Tally ho, vatos, or, um, something — The Cat and Fiddle on Sunset in Los Angeles is a somewhat unusual spot, really. The location itself isn’t unusual, in fact it’s pretty prime as it goes — some notable venues nearby, theaters, corporations, stores, it’s part of Hollywood as such. Logically enough other ventures have been located there in the past, as noted here. But for twenty years it’s been a vague English pub of sorts on Sunset.
I hadn’t been there in years but the good Spencer Chow of ILX-and-elsewhere fame suggested it as a location for our joint birthday celebration with friends last Saturday night, so why not indeed? The man knows his bars and I was not about to deny him. A good night was had, old and new friends met with and plenty of good talk. Weather was great too. Still, it was all…unusual. An English pub with an outside area set in a Spanish/Mexican-styled patio, surrounded by buildings with tile on them, is a nicely dissonant image and I’m sure Momus will have something to say about it if he hasn’t already.
Do not go for the food. Drinks, yes, they were fine, but not the food. No point. If you need something to fill up your stomach, by all means order the chips, they’re cheap and starchy and will take care of that problem easily enough. Everything else is somewhat curious (aside from the desserts, which looked good enough) or overpriced, even for that neck of the woods. And if you show up too late on a Saturday evening you have to pay for a cover charge to get in, which does nobody any good.
Still, it was all worth it to be able to have a beer comfortably outside on a warm Saturday night in March. Honest-to-god London resident Stevie Chick told me the following day what the weather was like in the UK at present and I smugly counted my blessings. Yay for evil!