BBE Editor's Pick

Coupa Café

419 N. Canon Dr., Beverly Hills

By Tess Minsky

Gustavo Dudamel is not alone among imports from Venezuela that have made LA a better place. Enter Coupa Café, the Beverly Hills outpost with the charming patio, where a coupa coffee comes with buttermilk pancakes and Venezuelan chocolate chips or, if you prefer, tequeñes—cheese sticks for grownups that are so light and delicious you don’t think they can get any better, until you dip them in the accompanying sweet and tangy guava sauce. Everything at Coupa showcases things Venezuelan, from the empanada de pabellón, with slow-cooked beef, Venezuelan country cheese and plantains, to the traditional arepas, stuffed white-cornmeal pockets, which here are gluten-free—and that’s music to the ears of the health-conscious crowd in Beverly Hills.

menu musts

Arepas (pan-fried white cornmeal pockets)
Tequeños (fried white cheese sticks wrapped in dough)
Empanada pobellón
One Way wild salmon (honey glazed and roasted on a bed of salt)
Quesillo (Venezuelan-style flan)
view full menu here

sweet seats

Whether it’s torrential out or too hot to trot, Coupa’s patio will do the trick; it’s equipped with heaters and plenty of shade.

chew on this

For that wonderfully aromatic coffee, Coupa works directly with 18 traditional-practice farms in Venezuela, paying them three times the government-regulated price—an arrangement they justifiably call “super fair trade.”

hours

Sun.–Tues. 9 AM–9 PM; Wed.–Sat. 9 AM–10 PM

price range for menu items

$7 (arepitas) to $28 (steak frites)

419 N. Canon Dr. (between S. Santa Monica Blvd. and N. Brighton Way), Beverly Hills, CA 90210; 310-385-0420 www.coupacafe.com/index.html $$