How All Time Became Hollywood’s Favorite Hangout

Charli XCX maneuvered her convertible Porsche into an available parking space directly outside of her destination: the Los Feliz restaurant All Time. It was the summer of 2024, Brat summer, and if the breakout success of that album hadn’t already anointed her the coolest girl in Hollywood, the plush parking spot was divine confirmation — after all, All Time has no dedicated valet. Her divine timing continued: With New York writer Brock Colyar in tow, she sauntered through the indigo-dyed curtains that obscure the restaurant’s inner sanctum from street view and collided with Lorde.

The run-in was so serendipitous — the two had just worked it out on the remix — that some fans wondered if the encounter was a promotional charade. “Honestly, I don’t think it was a setup at all — the conversation was far too awkward to be staged,” Colyar tells me. “All Time just happens to be the exact kind of place where that sort of thing organically happens.”

All Time, as the kids say, has lore. “Nooo we need to gatekeep, haha,” wrote Joanna Clay, the showrunner of Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s, Dinner’s on Me podcast, when I took to my Instagram story to ask Los Angeles locals about their time at All Time. But the secret is already out. In the 2024 romantic comedy The Idea of You, Anne Hathaway’s character suggests a lunch date at All Time to her boy-band boy toy, played by Nicholas Galitzine. Armchair Expert hosts Monica Padman and Dax Shepard rave about it every other episode. MUNA name-checked it in a song on their new album. In a man-on-the-street interview, Finneas and Ashe of the Favors don’t hesitate when asked for the best restaurant in Los Angeles. “All Time,” he answers, before Ashe interjects: “Gah, I was gonna say All Time!”

While LA trades on year-round sunshine and movie magic, the 50 million-odd tourists who visit each year are after some straight-to-the-point stargazing. Physical maps of celebrity mansions are still sold on corners, tour buses sit stationary in traffic, and — for those of us who keep up with the Kardashians or ingest parking lot paparazzi shots like Erewhon wellness shots — the see-and-be-seen mainstays are known by heart: Nobu Malibu; Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica; the Sunset Strip’s Tower Bar and Chateau Marmont; Craig’s and Sushi Park in West Hollywood.

All Time isn’t an exception: Kaia Gerber, Keith Urban, Joe Jonas, Devon Lee Carlson, Alana Haim, Suki Waterhouse and Robert Pattinson, Caroline Polachek, Alexa Demie, and, as one friend put it, “the girl who was in the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix” (Olivia Welch) are just a few of the famous faces my respondents reported seeing. And yet, for such consistent star wattage, All Time isn’t exactly a Daily Mail staple.

“The difference between All Time and other celebrity spots like Craig’s or Giorgio Baldi is that famous people go to those restaurants to intentionally be seen,” says The Infatuation editorial lead Brant Cox. “Celebrities go to All Time because they just want to have dinner with their friends.”

The food is accessible, and consistent — more on that later — but the restaurant’s “vibes” are its key currency. In 2017, hospitality veterans Tyler Wells and Ashley Bernee (the latter of whom is now the sole owner) transformed the concrete patio of former neighborhood sushi spot San Sui with lush foliage, slatted wood partitions, and a greenhouse that surveys a stretching mesquite tree. Natural wine bottles cover a wall perpendicular to a takeout window of voluptuous bread loaves. Low-slung vintage lamps and candlelight serve practical romance.

“There are a thousand places just like it in New York. They just aren’t as beautiful to sit at, or quite as packed with celebrities during the brunch hour.”

“We’ve seen every single iteration of what restaurants looked like post-COVID — colonizing every piece of their possible footprint for outdoor seating — but they’ve put Vaseline on the lens here,” says LA-born creative strategist Kristen Stegemoeller. “They made it feel like some hip canyon person’s house rather than what it is: a little kitchen shack with a couple of tables in a Los Angeles parking lot.”

During the day, would-be patrons mill on the sun-bleached pavement of Hillhurst Avenue for something resembling counter service, deciding on and paying for their meal before being admitted. When long lines form, the staff often emerge with trays to serve those waiting: rosé, doughnut holes, or coffee. For a business as unpredictable as hospitality, this is exceedingly rare. “There’s just such a warmth to the way they run the place,” Clay says. “It just feels like a very special, essential part of the neighborhood.”

Mike Rosenthal, the photographer-director who cofounded restaurant recommendation app It’s Good with John Legend, puts it this way: “For a city that has such consistently good weather, it’s surprisingly hard to find a nice restaurant patio. It felt like suddenly everyone was talking about it. The wait got longer. Then it started popping up in the magazines, people were being ‘spotted’ there, and the momentum just kept building.”

Despite being a perpetual heels girl, I wear flats to All Time to match the T-shirt and vintage Levis uniform seemingly shared by both guests and staff. The latter includes aspiring actors, filmmakers, and musicians, which is true of plenty of places — this is Los Angeles — but the All Time staff have a kind of undone hotness that is somehow more approachable and more intimidating than West Hollywood’s model set. On a recent visit, I wasn’t sure if my waiter’s affability was his own unique brand of rizz or if he was just stoned. “It’s Olsen-twins-wet-hair vibes,” says model and former Los Feliz resident Jennifer Atilémile of the unaffected energy.

“It’s ironic that All Time is the default spot everyone flocks to, because there are a thousand places just like it in New York,” Colyar says. “They just aren’t as beautiful to sit at, or quite as packed with celebrities during the brunch hour.”

“Los Feliz is where all the actually successful ‘Hey it’s that guy!’ celebrities live.”

The New York-based writer and podcaster Hunter Harris says the Angelenos in her life are constantly recommending it. “A few months ago, I complained to my friend Rachel about this: All Time is great for lunch, better for a group dinner, and the best place to bring someone visiting, but sometimes I would like my friends to suggest someplace new,” she says. “The next afternoon she reminded me that she had my location: ‘You being at All Time right now is really making me laugh.’”

Certain quirks add to the charm. Regulars know there's an extensive bottled wine list, but glasses you order simply by the color directly from your server. The menu itself changes seasonally (no more cobbler!), but off-book requests are accommodated (ask for the homemade sourdough — pan-fried, dusted with flaky salt, and served with whipped meunière butter — if you want the best side in town). “Only certain types of spaces get away with something like this; if you’re not as busy as you could be, creating rules never sits well,” says food writer Farley Elliott, who first engaged with All Time when he was an editor at EaterLA in 2017. “It’s always the already busy spots that make up their own fun little idiosyncrasies.”

A lot of the cool factor comes down to the neighborhood. While celebrities have traditionally gravitated toward the hills (Hollywood, Beverly) or gated suburban enclaves, there have always been superstars who enjoy the geographic convenience of being East-ish. If you’re headed for a Griffith Observatory hike, your Uber driver might just point out where Angelina Jolie lives. Jack Black can be seen regularly walking the Los Feliz streets. Natalie Portman, Kristen Bell, Kristen Stewart, and Jon Hamm also call it home. “Los Feliz is where all the actually successful, ‘Hey it’s that guy!’ celebrities live,” Stegemoeller says. “They’re the kinds of celebrities who can live completely normal lives — writers, producers, character actors, comedians — or chic celebrities where the people around them are too cool to speak to them.”

All Time isn’t the only dining destination in the neighborhood, or even on Hillhurst Ave. Up the street, mid-range Italian restaurant Little Dom’s has built a cult following. The much-hyped Maru Coffee, home of the creamtop cold brew, is another favorite of the glitterati. Now the fanfare around two recent additions, British restaurant Wilde’s and cocktail bar Vandell, has firmly cemented the street as a dining hot spot.

Above all else, regulars advocate for All Time’s breakfast selection. The restaurant is known for superior baked goods, like its icing-less cinnamon roll — a tightly wound brioche crisped at the edges and drenched in a caramel sauce — which Cox has hailed as one of the city’s best. Elliott shouts out dishes like “cheesy eggs on toast” (white-cheddar-and-chive soft scrambled eggs loaded atop a thick slab of homemade sourdough).

The morning Cheryl Krucas was laid off from her digital producer gig at MTV, she headed to All Time to seek comfort in that very dish ($18) — though she is not the first to raise an eyebrow at pricing for other times of day.

“Breakfast is reasonably priced for LA and the quality, but dinner there is so out-of-this-world expensive it almost feels like, how dare you?” she says, adding that the cost has propelled All Time into dealmaking territory. “I overheard these two guys talking about selling a show to Nickelodeon. It feels like a Hollywood-y spot outside of Hollywood… more for business than a Tower Bar.”

“The floppy-hat screenwriter crowd can get annoying, but that’s baked into the experience at this point.”

A deliciously photogenic salad bowl of market greens and seasonal accoutrements in a light citrus vinaigrette, goes for $22. The Steak For 1!, a strip of wagyu with a dense, oily crust, costs $62. The other night I ordered two rounds of bread and butter, to the tune of 20 big ones. More than once I have suggested a publicist take me there for dinner, simply because I couldn’t afford the tab myself. Its pricing feels at odds with the menu aesthetic, handwritten on rustic brown parchment, which in itself aligns with the venue’s curated, off-duty informality.

“The wine list has always been pricey, and people have always complained about it,” Cox says. Bottle prices, which start around $80 came up in almost every interview, feel “like a vibe mismatch,” says Stegemoeller, the creative strategist. “It’s really pushing the envelope of what they’ve created to its limit: this very tossed-off, casual farm-to-table restaurant in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Los Angeles.”

There are rumblings that the restaurant doesn’t take kindly to critique. One source shared that a famous musician was chastised over email by a restaurant representative for sending a facetious reply to one of their newsletters. Elliott was blocked from All Time’s social media accounts following his coverage of the restaurant team and a since-scrapped expansion. (All Time declined to comment.) Brant Cox, however, respects the restaurant’s stubbornness — “in a sick way,” he clarifies.

“Ultimately, All Time is what it is today because the food is still great — no matter what time of day you go,” he says. “The floppy-hat screenwriter crowd can get annoying, but that’s baked into the experience at this point. With dining out becoming so expensive these days, what people really want is consistency — familiar spaces where they can show up with friends and family and know they're going to have a great meal.”

I have never felt a true sense of belonging at All Time. Perhaps I’ve over-projected, turning the place into a physical symbol of my own inadequacy in this city. If dressing up for a night in West Hollywood feels like cosplay — a temporary lease on someone else’s life — All Time offers nowhere to hide. You are precisely who you are, or aren’t, the moment you walk in. It embodies that enviable, effortless archetype: the girl who rolls out of bed, throws on an oversize button-down, and looks instantly editorial. The packaging may be rustic, but at its core, it’s the culinary equivalent of quiet luxury — a lifestyle that eludes me, given that I am neither quiet nor very luxurious. Maybe the real issue is just that I live a good 20 minutes from Hillhurst Ave., in Hollywood.

Still, the food is terrific. The space is gorgeous. The servers are beautiful (and not not nice!). With their roster of regulars, you might even get dinner and a show — though if you’re going, you’re probably not the kind of person who cares. “The quality that celebrities love is that it feels like a cool, casual neighborhood spot,” explains Stegemoeller. “They can enjoy a hip, vibrant experience without being othered: I’m not Jason Mantzoukas to you, I’m just Jason.”