A New All-Day Downtown Diner Promises to Nail the Pancakes and Pies

Downtown LA’s newest restaurant is Denae’s, a modern interpretation of a classic Los Angeles diner. Tucked into the recently opened Delphi Hotel — formerly the site of the popular Standard Hotel, which closed in January 2022 — the new Denae’s will act as the central full-service restaurant for the entire property when it formally arrives tomorrow, Saturday, August 5.

Open from breakfast through dinner (as good diners should be) and with breakfast all day, Denae’s is angling to be a true do-it-all destination for travelers, Downtown workers, and locals alike. The menu should slot in easily for anyone, with breakfast options like a Denae’s slam (served with eggs, home fries, breakfast meat of choice, and toast) and casual lunch choices like fish tacos, a turkey club, and a fried chicken sandwich. There are salads, sandwiches, main dishes for dinner like chicken pie, and actual sweet pies for dessert, too — hopefully spinning under lights in a glass case. There’s coffee at breakfast, milkshakes for every hour, and cocktails come calling at night. The opening menu is below.

While the space itself retains some serious retro ambience, this is ultimately a hotel restaurant catering to modern diners from all over the world. There are booths, yes, as well as standalone two-tops and bar seating set beneath a lit marquee bearing the Denae’s name and logo. There are no chipped Formica countertops, but the mugs are sturdy and hours run daily from 6:30 a.m. to midnight. Curious customers can make a reservation via Resy.

Spread across more than 200 rooms, the four-month-old Delphi Hotel is hoping to capture its own market with sultry design details and a rooftop pool. Formerly the headquarters of Superior Oil, the Flower Street property from Crestline Hotels & Resorts also offers a lobby-level lounge, a rooftop bar, and other amenities, though fierce competition for dining and drinking space in Downtown (particularly within hotels) means that an audience is far from guaranteed. Not far away, acclaimed chef Daniel Rose (Le Coucou) lasted less than six months running ground-floor restaurant Café Basque inside the Hoxton Hotel, while further south the recently opened Moxy and AC Hotel properties have brought in some of the city’s biggest culinary names to run expansive programming (think multiple bars, restaurants, activation spaces, and poolside lounges) under the name Level 8 in the coming months.