LA Weekly

Waffles are kind of a big thing in Hollywood. Roscoe’s has been serving Harlem-style chicken and waffles to R&B stars since well before Marvin Gaye got it on, and the Belgian waffles at the Farmers Market have nourished generations of scriptwriters. The Griddle serves waffles the size of Mack-truck grilles. But the Waffle, a new coffee shop tucked into a glassed-in office-building space near Hollywood and Vine, is the most waffle-intensive restaurant anywhere: pecan waffles and chocolate waffles, date-nut waffles and carrot-cake waffles, multigrain waffles and waffles with apple-wood-smoked bacon baked right in. If intensity is your thing, you can get a sticky-bun waffle encrusted with a solid inch of caramelized brown sugar and walnuts. There’s even a kind of dinner waffle here, spiked with minced jalapeño peppers, topped with a pillowy, gravy-soaked fried chicken breast and served on a bed of spicy fatback-simmered greens.

The Waffle is the creation of Scooter Kanfer-Cartmill, who served terms behind the stove at half the high-end American restaurants in Los Angeles, and went on to head the kitchen at the House and Naya. It is not an accident that the Yankee pot roast tastes more like a decent beef bourguignon, or that the mac ’n’ cheese is made with Gruyère and artisanal Hook’s Cheddar. And Scooter knows Hollywood: There are menus for kids and vegans, though as far as I know, no vegan kids’ menu. Still, it can be impossible to order, especially if you have trouble deciding between a waffle-oriented meal and a cobb salad.

I suspect that the waffle conceit was born less from Kanfer-Cartmill’s great love for the syrupy breakfast treats than from the fact that the soaring office-building windows in the dining room are gridded like a giant Eggo. 6255 Sunset Blvd., Hlywd., (323) 465-6901.