wise, restaurant serves beers and, with quirky charm, wines by the glass from each major \u201ccolor\u201d category (white, red, orange, etc.). Ask a server for specifics.<\/p>\n

Recommended dishes: waffle with maple butter, pancakes, omelet Florentine, Brown Derby Cobb, patty melt, grilled cheese with tomato soup, chili cheese fries, sour cherry pie.<\/p>\n

This is probably a good place to mention: Rosenthal has been an investor in restaurants (including Silverton\u2019s Mozza empire<\/a>) for years, but this is his first stint as restaurateur, and we\u2019ve been friends since I moved to Los Angeles in 2018. Mason Royal, his son-in-law, is director of operations, and his daughter, Lily Rosenthal Royal, shapes branding and hospitality as creative director.<\/p>\n

I show up unannounced, and if they\u2019re around, we say hi. Then I\u2019m right back to business, pouring syrup over blueberry pancakes, appropriately fluffy-dense in the center and crackly around the edges. The simple \u201cdiner breakfast\u201d of two eggs any style (me: soft-scrambled or over-easy with runny yolks), toast and bacon or sausage does its job. I\u2019ll admit preferring the fancier omelet Florentine, its tufts of spinach registering as fresh and balanced with leeks and Parmesan.<\/p>\n

Silverton has decades of fame behind the complex and gratifying variations of grilled cheese she once served at Campanile. Her version at Max & Helen\u2019s shrewdly fills the diner assignment: Three micro-thin layers of white and yellow cheddar teeter at the edge of melted, sealed between toast cut into triangles and served alongside a cup of tomato soup ideal for dipping.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Coffee-shop vibes include Max & Helen\u2019s bags hanging in the entryway of the diner above stacks of to-go boxes.<\/p>\n

(Ron De Angelis\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

A proven burger engineer, she couldn\u2019t help but shift into luxury with her take on a patty melt. She fuses nine ounces of short rib and various cuts of dry-aged beef with floppy petals of caramelized onions and a shellacking of Gruy\u00e8re. Spicy mayo, the color of Russian dressing, runs down the sides. Do I think \u201cdiner\u201d as I pilot this $27 Maserati of a sandwich? No. Am I glad it exists? Yes.<\/p>\n

A couple dishes leave me cool. The BLT proves too much bacon may indeed be possible. Meatloaf, served with mashed potatoes and green beans, is slicked with excellent, meaty-rich gravy, but also possesses the uniform texture of p\u00e2t\u00e9 when I yearn for craggy, diner-y singe around the edges.<\/p>\n

The only outright letdown was a hot turkey open-face with thoroughly dried-out meat. <\/p>\n

At that same lunch, a colleague and I were served a waffle that was pale, and missing the flavor alchemy I\u2019d experienced during several other meals. I thought of the extreme microscope this restaurant is under, and how someone who had waited an hour and was trying this hyped dish for the first time could rightly scoff. The waffle must come correct. <\/p>\n

\"Spread <\/p>\n

A full breakfast spread along with lunch and dinner favorites at Max & Helen\u2019s, including a tuna melt, waffle, patty melt, meatloaf and tomato soup. <\/p>\n

(Ron De Angelis\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

On that note: Desserts might be Max & Helen\u2019s most underrated aspect. Tart-sweet cherries in the pie keep you coming back for one more forkful, and then another. Chocolate cake is the essence of childhood birthdays. But here\u2019s a hack: I love the waffle in the evening, a scoop of ice cream ordered separately and tipped on top. While it begins running into rivulets from the heat, I ladle over some of the restaurant\u2019s silken, opaque hot chocolate crowned with billowing marshmallow.<\/p>\n

I am not in the habit of concocting do-it-yourself finales in restaurants. But at a neighborhood diner, on a quiet Monday night, in the kind of timeless twilight where I can relax and just be? Surely nobody will have a big opinion one way or the other.<\/p>\n

\"Lily's <\/p>\n

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