Date Ideas in Los Angeles That Actually Tell You Something

16 Sep Date Ideas in Los Angeles That Actually Tell You Something

Search for the best date spots in Los Angeles and you will be handed a ranked list of restaurants. Most of them are very good. Almost none of them are right for a first meeting.

Those lists answer a different question. They assume you already like the person, that you have a whole evening to give, and that the point is to be impressed. A first meeting has none of those conditions attached. You are meeting someone you barely know, and the main risk of the evening is not that the food disappoints.

The main risk is that you are stuck.

So the measure changes. The right test is whether a place lets a promising hour continue easily and lets an unpromising one end without anybody having to perform an excuse. Much of what makes a restaurant worth writing up in a food guide works against that.

Four things a first meeting has to do

It has to have an exit. Not a dramatic one. Just a natural point, somewhere around the forty-five minute mark, where either person can say it was good to meet you and walk to their car without the moment being strange. A tasting menu has no such point. A coffee does. Knowing the exit exists is what lets both people relax enough to be themselves.

You have to be able to hear each other. About one in three people in the United States between 65 and 74 has some hearing loss, and the figure climbs well before that, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Its guidance for restaurants is blunt: sit away from the kitchen and the music, and ask for a booth. A loud room does not just tire you out. It makes an interesting person seem dull, because your attention goes to decoding rather than listening.

It should not demand a long commitment before you know anything. A dinner reservation obliges you to two hours with a stranger on the strength of a few messages. That is a large bet placed early. Something that lasts an hour by default, and can be extended by agreement, gets you the same information at a fraction of the cost.

Both people have to be able to get there. In this county that is a constraint rather than a courtesy. If one person drives fifty minutes each way and the other drives eight, the imbalance is felt whether or not anyone mentions it. We have written separately about how the shape of the city decides who you meet, so the short version will do here: pick a point that splits the difference, then alternate.

Short and unpretentious: counters, delis and public markets

The strongest category for a first meeting is also the least glamorous, which is exactly why it works. Nobody is being tested. Nothing is riding on the reservation.

Coffee is the default for good reason, but the choice of place matters. You want a room with tables and some sound absorption rather than a narrow counter with a grinder running. Intelligentsia runs five coffeebars around Los Angeles, in Santa Monica, Pasadena, Hollywood, Venice and Silver Lake, which usually puts one within reach of two people living in different parts of town. Late morning or mid afternoon on a weekday is the underrated slot: quieter, easier to park, and it ends itself because one of you has somewhere to be afterwards.

Public markets suit anyone who finds sitting still across a table too much like an interview. Grand Central Market has been operating downtown since 1917 and holds dozens of independent stalls under one roof, so you can walk, choose separately, sit, and leave whenever you like. The Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax has done the same in the open air since 1934. Neither is quiet, but both are unstructured, and the absence of a fixed table is worth a lot early on.

The old counters are a category of their own. Philippe the Original was established in 1908 and has been on Alameda since 1951. You order at a carving counter and carry your own tray, which removes the small awkwardness of who orders and who pays. Langer’s Deli, by MacArthur Park, seats you in a booth, the best piece of restaurant furniture ever invented for talking to someone.

Somewhere to look at, so the conversation has somewhere to go

If you are out of practice at this, and many people who have been married for two decades are, a venue that supplies subject matter takes the pressure out of the first hour. You are not obliged to fill every silence.

Admission at the Hammer Museum in Westwood is free, and its courtyard is a civilized place to sit down afterwards. The Getty Center is also free, though it asks for a timed-entry reservation and charges separately for parking, and its gardens let you move between inside and outside. The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena has the advantage of being finishable: you can see the collection and the sculpture garden in an unhurried hour.

Gardens work on the same principle with more walking. The Huntington in San Marino combines an art museum, a research library and botanical gardens on one site, which gives a meeting somewhere to expand into if it is going well. The Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia is the plainer version of the same idea for anyone on that side of the county.

Bookstores deserve more credit than they get. Vroman’s in Pasadena is Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore and has a wine bar attached, so a browse can turn into a drink without either of you proposing a second venue. The Last Bookstore downtown is big enough to wander for half an hour, and what somebody picks up tells you more than polite questions would.

Outdoors, where the ending builds itself

A walk is the most underrated first meeting in this city, and the one people are most reluctant to suggest because it sounds insufficiently generous. It is not. Walking side by side removes the eye contact pressure of a table, and the route decides when you are done.

Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in the Baldwin Hills sits near the middle of the county’s western half, which makes it a rare genuinely fair meeting point between the Westside and the areas south and east of downtown. Griffith Observatory is free to enter and stands inside a very large park, so it is two options in one, and the grounds give you a reason to keep moving.

Two cautions. Avoid a strenuous hike, because a first meeting should not require either person to arrive in gear. And check the parking before suggesting anywhere popular, since arriving twenty minutes late and irritated is worse than a duller location.

If you want a table, choose the room before the menu

Sometimes a proper meal is the right call, usually when the meeting is really a second date wearing a first date’s clothes. Even then, the criteria are not culinary.

Ask for a booth or a corner. Book the earliest sitting you can stand, because rooms get louder as they fill, and a restaurant at six is a different acoustic proposition from the same restaurant at half past eight. Prefer a place you already know over one you are curious about.

Musso and Frank Grill in Hollywood, serving since 1919, illustrates the type: a long-established dining room built around booths and table service rather than a scene. It is an evening restaurant, which makes it a better second meeting than a first. Save the reservation for when there is a reason to make one.

Where a matchmaker fits into this

Most of the difficulty in choosing a venue comes from not yet knowing much about the person. If you already knew they were serious, lived twenty minutes away and had a Thursday free, the choice would be easy.

Los Angeles Singles has been arranging introductions across this county for more than 25 years, from offices in West Los Angeles and Encino. Every introduction is considered by a matchmaker who has met both people, and part of that work is practical: establishing in advance who will realistically travel, and setting up a first meeting that is short and easy for both. No public profile is attached to your name. We are one credible option among several, and if what you need is better information about the people you meet rather than better restaurant recommendations, it is worth understanding what drives the cost of that work first.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best first date spot in Los Angeles?

There is no single best one, but there is a reliable formula: somewhere quiet enough to hear each other, roughly equidistant for both people, and structured so an hour is a complete visit rather than an abrupt exit. A coffee place with real tables, a public market, a museum with a garden, or a flat walk in a park all satisfy that. A tasting menu, a concert and a long drive to a celebrated restaurant do not, however good they are on their own terms.

Is coffee too casual for a first meeting?

No, and the worry behind the question is usually misplaced. Suggesting coffee signals that you respect the other person’s time and are not staging a production. It also protects both of you, since neither is committed to an evening before knowing whether there is anything to build on. If the hour goes well, extend it on the spot with a walk or a second cup. That escalation feels far better than sitting through the back half of a dinner out of politeness.

How long should a first meeting last?

Plan for about an hour and let it run over if it wants to. Set the meeting when you have something afterwards, so the ending is built in and neither person has to invent one. An hour is long enough to learn whether you want a second meeting and short enough that a mismatch costs almost nothing. Long first dates rarely produce more certainty. They mostly produce more sunk cost.

Where should we meet if we live on opposite sides of the city?

Choose a point that splits the driving rather than one that is convenient for whoever suggested it. Mid-city and the Baldwin Hills work for Westside and downtown pairings, and Pasadena or Glendale for anyone coming from the eastern county or the Valley. Then alternate, so the second meeting sits nearer whoever traveled further the first time. In a county this size, an unspoken imbalance in driving is a common and quiet reason a promising start goes flat.

Are museums and gardens actually a good idea for a first date?

They are among the best options for anyone who has not dated in a long time. They supply things to look at and talk about, they allow silence without awkwardness, and they let you walk rather than sit face to face for an hour. The one thing to check is scale. A museum you can see comfortably in an hour is better than a vast one, where the size of the place quietly commits you to a longer visit than either of you agreed to.

If you want to talk it through

If you would rather spend your attention on the person than on the logistics, you can start with an application and we will take it from there.