LAGuide

Where To Have A Power Breakfast Meeting

All the best spots for your next big-deal breakfast meeting.
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Breakfast meetings can be a tough proposition—there are a lot of things you have to get right at a time when no one’s had any coffee yet. Ideally, there should be a little bit of a scene, but not so much of one that confidential information has to be shouted. Tables should be big enough to spread some papers around. And while the food should be good, it’s also not really the main event. We can help. Next time you’re setting up a breakfast meeting for your boss, make it at one of these spots. Whether you can convince them to bring you back some pastries is on you.

THE SPOTS

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American

Beverly Hills

$$$$Perfect For:Corporate CardsOutdoor/Patio SituationSee And Be SeenWasting Your Time and Money
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Sure, you’ll pay $33 for a plate of scrambled eggs and a side of spinach, but when you want to get the deal done (and look good doing it), Jean-Georges is where you go for breakfast. Located inside the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills, this hotel restaurant won’t impress your client with its objectively run-of-the-mill food, but no one’s here to ooh-and-ahh over fluffy pancakes. You’re here to snag that investment, throw down the corporate card, and waltz merrily back to the office.

photo credit: Jessie Clapp

$$$$Perfect For:BrunchWalk-InsLiterally Everyone

If you’re looking for somewhere easy to meet a client that’s a short walk from your DTLA office, head to Pine & Crane. Starting at 8am, you can head to the counter to order Taiwanese small plates and stretch out on a wooden bench inside their massive dining room. After 11am, the brunch menu expands with more noodle dishes, dumplings, and a full list of cocktails. There’s also a park right next door where locals tend to bring cute dogs, so if the meeting goes poorly, at least you can get a little endorphin boost.

If there’s a place that invented the power breakfast, it’s probably The Polo Lounge, despite the fact that the food is now downright terrible. This restaurant in the Beverly Hills Hotel was where Old Hollywood came for pancakes and eggs, and it’s still a favorite of producers, directors, and stars who order $49 lobster eggs Benedict (just kidding, no one who works in Hollywood would willingly eat that much butter). If your boss thinks they’re the next Ari Emanuel, you should just book every breakfast meeting here.

Located in the same boutique hotel as Kodō, this daytime spot in the Arts District is ideal if you happen to be having a breakfast meeting with an influencer. Everything about the interior space is jaw-dropping, from the wide, smooth cement walls to the tree growing in the middle of the dining area (it'll make you feel like you're in a serene tea garden). They only serve a short menu of drinks like a black sesame cappuccino and some pastries in the morning, but after 11am, you’ll find casual Japanese dishes like cold soba, nigiri, or a tsukune sauerkraut sandwich.

Does your boss (or the person they’re meeting with) have a superiority complex? Of course they do—so set up their breakfast meetings at the Tower Bar. The menu has everything you’d expect, plus a Continental buffet, but more importantly, there’s a strict “no photos” policy, which is guaranteed to inflate egos of every size.

Highly Likely is a great spot for a full day of getting things done: start with your breakfast meeting, do a little work, and then just sit quietly in the corner savoring the fact that you’re not in some depressing cubicle on a Tuesday at 1pm. Their menu is filled with solid dishes like fried eggs with pita and labne, a breakfast sandwich on fluffy focaccia, and a fantastic breakfast burrito. It’s formal enough for a sit-down with your boss, but still casual enough to stroll up to the counter in sweats.

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Smack dab in the middle of West Hollywood, Cecconi’s is consistently filled with agents, wannabe agents, and people with plenty of money but highly vague occupations. So yeah—it’s a scene. Having said that, mornings are generally more low-key. If healthy options are a must, Cecconi’s has a section of the menu devoted to plant-based bowls (because paying $13 for a bowl of seeds and sprouts is the ultimate power move), but if you want something more substantial, they’ve got a full English breakfast, too.

Marco Polo is the kind of all-purpose hotel restaurant that doesn’t really exist anywhere else in Silver Lake. Starting at 8am, you can walk in for a plate of french toast or cacio e pepe egg scramble with bacon and potatoes. The food is solid, but it’s not doing any miracles—we mostly suggest coming here when you want a sunny patio to have an outdoor breakfast meeting on the Eastside.


Destroyer doesn’t have the stuffy opulence of some of the other high-end spots on this list, and that’s a good thing. Because this Culver City standout impresses simply by being different. Located in the tech-heavy neighborhood of Hayden Tract, this order-at-the-counter spot feels like you’re eating breakfast in the future, where menus are projected on the wall and your raw oatmeal comes topped with a disk of dehydrated vanilla. It’s a strange place, but the food is fantastic, and your tech buddy will definitely think you’re cooler for suggesting it.


Jon & Vinny’s needs no introduction, but just in case you’re new to Earth, this casual Italian restaurant on Fairfax is one of the most popular spots in the city. But most people don’t seem to realize that Jon & Vinny’s opens every day at 8am—meaning you can basically walk in whenever you want before 11am and find a seat. Their breakfast menu has everything from fresh pastries to a BLT with a fried egg, and if you’re craving pizza, they serve those, too. And yes, we always endorse eating pizza in the morning.


For fancy breakfast on the Westside, it doesn’t get much better than Gjelina. Weekday mornings are more laid-back than the insanity of dinner here, which means stupidly young millionaires and Venice locals who “freelance” are the types of people you’ll be eating next to. You can go big on duck confit for the first meal of the day, or stick to the classics—eggs, bacon, and pancakes are all present.


photo credit: Jessie Clapp

$$$$Perfect For:BrunchDate Night

For every Westsider scared of crossing the 405, there are three Eastsiders for whom the thought of leaving the Los Feliz-Silver Lake-Echo Park vicinity is a fate worse than death. But those people also have Little Dom’s, so we can’t really blame them. This is a relatively low-key option, to the extent that you consider having a breakfast pizza at a work meeting low-key.


Not a whole lot happens in Brentwood, but given the high ratio of studio executives/movie stars to normal people that live here, power breakfasts are to be expected. And the best spot for them is Farmshop in the Brentwood Country Mart. Breakfast starts early at 7:30am (but you should probably get to your Tracy Anderson class beforehand) and sticks to upscale classics. If you don’t give a sh*t about Tracy Anderson, direct your attention to the baked goods here.


Beverly Hills is power-breakfast central, but at first glance, Nate ’n Al is not a spot that would make the list. The Jewish deli on N. Beverly Drive has an enormous menu, brown leather booths as far as the eye can see, and waitresses who’ve been working there for 20 years and call you “hon,” but it’s also a favorite hangout of studio execs who miss New York and like to wear leisure suits to breakfast. Nate ’n Al is where you get business done over a giant plate of matzo brei.



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