Review: Can Max & Helen's ever be a relaxed restaurant? Do we care if the waffle is so good?

You've probably heard of Max & Helen's, the homage to classic diners that opened in Larchmont six months ago by Phil Rosenthal, creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and host of “Somebody Feed Phil” and culinary giant Nancy Silverton. If the algorithms detect even the slightest interest in L.A. restaurants, you'll know that early wait times for tables reached an absurd eight hours and that Silverton has probably redesigned the DNA of the breakfast waffle into something more akin to yeast-raised pastry.

An immutable law of the LA restaurant: The crowds wane, at least at less popular times. Weekday lunch wait times seem to average around 45 minutes these days. On the weekend you can even double or triple that. I've also been there twice recently when the only distance between me and a seat was the time it took for a waiter to grab the menus and say, “This way.”

On a drizzly February morning, two of us ended up in the deepest corner of the dining room's curved bar. Soon I was smearing a dollop of butter and maple syrup on the browned edges of a waffle, and it was incredibly delicious, honestly the best thing of my life. The dough, fermented for three days, produces a fine, crumbly crunch and an intense taste that varies between sweet and savory.

A few weeks later, three of us arrived at 6:30 p.m. on a Monday and were led straight to a checkered, padded booth set against a wood-paneled wall. We shared a Cobb salad, its classic ingredients arranged in generous piles on iceberg lettuce, and shared several toast sandwiches: patty melt, tuna melt, a Reuben on rye. We stuck long spoons and wide straws into a thick strawberry milkshake while our forks smashed the crust of a generous slice of cherry pie.

In moments like these, when the mood is casual and genuinely cheerful, I can enjoy the serious intent of the place: a solid, serve-your-own neighborhood restaurant.

But I also understand why the project is a magnet for pointed social media shots and moans about its facsimile of a dying genre of American restaurant culture. Max & Helen's, named after Rosenthal's parents, looks like a diner and serves what appears to be diner food, but is probably not a diner in the purest social sense. The buzz of celebrity surrounding Rosenthal and Silverton's dishes transcends opinion, and Americana diners aren't concerned with voicing an opinion.

Guests are about being servile, in the truest sense of the word, availability and appropriateness. Don't entice guests with TikTok reaction shots at the first bite. Our judgments should pause as we rest on a diner's swivel stool. We are there to feed our nostalgia, our originality. We order whatever we want: flapjacks, hot links, Denver omelettes, gravy-covered hot plates, no-fuss cheeseburgers, chocolate malts. The food is designed to be enjoyed just enough. What a relief to not think too much while we're hanging out with friends, feeding our kids fries, or staring blankly into space at 3 a.m

In Southern California, we may also visit diners and mid-century cafes for preservation purposes. Our chrome shrines to Googie architecture, built in the heyday of neon signs and Naugahyde and Formica, have been gone for decades: Pann's in Westchester, Norms in West Hollywood, Foxy's in Glendale, Bob's Big Boy Broiler in Downey. The arrival of Max & Helen's is also a reminder to patronize these institutions before more of them disappear.

A restaurant with the name Silverton can't help but raise expectations that are almost impossible. She's the virtuoso whose crème fraîche brioche cake with wine-poached peaches made the cool Julia Child weep with joy! Silverton tests recipes until they meet her perfectionism. Precedent demands that their waffle takes cakes to unprecedented dimensions using iron plates.

Apart from that, the diner principle of not thinking too much works well for me at Max & Helen. I have no preference for cottage cheese or egg salad sandwiches and don't feel the pressure of change here. But chili cheese fries, my favorite food? They're great – carefully proportioned so that some fries remain crispy while others sink into an appealing texture – without being so distracting Great

This is probably a good place to mention: Rosenthal has been investing in restaurants (including Silverton's Mozza empire) for years, but this is his first stint as a restaurateur, and we've been friends since I moved to Los Angeles in 2018. Mason Royal, his son-in-law, is operations manager, and his daughter, Lily Rosenthal Royal, shapes brand management and the hospitality industry as creative director.

I show up unannounced and if they're around we say hello. Then I get back to work and pour the syrup over the blueberry pancakes, which are suitably fluffy in the middle and crispy around the edges. The simple “diner breakfast” of two eggs of any kind (me: soft scrambled or too light with runny yolk), toast and bacon or sausage serves its purpose. I admit that I prefer the fancier omelet Florentine, whose tufts of spinach seem fresh and balanced with leeks and Parmesan.

Silverton has been known for decades for the complex and delicious variations of grilled cheese she once served at Campanile. Her version at Max & Helen's deftly does the diner's job: three paper-thin layers of white and yellow American cheese teeter on the edge of the melted cheese, sealed between triangle-cut toasts and served alongside a cup of tomato soup, ideal for dipping.

As a proven burger engineer, she couldn't help but indulge in luxury with her version of a patty melt. It combines nine ounces of short rib and assorted cuts of dry-aged beef with limp petals of caramelized onions and a sprinkle of Gruyère. A spicy swimsuit in the color of Russian clothing runs down the sides. Do I think “diner” when I navigate this $27 Maserati sandwich? No. Am I glad it exists? Yes.

A few dishes let me cool down. The BLT proves that too much bacon is actually possible. Meatloaf, served with mashed potatoes and green beans, is coated in excellent, meat-rich gravy, but also has the consistent texture of pate when I'm craving craggy, crispy edges.

The only real disappointment was a hot, open-faced turkey with completely dried out meat.

At the same lunch, a colleague and I were served a waffle that was pale and lacked the flavor alchemy I had experienced at several other meals. I thought about the extreme microscope this restaurant is under and how someone who had waited an hour and tried this hyped dish for the first time could rightly scoff. The waffle has to be right.

On that note: Desserts are perhaps the most underrated aspect of Max & Helen. The tart-sweet cherries in the cake will keep you coming back for a forkful and then another. Chocolate cake is the essence of children's birthday parties. But here's a trick: I love the evening waffle, a scoop of ice cream ordered separately and tipped on top. As it begins to trickle down from the heat, I pour some of the restaurant's silky, opaque hot chocolate over it, topped with billowing marshmallows.

I'm not in the habit of making do-it-yourself finales in restaurants. But in a neighborhood diner, on a quiet Monday evening, in a timeless twilight where I can relax and just be? Certainly no one will have much of an opinion one way or the other.