RESTAURANTS • First Person
Chef Travis Lett’s buzzy California-Japanese izakaya RVR was an immediate hit the second it opened in Venice — “one of the most stylish, most delicious, and most surprisingly fun restaurants to land on the west side in quite some time,” we said in October 2024.
Since that opening, RVR has consistently rated as one of the toughest tables in town. Reservations for dinner get immediately snapped up when they’re released 30 days out, and people start lining up for walk-in tables before the place opens at 5p.
One solution to this problem:
Go for brunch, which RVR started serving on Saturdays and Sundays in the spring. Reservations are dramatically easier to come by (and you can even successfully walk in and get a seat at the bar). In a lot of ways, brunch is better than dinner at RVR. It’s a more casual, effortlessly cool iteration of the operation, where the daytime Venice sun makes the dining room absolutely glow through the skylights, at a far more leisurely pace.
During brunch, most of the dinner menu is on offer, like ravishing small plates of perfect little seasonal vegetables, the smoky charcoal-grilled skewers, as well as handrolls, gyoza, ramen, and more. But there are also brunch-exclusive dishes, like the singular black sesame pancake topped with preserves and cultured butter, airy mochi beignets soaked in a miso-orange glaze, and a velvety Japanese rolled omelet.
For drinks, you can easily segue from a killer pour-over or a 48-hour cold brew (add lightly whipped cream for $1) to low ABV spritzes with astonishingly delicious house-made seasonal sodas and shrubs, or exquisite highballs that you could drink as morning turns into afternoon. Service is on point, there’s a DJ hand-picking and spinning vinyl records, and if you sit on the rail counter facing the street, there’s great people-watching.
FOUND Pro: The best seat in the house for groups is the circular booth in the corner that can seat four to six people. You can (and should) request it when you make a reservation. –Raphael Brion
→ RVR (Venice) • 1305 Abbot Kinney Blvd • Brunch Sat-Sun 11a-2p, Dinner Mon-Sat 5-11p, Sun 5-10p • Reserve.