Chainsaw Café

Cult-Favorite Los Angeles Dinner Party Chainsaw’s Melrose Hill Restaurant Has Arrived | Eater LA

"After years as one of Los Angeles’s most popular underground dinners, this long-awaited Melrose Hill home arrives as a tiny, warm micro cafe built around a pick-up window, a few sidewalk stools, and a seat or two inside. I come for the pies and ice cream Chainsaw is famous for and stay for the Venezuelan-leaning savory menu—arepas as a staple, golden empanadas, and pabellón criollo—plus occasional Sri Lankan-inspired specials like black pork curry and a chicken curry. The desserts read like greatest hits: the signature passionfruit lime pie, a marquesa de chocolate, seasonal double-crust fruit pies, ice creams, and a Jammy Strawberry Matcha dessert cup; a tight coffee program by Stephanie Quevedo uses Post Era beans. The space feels well-worn and lived in, with rich wood doors and cabinets, cured meats and pots hanging behind the counter like a classic deli, and a hand-painted wall layered to look decades old. Small by design and proudly malleable, it channels the pop-up’s creative spirit while finally giving it a permanent address." - Oren Peleg