Le Great Outdoor Is Where You’ll Want to Eat All Summer Long
An entirely outdoor restaurant, hidden in an art gallery complex on an industrial side street, that opened during the pandemic … what could go wrong? Oh, just about everything. But somehow, it hasn’t. In fact, the opposite has happened — things have gone very, very right. Le Great Outdoor, tucked away in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station, has become a neighborhood destination for those in the know.
As its name implies, all dining takes place outside, in what is essentially a fenced-off section of a large parking lot. The open-air setting creates an easygoing, convivial vibe that makes Le Great Outdoor feel like a backyard barbecue — except that the chef happens to have worked in some of the world’s top kitchens before making L.A. home.
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Neighborhood regulars treat the space like an extension of their own backyards. On any given day, you might find a large table of tech workers on their lunch break, a family with young children, or couples having an intimate conversation over a bottle of wine. Impressive but no-pressure, it’s a charming choice for a casual date or friend catch-up. (For one thing, you can actually hear your companion talk.) There’s no dress code. There’s no velvet rope. You can get in and out but you can also linger, if you want. And you’re unlikely to be overwhelmed or intimidated by the menu — the Frenchiest thing about Le Great Outdoor is its name.
This is the brainchild of Rodolphe “Rudy” Beuve and Pedro Mori. They’re both expats — Beuve from Strasbourg, France and Mori from São Paulo, Brazil — who came to Los Angeles to make their way in the world. Beuve was working as a chef at Gjusta. Mori was working a block-and-a-half away as the beverage director at the Rose Venice. Introduced by friends, both found themselves twiddling their thumbs after COVID-19 hit. The one thing they knew how to do best — bring people together over food and drinks — was off the table.
Brainstorming ways to launch a restaurant without investors or loans, Beuve noticed that most coffee shops nearby were closed in the afternoons. He approached the owner of Kiff Kafe in West L.A. with an idea to use the space in the evenings to serve dinner. After they struck a deal, the first person Beuve called was Mori. And so, in October 2021, Le Great Outdoor was born as a pop-up.
“You couldn’t travel so maybe, unconsciously, [I was] like, forget it, I’m gonna do what I want, which is cooking over a barbecue and seeing people having fun,” Beuve says of his mindset at the time.
The concept proved immediately popular. Beuve and Mori were ready to expand, but didn’t want to bring in outside investors. Instead, Beuve connected with Jeff Stuppler, who had, for years, run Bergamot Café. Located in Bergamot Station, a property owned by the city of Santa Monica, the space is a tricky proposition. It’s not visible from the street and sits at the end of a cul-de-sac most notable for a trash collection facility and another restaurant, Jeremy Fox’s nouveau Jewish diner Birdie G’s. “There’s not really much traffic, there’s no cars driving by. We had to create our own space and be appealing enough to make people go out of their way for us,” Mori says.
On the flip side, the city offered a good deal on rent if the duo agreed to stay open during the daytime. Beuve and Mori took over the spot, keeping most of the Bergamot Café staff, and brought in the large outdoor hearth that anchors the restaurant. That decision also meant they wouldn’t have to buy a hood, a stove, an oven, or too many pans — another attempt to lower the financial risk. Throwing in a selection of seasonal, flavor-packed veggie dishes, a few expertly grilled proteins, and a globe-trotting wine list, they debuted Le Great Outdoor as a dinner destination in January 2023. Six months later, they expanded to lunch.
Reservations are recommended for dinner, which can get crowded, while lunch is a walk-in affair. As soon as you enter, you’ll order and pay at the counter, where you can’t help but notice the hearth responsible for most of the cooking.
“It’s a primitive menu. A lot of veggies, a lot of greens. It’s very simple food, cooked over fire,” Beuve says. He’s downplaying things. The menu is compact and uncomplicated, but the food is crisp and terrific. It helps that Beuve, who has been working in kitchens since he was a teenager, cooked at Joël Robuchon in Paris. He knows how to do all of the elite stuff, but in his heart, he’d rather be, well, in the great outdoors: “I love to cook with fire. I love to camp. I love to be outside. I love to drink good wine and [have] simple produce on my table,” he says.
Le Great Outdoor’s menu isn’t beholden to any particular cuisine or region. The shrimp skewer is topped with Portuguese-African peri peri sauce, which Beuve tweaked by adding peanut butter. The lamb chops are tinged with Argentinian chimichurri. The branzino is drizzled with Middle Eastern za’atar. Depending on the season, broccolini might be dressed with miso vinaigrette, yams might be topped with jalapeño yogurt, an ear of corn might be slathered in cotija. Throw in a few dips, tartines, and appetizers (perhaps the mussels escabeche or peppers stuffed with tuna), and you pretty much have the menu.
“We never wanted to be stuck on our creativity that we feel we have to follow French or Italian cuisine,” Mori says. “Our menu is all over the place and a fun way to travel the world.” The wine list, most of which is available by the glass, follows suit, with selections coming from Italy, France, Argentina, Portugal, Chile, Armenia, and closer to home in California.
All of this detail, however, is besides the point. From the wooden slat picnic tables to the quarter-sheet pans on which the food is served, nothing about Le Great Outdoor is fancy. Yet in this 98-seat venue, Beuve and Mori have managed to create something special, and they’ve done it outside most of the traditional channels for developing a restaurant.
“I don’t think you can create a [restaurant] concept. I think the concept comes from your life experiences,” Beuve says. “The whole idea was real food, the smell of the barbecue, good music, and good wine. It’s the people who create the vibe.”
Elina Shatkin is a multimedia journalist, podcast producer, and filmmaker. She is currently a producer for Good Food at KCRW and has previously worked at LAist/KPCC, L.A. Weekly, and The L.A. Times. Follow her here. Follow Resy, too.
