Dialogue

"Three-year-old Santa Monica fine dining restaurant Dialogue will close on November 7, Eater has learned. The tiny, semi-hidden, mostly counter service restaurant was built from chef Dave Beran’s desire to craft an intimate yet largely unstuffy experience — but now, with the ongoing pandemic, that closeness has become a liability." - Farley Elliott

"Dialogue is a tiny, very fancy restaurant inside a Santa Monica food court, and home to one of our favorite prix-fixe menus in all of LA. While you can’t get that during quarantine, you can order one of their tremendous weekly takeout menus, featuring mains like chimichurri salmon, hanger steak, or maitake mushrooms, along with tomato, strawberry and burrata salad, and stone fruit cobbler. Even better? This may be your best shot to experience Dialogue without also breaking the bank - their three-course dinners cost less than $50. Open Tuesday-Saturdays, check their Instagram for weekly menu updates. Available for pre-order." - Brett Keating

"Michelin-starred Dialogue is a Santa Monica restaurant that prides itself on confusing the diner. “If we force them to share something, and we don’t really tell people how to eat it, and just say ‘we encourage you to explore,’ then they have to talk to each other,” says executive chef and owner Dave Beran. He’s referring to courses like squab and beet consume, served in a glass to resemble wine, salmon roe on a bed of what’s essentially fancy cheese whiz, and mid course caviar and coffee cream dish that can be confused for dessert. Chef Beran creates, and recreates, this highly conceptual 18-course tasting menu that showcases seasonal items throughout the year, all in an 800-square-foot space hidden inside a mall food court. “I don’t want a menu with a bunch of short stories. I want to write the menu as one long story. So this is our winter menu. As things die in fall, it builds layers on the ground.” The layered concept can be found in dishes throughout the menu, like a dish featuring pumpkin seeds covered in burnt parsley that simulates the twigs and seeds of a forest floor, a slow roasted miso carrot dish that resembles logs, and a black sesame and whipped yuzu course that looks like a spoonful of dirt. “The original idea came from the idea of a concept album, an album you have to play straight through in order, where song five needs songs four and six, ”says Beran. “I was really drawn into the fact that things made [other] things better.”" - Terri Ciccone

"Dialogue is a tiny restaurant inside a Santa Monica food court and home to one of our favorite prix-fixe menus in all of LA. While you can’t get that during quarantine, you can still show off with one of their tremendous weekly takeout specials. Offering everything from short rib beef Wellington to pot pie to lasagna, this high-end spot has made a clear pivot to comfort food, and it’s exactly what you need right now. Open Tuesday-Saturdays, check their Instagram for weekly menu updates." - Brant Cox

"Your co-worker Jeanine loves to talk about all of the pricey tasting menus she’s experienced across the globe, but when you mentioned Dialogue in Santa Monica, her face went blank. Despite the fact that they opened in 2017, Dialogue’s hidden location on The Third Street Promenade has kept the place somewhat mysterious. The tiny, bare-bones space isn’t particularly noteworthy and dinner for two here will set you back about $600. But if money’s not an issue tonight (is it ever for Jeanine?), this 20ish-course meal is surprisingly unpretentious and full of hyper-modern food that’s truly delicious." - Brant Cox