F***, Chuck, Marry: Volume Four

(The One Where I Propose)

Before we start: same oath as always. I love every restaurant I’m about to mention. I am not here to cancel or clap back; I’m here to catalog the ways dining in Los Angeles makes us feel unhinged and painfully, beautifully alive. If a spot lands in “Chuck,” that’s not Taylor Swift–level exile—it’s an amicable unfollow. If it lands in “F***,” I’m texting them again at 11:41 p.m. If it lands in “Marry,” I’m calling my mother.

LA is a city of serendipity disguised as parking karma. I’m convinced nothing is a coincidence—call it fate, call it delusion, call it my most persistent personality trait. And nowhere does that ring truer than when a restaurant becomes not just a place you eat, but a place that holds your life. Today’s lineup has it all: a roster all-star, a rooftop situationship I’m finally releasing back into the content farm, and a love story with a ring at the end.

Let’s get into it.

F***: Ronan

Meet the heavy-rotation guy, the pièce de résistance of the roster. Ronan is that saved contact you never deleted because you knew, on a random Tuesday, he’d text “you up?” and you’d mean it when you said yes.

This is where I slide onto a communal bench, order a bottle of something organic and flirty, and surrender to the gospel of blistered edges. The Sweet Cheeks pizza? A public indecency waiting to happen. The salads snap, the crusts blister, and the olive oil has that glossy, late-night sheen that makes you say reckless things like “let’s split one more.” Ronan is permission to be a little messy, a little salty, a little honey-drizzled. He’ll lick it off your fingers and not make it weird.

Are all the plates life-changing? Not always. And that’s exactly the point. There’s a reason you don’t promote this man to husband: maybe he dodges the hard conversations, maybe you’re not aligned on whether mezcal is a personality, maybe he’s just missing that ineffable click that makes you want to share health insurance. But he will always have a spot for you—judgment-free, candlelit, and ready to stay up too late. That’s textbook F*** energy: reliable chaos with great taste.

Chuck: Catch

Catch is the guy whose dating profile is immaculate—angles, lighting, verified check—and yet in person you realize you’re on a date with his front-facing camera.

Look, it’s pretty. The views bring out-of-towners to the yard, the host stand radiates velvet-rope pageantry, and the whole thing hums like a WeHo prom for ring-light owners. The menu reads like a pitch deck built to impress a room that’s already impressed with itself. There’s nothing wrong here; there’s just nothing for me beyond the spectacle. I leave with my out-of-towners’ phones full of nice photos and a heart that still wants dinner.

For the record: I get the appeal. There are nights when what you need is an elevator ride into a skyline and the fantasy of being on the list. I recommend it to friends who want that exact LA postcard—high heels, high gloss, high altitude. But I’ve learned that the difference between a crush and a connection is whether the conversation survives the flash. Mine doesn’t.

So with gratitude for the memories (and the lighting), I’m letting Catch go. Chucked, cleanly. No subtweets, no “we should do this again.” We won’t.

Marry: Lolo Wine Bar

I’ve been saying it for years: nothing is an accident (or, in my personal malapropism, a “consonance”). Everything meant for you finds you—especially love. And love, it turns out, is Lolo Wine Bar.

Lolo started as my mid-20s flex, the “I’m cool, I promise” first-date move—and it became the place where my now-fiancé and I actually had our first date. A year later, on his birthday, I surprised him by taking us back to the scene of the crime (love theft). The vibe was immediately all-consuming: warm, amber, unguarded. You feel that first-date flutter—not because you’re unworthy, but because you didn’t realize hotness and comfort could show up holding hands.

The ritual matters. We were seated, then gently ushered to the wine room—an adult candy shop where bottles share their backstories. We chose something that tasted like stone fruit and good decisions, then returned to a table that might as well have been a living room. The staff has that rare, intuitive grace: present without hovering, opinionated without pretense, generous without theater. The flavors purr; they don’t peacock. Beans that taste like they had a childhood. Greens with a sense of self. Sauces that know when to step back.

And then destiny slipped in wearing a baseball cap.

The next morning—birthday weekend still glowing—we did the LA sacrament (farmers’ market, obviously). I clocked a bin of beans and said to my then-boyfriend, offhand: “Babe, those look like the beans from last night.” The man behind the table looked up: “What?” I did that LA thing where you assume he’s addressing someone more important behind you. He wasn’t. We told him we’d eaten at Lolo. He smiled and said, “Those are ours. We supply them.”

You know when the universe winks so hard you have to sit down? That. To eat a thing, feel it land somewhere true, go back on the anniversary of your first date for his birthday, and then meet the hands that grew it twenty-four hours later—tell me that’s not a proposal scene. Tell me that’s not the kind of connection you build a life around.

Lolo isn’t just delicious; it’s relational. It’s the web between farmer, cellar, line cook, server, and the version of you that believes in intimacy without performance. It’s a place that trusts its own softness. The plates don’t audition; they arrive. The wine list doesn’t posture; it introduces. The room doesn’t scream “date night”; it puts its hand on your leg and says, “stay.”

Reader, I’m down on one knee. This isn’t infatuation; it’s fluency. My love for Lolo doesn’t need to match yours. That’s the point—no two people love the same for the same reasons. But my love is confident, and it lives here.

Final Thoughts

LA will break your heart and then hand you a perfect bite that makes you forgive the whole city. Ronan is the late-night text I will happily answer—oily, honeyed, a little wicked, always fun. Catch is the beautiful mirage I’m finally releasing, with no hard feelings and a sincere wish that we both find what we’re actually after. And Lolo? Lolo is the yes. The quiet yes, the birthday-yes, the “we met your farmer the next morning” yes—the kind of yes that feels like the universe soft-launching your engagement.

Everything that’s for you will find you. Sometimes it finds you at a communal table with blistered crusts. Sometimes it finds you on a rooftop with an exit strategy. And sometimes it finds you in a wine room, the night before you meet the farmer who grew your beans.

Ronan, I’ll see you after hours.
Catch, I wish you good lighting.
Lolo, take my hand. Let’s go home.