Go to Zinqué on Melrose at 4 p.m. for the $13 Wine

A critic found the Melrose bistro's dinners slow, but its weekday happy hour pours $13 wine on a dog-friendly patio.

Zinqué's own website and its toughest critic agree on exactly one thing about the Melrose Avenue bistro: it's a place to go when work lets out. So that's when I'd go, on a weekday at 4 p.m., and I'd be gone before the dinner rush.

Zinqué is a family-owned, Paris-style café that French entrepreneur Emmanuel Dossetti opened in Venice in 2011, and What Now Los Angeles profiled it Thursday. I haven't eaten there. This verdict rests on what the restaurant posts and on what its critics have published.

The restaurant's West Hollywood page lists being a first stop after work among the things the location is known for. The Infatuation's Brant Cox scored it 6.1 out of 10 on Sept. 18, 2024. He wrote that an after-work glass of white wine on the patio would turn out fine, and that a real dinner ran into "first-week hiccups" at a place that's been open for more than a decade. He warned that food could take an hour to reach the table and told readers to "just stick to the chardonnay."

That puts the house's favorite dish in an awkward spot. Asked what its most popular plate is, the team told What Now, "Easily, Le Bowl," and the brand's website calls it famous. Cox waved it off as "a bowl of arugula and purple rice" that his readers needed less than the wine. Zinqué is proudest of the bowl, and its critic shrugged at it. I'd save it for a lunch with nowhere else to be.

A fair reader could say that crowds have been voting against Cox for 15 years. The single Venice café has grown into rooms in West Hollywood, downtown, Century City, Malibu, Newport Beach and Westlake Village, plus one in Paris, according to What Now. Creative director Mickey McIlroy told What Now that it's "a Paris meets SoCal bistro, café & wine/cocktail bar," and What Now reports the owners still weigh in on everything from new dishes to the playlists. Cox's review is also more than two years old. That's fair, and it's also why the safest order is the one he signed off on.

The bet costs very little. As the West Hollywood page listed it Friday, happy hour runs from 4 to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. Cocktails and wines by the glass are $13 each, and tapas come three for $26. Dogs are welcome on the patio, and the doors open at 7 a.m. on weekdays (8 on weekends) for La Colombe coffee if mornings suit you better.

Zinqué is for two coworkers, one round of $13 white wine and a 6 p.m. exit. It's the only plan the restaurant and its critic both endorse.

Source: whatnow.com, retrieved October 23, 2026. Other sources: lezinque.com, theinfatuation.com, the Zinqué brand website.