A solid, dependable place to dine before the theater at the Los Angeles Music Center complex, Kendall’s is located at street level at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and is one of the Patina family or restaurants.
I love Patina, but I don’t like to dine against a time clock or a curtain time. And for me Patina is a place for fine dining at an appropriate pace.
That’s where Kendall’s fits perfectly. The food is very good and the ambiance and service clearly is pre-theater, very reminiscent of the kind of pre-theater spots I’ve found in New York. You can park in the Music Center lot, walk to Kendall’s, go upstairs to the theater and then drop down into the lot to retrieve the car for the trip home.
Kendall’s offers shell fish platters for the table for appetizers and individual portions of a variety of oysters, clams, mussels, or prawns. There’s enough of an assortment of pastas, sea food, meat and poultry to please anyone’s palate. Daily specials include lamb shanks, quail, Cassoulett, and veal stew. Maine lobsters and Dungeness crabs sit on ice at the spacious bar.
Among our favorite entrees are the short ribs, duck breast, steamed mussels with really great French fries,
There’s a wonderful pre-theater energy throughout this large restaurant. Kendall’s also buzzes with the downtown crowd at lunch on weekdays. On nights when the theaters are dark, the pace at Kendall’s slows dramatically, but the food is still very good.
