Lunch on the Tenth Floor
Step out of the elevator and the city goes quiet. The tenth-floor dining room is calm and grounded, with oak-toned tables and olive green banquettes. The menu arrives in a sage linen cover, marked with a single laurel sprig and a promise: Spain Meets California. The room feels composed but never stiff. It is made for a long lunch.
Just beyond sits the terrace, ten stories up and lined with plants. Feathery desert trees throw lace-thin shade across the stone floor. Silver groundcover spills from the planters, spiky agave gives them shape, and hedges screen the tables so each party feels gently tucked away. On a clear April afternoon, the air is bright and clean. Across Grand Avenue, the steel curves of Walt Disney Concert Hall rise into view, a modern counterpoint to the Mediterranean warmth of the table.
San Laurel is one of José Andrés's flagship restaurants, at Conrad Los Angeles. The restaurant sums up its cooking in six words: California flavor with a Spanish accent.
A Gehry Tower on Grand Avenue
San Laurel sits on the tenth floor of The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry complex facing the concert hall he also designed. The restaurant says the hotel "pays homage to Gehry's statement architecture," as well as to West Coast Modernism. Inside, the Conrad's interiors are the work of designer Tara Bernerd.
The dining room takes a softer line than the facade. The restaurant pairs "organic, earthy tones and natural wood finishes with richer hues to complement what's on the plate." The effect is quiet. Nothing competes with the view.
The neighbors are good company. The Broad and the Colburn School are close by, and the concert hall is directly across the street.
The Chef
José Andrés built his reputation on small plates, the kind meant for sharing and lingering. San Laurel credits him with pioneering Spanish tapas in the United States. The restaurant also notes his two appearances on TIME's list of the 100 Most Influential People, in 2012 and 2018, and the National Humanities Medal presented to him by President Barack Obama in 2015.
His work reaches well beyond the dining room. In 2010, after the earthquake in Haiti, Andrés founded World Central Kitchen. In a camp for families who had lost their homes, he was shown how Haitians like their black beans: "mashed and sieved into a creamy sauce." WCK describes the lesson as one of "listening, learning, and cooking side by side."
In January 2025, that work came home. After the wildfires in Los Angeles, WCK served more than 1.6 million meals across the region in the weeks that followed, partnering with local restaurants, food trucks and farms. The restaurant and the relief kitchen are separate operations. What joins them is a chef who takes every meal seriously, whether it is served in a dining room or delivered in the middle of an emergency.
Spain Through a California Lens
Lunch here reads like a map with two coastlines, one paved in Spanish tradition and the other drawn in California daylight. Two plates show how the map works.
The heirloom tomato salad runs a roasted piquillo crème fraîche under salsa macha, shiso and cilantro, so Spain, Mexico and Japan share one plate. The pollo frito is the one to order. It arrives as a broad, deeply craggy cutlet over a pale, herb-flecked sauce, with coins of pickled cucumber and a tangle of shaved purple cabbage cutting through the richness. It comes finished with guindilla peppers, the slender pickled chilies of the Basque Country.
The California half of the story is the produce, which the restaurant says it buys from local farmers' markets.
Botanical Blends and Rejuvenating Tonics
On our April visit, the spirit-free drinks came on a card of their own, split between Botanical Blends, built like cocktails, and Rejuvenating Tonics, pressed from fruit and vegetables.
From the first list, Grapefruit & Honey starts with Seedlip Grove, a non-alcoholic spirit, and finishes with lime and grapefruit soda. It drinks crisp and grown-up. From the second comes the Valenciano: carrot and orange, pressed bright, with a thread of saffron, the spice of Valencia's paella. The saffron lands as a quiet warmth under the citrus. It is San Laurel in a glass, a Spanish idea poured over California produce.
For guests who do drink, the bar pairs original zero-ABV cocktails with modern takes on the classics.
Stay the Night
Lunch can be the start of a weekend. San Laurel is one of three José Andrés venues at the Conrad, alongside The Beaudry Room and Airlight, the rooftop bar beside the infinity pool. From the table to a lounger overlooking downtown, the afternoon shifts easily from dining to doing very little at all.
Conrad Spa sets its tone at the door. The entrance is a wall of weathered oak panels, softened by fiddle-leaf figs in pale stone planters and a low sage-green bench. Inside, treatments range from massage and facials to a lymphatic drainage ritual, and an infrared sauna waits nearby.
For a more modern take on recovery, the spa offers private Recovery Cabins. The one we saw felt like a small lounge, with a cushioned sofa, white pillows and a window to keep it airy. On the sofa sat a HigherDOSE mat and a pair of Normatec compression boots. The hotel calls the cabins the home of its "high-tech wellness therapies and performance tools."
For those who would rather keep moving, the fitness center has Pelotons, and weekend mornings bring group classes. Our Well Stayed review, What a Wellness Hotel Actually Looks Like, covers the rooms, the spa and the fitness floor in full.
Around the Neighborhood
San Laurel makes an easy first stop before an evening out, and the Conrad an easy base for an arts-filled weekend.
Across the street, The Music Center gathers four stages on one campus. Walt Disney Concert Hall is home to the LA Phil and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. LA Opera performs at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Center Theatre Group programs the Ahmanson Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum. On select LA Phil concert nights, San Laurel has offered a pre-theater prix fixe. Grand Park sits beside the campus for an open-air pause between plans.
On foot, The Broad and MOCA are about five minutes away. Grand Central Market and Angels Flight are about ten minutes' walk.
A short drive south, in the Fashion District, sits the United Theater on Broadway. The four founders of United Artists, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, had it built in 1927. Today it hosts galas, premieres and private events under a mirrored Spanish Gothic ceiling. After lunch at San Laurel, the Spanish accent carries on.
The Details
Conrad Los Angeles, 10th floor, 100 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Chef's Table: a seasonal seven-course tasting with a welcome cocktail and optional California and Spanish wine pairings, seated on the terrace or facing the kitchen.
Pre-theater prix fixe: offered seasonally on select LA Phil concert nights. Check with the restaurant for dates.
Parking: valet on 1st Street between Grand and Olive.
Well Stay: Conrad Los Angeles