There are plenty of cool things about Britain—inventing punk, whatever is happening with late-career Daniel Craig, the accent—but for many people, British food has never been in that category. As any Londoner will tell you, though, the whole “dry roast beef and soggy chips” thing is pretty outdated. And Wilde’s is here to prove the point. There’s an effortless cool to Wilde's yellow-tinged, slightly cottage-y space on Hillhurst, from the naive oil paintings on the wall to the art school grad swagger of the staff, all of which build to an aura of not-trying-too-hard that’s, frankly, intoxicating. You’ll walk into the bathroom, smell the candle, and immediately start debating if $64 is too much for a candle (and then buy it on sale, like we did). You’ll order a bottle from the small, low-intervention-focused wine list and consider moving to a vineyard in Basque country. You’ll cut into a flaky meat pie doused in gravy and wonder if maybe the American Revolution was an overreaction. It’s easy to be distracted by all the fuzzy feelings the place evokes (as well as the elite people-watching it offers), but once the food starts to arrive, you’ll realize that Wilde's doesn't just look the part. It flips the entire stodgy British food cliché on its head, too. Quaint-seeming dishes like bangers and mash, battered fish, and sticky toffee pudding are refined to reach their perfect state, with small tweaks (a tangy dab of HP-like sauce here, a minty relish there) to make them feel fresh. Other dishes, like a bracingly bitter chicory salad, lean Californian—more specifically, a Californian who’s in a personal relationship with the lettuce guy at Hollywood Farmers Market. That California feeling continues into daylight hours when (from Thursday through Sunday), Wilde’s becomes less moody-romantic and more of a sunny neighborhood hangout. Locals pop in and out, usually saying hi to a neighbor at another table, or waving across the room at a cute kid. The menu of baked goods and a handful of cooked snacky things still smacks solidly of the Commonwealth, however, including soft-boiled eggs with toast soldiers, a sausage roll, a bacon “bap,” and, of course, a proper bowl of porridge. All these distinct elements come together to form a seamless restaurant that has, in record time, become an extremely pleasant Los Feliz hangout at all times of the day. The biggest challenge is getting a table. The dining room is small, reservations go fast, and though they save room for walk-ins nightly, wait times get long. There are at least a few forms of entertainment to keep you occupied in the meantime: Wilde's developing sidewalk scene where people sip wine out front, the stellar cocktails at nearby Vandell, or (for a very different vibe) a pop-in across the street at Ye Rustic Inn. Stick it out, and any lingering wait annoyances melt away the moment you're welcomed inside. That's the power of a restaurant that is humming along pretty perfectly—while also making meat pies sexy.