Letter of Recommendation Los Angeles
One of the Best Brunches in the Valley Is Hiding in a Dimly Lit Margarita Bar
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A brown leather stool at a margarita bar in the Valley is not necessarily where you expect to find one of the most compelling brunches in Los Angeles. Daisy is, by both design and reputation, very much a margarita bar—and with its recent coronation into the list of North America’s 50 Best Bars, a serious one, at that. From the team behind Mírate, it’s been discussed mostly as a destination for agave spirits, playful cocktails, and a more expansive idea of what a margarita can be. The room carries the energy of a modern cantina, all dim light and polished wood, with a back bar lined by private-batch mezcals that beverage director Max Reis has developed in collaboration with maestros tequileros.
And while all of that is quite impressive, the thing I keep thinking about is brunch.
There is something deeply satisfying about choosing to spend a bright Los Angeles afternoon inside the dank, neon-lit cave of a bar. Eyes slowly adjusting to the artificial nighttime of the room, the day outside beginning to feel almost fictional. Like brunch itself, it grants a certain permission; the ability to behave a little more like your nighttime self at one in the afternoon.
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At Daisy, their sign shifts for brunch service: “margarita” crossed out and replaced with “michelada,” with the cocktails following suit. Lower-ABV drinks lean bright, savory, and playful, channeling the same creativity that made Daisy a destination after dark. And for anyone who’d rather the bar’s namesake drink, never fear: they still offer their margarita list (do try the zingy salsa verde variation, with a salt solution in lieu of a salt rim) alongside brunch service.
But it’s not just their take on one of L.A.’s favorite brunch drinks that makes Daisy a place to pull up a seat on Saturday afternoon. It’s the food, too.
The most impressive dish of the menu grabs you at first bite. The pescebirria: a yellowfin tuna birria griddled with queso Oaxaca inside blue flour tortillas and served with pickled vegetables, salsa verde, and shishito peppers. A deep umami sliced in half by the brightness of the salsa verde and pickles. A prime example that what’s going on at this bar isn’t afterthought cooking; not a simple revenue stream extension or throwing a few runny eggs awkwardly atop dishes from the dinner menu. It’s a genuine continuation of Daisy’s identity, approaching arguably the best meal of the week with the same precision, irreverence, and point of view as everything else they do. While it projects ‘neighborhood cantina’, there’s a quiet ambition bubbling just beneath Daisy’s surface that keeps me coming back.
“In Mexico, brunch items often incorporate crudos, aguachiles, oysters, and so on, because that’s what we use to cure the hangover, alongside a michelada,” he says. That approach takes form at Daisy as oysters with hibiscus vinaigrette, yellowfin tuna tostadas with avocado, chintextle aioli, and hoja santa; or raw scallops swimming in a herbal salsa verde, acidity dialed in to the prick of a pin.
If you need a sugar fix, a section dedicated entirely to pan dulce baked in house is playful while avoiding the gimmick: brioche sticky buns with dulce de leche, passionfruit donuts with roasted corn white chocolate, and heirloom blue corn muffins with fragrant fig-leaf butter and vanilla whipped cream all make appearances.
Larger plates, like the chilaquiles rojas (add the duck carnitas) or the breakfast burrito with eggs, beef machaca, and shrimp are great anchors for the table. “The kitchen draws from Norteño cantina traditions and my visits to the northern region of Mexico, and all that I have eaten there,” says Sanz. “We want guests to leave with a sense that Mexican food can be playful and refined at once. Familiar elements (eggs, tortillas, salsas) presented with elevated ingredients and creative combinations,” he adds. “This is Mexican food rooted in cantina traditions but translated with a modern chef’s eye.”
We have some great dark cantina dens in Los Angeles (RIP to my personal favorite; the very dark, vinyl boothed, and Lynchian Casa Escobar) but most aren’t being sought out for much more than taking in that very specific vibe, margarita in hand. There might be food, but it’s secondary. At Daisy, the cantina experience is transformed, with truly unique plays on northern Mexican traditions that makes the food just as much, if not more, of a reason to visit.
Lately, I’ve taken to recommending a daytime Daisy visit. There is something distinctly Los Angeles about recommending a bar for brunch that reminds me why our city is so great. Elsewhere, it might feel counterintuitive to hole up in a dark bar on a shimmering day, but here it feels woven into our quirks, stripmalls, and asphalt.
Some of the best eating in L.A. happens in places that are technically one thing and secretly another. A Westside butcher shop with a transcendent burger, an East L.A. corner market turning out exceptional tacos, a cocktail bar in the Valley whose food quietly eclipses expectations. Daisy is at home within that very L.A. lineage. On Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., it’s not just Daisy: it’s a world-class margarita bar that just so happens to be putting out some of the best brunch in all of Los Angeles.
