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Nighthawk: Breakfast Bar will reopen this week, this time on the westside, offering breakfast and booze for night owls. You may remember that Jeremy Fall's Nighthawk first opened in Hollywood in January, offering spiked cereal milk cocktails and fun twists on breakfast staples, like their drunken French toast or Benedict fries. That particular location has since closed, as it shared a building with Sadie Kitchen & Lounge, which shut down in May.
The new Nighthawk can be found where Venice and Marina Del Rey meet on Washington Boulevard. It opens Thursday, August 11, and is a lot like the old Nighthawk in Hollywood, serving stoner-friendly breakfast food in a dimly lit space, while playing loud music and slinging drinks. Guests still receive a rolled up section of the L.A. Times and a cup of coffee upon arrival. The coffee is a cold brew from La Colombe and you may check off a box on the mug with a piece of chalk should you prefer yours spiked.
The cocktails and the dishes somehow manage to be both upscale and reminiscent of the type of cheap, comfort foods you may have eaten as a kid. For instance, you can get a mimosa here. That's is a very nice and often luxurious thing to have for brunch. However, their mimosa is made with Tang. They also serve a michelada that comes with an MSG salt shaker and a slushy mary, which is exactly what you think it is: a thick, slushy-style bloody mary. It's also heavy on the celery flavor, because celery is in the ice cubes. On the sweeter side, their spiked cereal milk cocktails and boozy floats have carried over to this menu as well.
Dishes from executive chef Greg Schroeppel tend to be heavy, and great for soaking up the alcohol after a long night of partying. There's the chicken & biscuits, made with flaky white cheddar and chive biscuits, topped with fired chicken and a thick bacon sausage gravy, for instance, or the tower o' bacon that's simply several strips of candied bacon, spiced with Tapatio. Items new to this location include the their take on steak 'n eggs, The Redeye, which includes an 8 oz. hangar steak with scrambled white cheddar eggs; the bacon sausage scotch egg; the Spam bullseye made with a Spam steak, eggs, country bread, pickled mustard seeds and frisee; and the Duck Duck Goose. The latter would be the most decadent option, as it consists of foie gras, scrambled duck eggs, mushrooms, duck-porcini jus, and toast with house-made WhistlePig Rye blackberry jelly.
"Being an L.A. native, I'm excited to evolve the Breakfast Bar concept in a place like Venice that represents the roots of Southern Californian culture," Fall said in a statement. "Just like California, Nighthawk's soul was created as a melting pot of different cultures and flavor inspirations from all around the world, and mixed in with nostalgic elements of American diners that I grew up going to."
Nighthawk: Breakfast Bar is located at 417 Washington Blvd. in Marina Del Rey, 323-507-2301. Open Monday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., and Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Reservations can be made by phone or by emailing reservations@nighthawkbb.com.
