There’s a particular kind of quiet that happens on Highland Avenue right around noon, just before the lunch crowd shows up. The patio chairs are still stacked from the night before, someone’s hosing down the walkway, and the smell of malt vinegar is already drifting out from the kitchen. If you’ve spent any real time hunting down good Hollywood restaurants in LA, you know that smell.
You know it means the Cat & Fiddle is open, and that whatever kind of day you’re having, there’s a table with your name on it. Explore our complete guide to the Hollywood Walk of Fame for essential tips, nearby attractions, parking advice, and everything you need to make the most of your visit.
I grew up hearing about this pub the way you hear about a relative you’ve never met but already love. My aunt worked two blocks away for years, and to her, the Cat was like a second living room. The first time I went myself, I ordered the fish and chips everyone kept telling me about. While I ate, I watched a grandfather show his granddaughter how to eat a scotch egg without dropping half of it on the table. That’s when I got it.
This isn’t a restaurant that’s trying to impress you. It’s trying to feed you, sit you down next to strangers who feel like neighbors, and send you back out into the city a little steadier than when you walked in. Want to discover the history and cultural significance of Los Angeles’ most iconic landmark? Explore our detailed guide to the Hollywood Sign and uncover its fascinating story.
A Pub Built By a Rock and Roll Bassist Who Just Wanted a Home
The story starts with a man named Kim Gardner, a British bass player who spent the sixties and seventies bouncing between bands most casual listeners have never heard of but serious record collectors treasure. He played alongside Ronnie Wood in The Birds and The Creation, cut records with Rod Stewart in a short-lived group called Quiet Melon, and generally lived the kind of touring life that leaves a person a long way from home.
By 1982, Gardner had settled in Los Angeles, married Paula, a New Orleans native, and started missing something specific: the neighborhood pub. Not a bar. Not a club. A proper English pub in Los Angeles, the kind where regulars have a stool and the bartender remembers how you take your tea. Since nothing like that existed in Hollywood at the time, he opened one himself in Laurel Canyon, in a space a friend happened to have available. Paula was pregnant with twins when the doors opened that October. The twins arrived two weeks later. Nobody involved seemed to think that timing was a problem.
The Laurel Canyon spot got popular fast, maybe too fast for its own zoning permit, which was technically written for an ice cream parlor. A move to Sunset Boulevard followed in 1985, into a 1920s Spanish-style building that Paula swears she and Kim had walked through years earlier without knowing it. Discover the magic of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: The Musical at the iconic Hollywood Pantages Theatre and experience a timeless story brought to life on stage.
That Sunset location is where most longtime Angelenos picture the Cat & Fiddle even now: the sprawling patio, the fountain, three decades of Hollywood history soaking into the walls.
Losing the Old Home, Finding a New One
In 2014, a lease dispute pushed the Gardners out of the Sunset property along with the building’s other tenants, a real loss for a pub that had become civic infrastructure for Hollywood’s musicians and working people.
Paula and her daughters spent roughly two and a half years looking, then landed on a smaller space at 742 North Highland Avenue, once home to the music venue Highland Grounds. They brought most of the original decor with them, the same English antiques Kim and Paula had collected on trips back to the UK, and reopened in 2017.
Kim Gardner passed away from cancer in 2001, long before that second move, but the pub never stopped being his. His widow and their three daughters, Eva, Ashlee, and Camille, simply picked it up and kept walking. Ashlee has run daily operations alongside her mother since 2005 and still tells the story of doing grade-school homework at a corner table after walking over from Blessed Sacrament School across the street. Discover the fascinating journey of Universal Studios and explore how it evolved into a global entertainment powerhouse.
Camille built her own career in food and beverage consulting, working with major hospitality groups before bringing that experience home. Eva became a professional bassist herself, playing with Pink, Cher, Gwen Stefani, and Tegan and Sara, and remains the only woman to hold a signature Fender bass. Ask any of them why they stayed in the family business and you’ll get some version of the same answer: it never felt like a choice.
What You’ll Find at One of the Best Restaurants in Hollywood Los Angeles in 2026?
Walk in today and you’ll see the family’s fingerprints everywhere, but the pub has kept pace with the neighborhood around it. The current menu still centers on the British food in Los Angeles that people cross town for: beer-battered fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, a proper Beef Wellington, and a Sunday roast that regulars plan their weekends around.
Weekend Afternoon Tea remains a reservation-only ritual, complete with scones and clotted cream for anyone craving a slower, quieter afternoon in the middle of a loud city. Explore the latest food trends and must-visit restaurants in our Dining for more delicious discoveries.
The patio, smaller than the old Sunset garden but every bit as loved, is dog-friendly, right down to a dedicated menu for four-legged guests. Kids eat off their own “Kitten Menu,” and the kitchen stays open until ten most nights, so families with early bedtimes and night owls chasing a late pint can share the same room without either group feeling out of place.
This summer, the pub is doubling as a viewing hub for the 2026 World Cup, with televisions scattered across the bar and patio, sponsor giveaways, and the kind of match-day energy that makes strangers start conversations over shared groans and cheers. English Premier League matches show up on the schedule most weekends too, which tells you exactly where the pub’s loyalties sit.
The City of Los Angeles has formally recognized the Cat & Fiddle as a Los Angeles Legacy Business and awarded it a Certificate of Recognition for its cultural contributions to the city, an honor that confirms what regulars already knew: this is one of the best pubs in Hollywood, and it’s been that way for over four decades.
The Rock and Roll Never Left, Either
Music still runs through the building’s walls. Guns N’ Roses and the Pixies have thrown events there. Morrissey has been known to slip in after his own shows, tell the crowd where he’s headed, and then watch a wave of fans follow him straight to the bar.
Rod Stewart has stopped by with his amateur soccer club, a friendly rival to Hollywood United, the team the Cat has long sponsored and one founded by British pub Los Angeles regulars who treated the bar as their unofficial clubhouse. None of this feels engineered for a marketing photo. It happens because the people who built this place were musicians first, and the friends they made along the way never really left.
Why It’s Worth Your Evening
Hollywood changes fast. Restaurants in Hollywood, LA open with fanfare and close within a couple of years. Landmarks get torn down for something shinier. The Cat & Fiddle has survived a zoning dispute, a forced relocation, the loss of its founder, and a global pandemic, and it still feels like the same place it was in 1982. Among the countless pubs in Hollywood that have come and gone, this one just kept its doors open. Discover the latest Hollywood Walk of Fame Stars 2026 and see which celebrities are being honored this year.
If you’re putting together a list of things to do in Hollywood and want one meal that isn’t aimed at tourists, this is it. Grab a seat on the patio with your dog if you’ve got one, order the fish and chips, and stay long enough to notice the regulars trading updates with the staff like old friends catching up. That’s not an accident and it’s not a slogan on a wall. It’s a family that decided, more than forty years ago, that one of the restaurants in Hollywood, Los Angeles, should feel like somewhere you belong, and then spent four decades making sure that stayed true.
The Cat & Fiddle Restaurant & Pub is located at 742 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90038, a short walk from the Dolby Theatre and Hollywood Boulevard. It’s open daily for lunch and dinner, with weekend Afternoon Tea by reservation. Call (323) 468-3800 or visit thecatandfiddle.com for hours, events, and World Cup viewing party details.