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If you follow LA restaurants like a meteorologist does the weather, there's no doubt you know about Bavel and Bestia. Both of these Arts District establishments opened more than five years ago, and yet, you still can’t get a table at either spot without tracking down a reservation a week in advance.
Saffy’s, a glamorous kebab house in East Hollywood, is the latest restaurant from the Bestia and Bavel team. When you have restaurant siblings that are that popular, comparisons are inevitable—and in the case of Saffy’s, there’s a decent amount of shared DNA with Bavel. Much like its pita-pushing predecessor, Saffy’s serves a menu of pumped-up Middle Eastern-leaning dishes (including some life-changing hummus) in a bright and airy space that you’ll want to hang out in all night. But we're also not dealing with a carbon copy of Bavel transported across town. This Fountain Ave. restaurant is the younger, more carefree sibling who rebels against LA hot spot tropes: walk-ins are encouraged and accommodated (even if you have to wait for a bit), servers treat you like an old friend, and most dishes cost less than $25 yet still taste worthy of a special occasion.
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In short, you can think of Saffy’s as the Solange to Bavel’s Beyoncé—a bonafide star that has stepped out of her sibling’s shadow with a fresh perspective.
Located in an Art Deco corner building with street-facing windows, Saffy’s intimate dining room and spacious sidewalk patio are usually packed. Arrive early in the evening and you might see an older couple sipping orange wine seated in a booth next to Addison Rae. Somehow the people-watching gets even better after 10pm, when men in double-breasted blazers bump elbows with a loud birthday crew on its third round of vesper martinis.
The menu at Saffy’s is pretty straightforward. There are sections broken down into small plates, meat skewers, and a couple of larger entrees. As charming as ordering a table-covering spread of dips and salads to start might be, try not to get bogged down in appetizers. The luxuriously creamy hummus ful and mussels in coconut-turmeric broth should not be missed, but otherwise save room for a few juicy, marinated kebabs.
Cooked over a wood-fire grill that dominates one corner of the dining room, the kebabs arrive on intimidatingly pointy two-foot metal skewers. There are usually five different types or so available, including plump chunks of pork, bite-sized cubes of steak, and tender minced lamb mixed with pine nuts and parsley. Each one comes with a unique dip—like creamy mint yogurt, dill garlic aioli, or a smoky chile crisp—and a heap of housemade laffa. A server will instruct you to use the warm, fluffy bread like a baseball mitt to slide the sizzling meat off of skewers, taking care not to jab your tablemate. These simple, high-quality dishes are the best things on the menu, and skipping them would be about as wise as going to the beach without sunscreen.
Saffy's takes the polished service and meticulously detailed food of Bavel and transforms it into a more accessible luxury, resulting in a place you might go to a couple of times a month instead of once or twice a year. The buzzy dining room is manageable for a group of friends to get into without waiting around for hours, but intimate enough for a date night at the bar. Come to Saffy's for masterfully conceptualized Middle Eastern food you can eat with your hands and a fun scene that makes a three-hour meal feel like it flew by in thirty minutes.
Food Rundown
Shawarma Sandwich
photo credit: Joseph Weaver
Turmeric Mussels
Hummus Ful
Red Snapper Tagine
photo credit: Brigitte Neman
Grilled Lobster Skewer
Mixed Beef Cuts Shishlik
Lamb Kebab
Soft Serve
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