The Top 100 Places to Eat Near El Bacano

1. Los Angeles Times #97 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Thai Taco Tuesdays draw lines around the block at this family-run Sherman Oaks restaurant, where a second-generation chef holds a James Beard Award and runs a monthly omakase that books out before most people know it's open. The rest of the week it's classic Thai with a wine list that gets written about on its own terms. Warm, buzzy, and very Los Angeles in the best sense, which is to say it's completely unpretentious about being excellent.

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Winner · Best Chef: California · Justin Pichetrungsi
2. The Infatuation Infatuation’s Highest-Rated Restaurants In America
3. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

1. Food & Wine Borekas · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year

A tasting menu restaurant tucked into a strip mall on Ventura Boulevard, which is either a joke or a dare. The format is intimate and genuinely theatrical: drinks and a snack up front in a bar, then a procession of modern Italian-leaning pasta courses that push well past Italian tradition. The cooking holds a Michelin star, and the staff seem to know it without being insufferable about it.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Food & Wine Borekas · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year

A Michelin-starred omakase counter tucked into a Ventura Boulevard strip mall, which is either a surprise or a very Los Angeles thing, depending on your outlook. The chef trained for decades at serious sushi houses on both coasts, and his rice alone signals that something careful is happening here. The mood runs warmer than the minimalist room implies, and solo diners slot in comfortably at the counter without feeling like an afterthought.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The live-fire hearth in the open kitchen sets the mood at ALTO, a fine dining spot in Studio City built around the flavors of Argentina and Uruguay. The menu runs toward generous, shareable plates, with breads and empanadas opening things up before proteins cooked over fire take center stage. South American wines get their own serious list. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and the Los Angeles Times placed it among the city's 101 best restaurants.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times #55 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Soft fabrics and moody walls hang alongside framed letters and art that feels more gallery than sushi counter, which sets the tone nicely for what follows. This Sherman Oaks omakase spot runs half or full tasting menus, plus à la carte, with every piece of nigiri and sashimi cut to order. The wine list gets the same care as the fish, which is either charming or slightly unhinged depending on your orthodoxy about sake.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Fire-glazed stone pottery and Hello Kitty dolls share shelf space in this Studio City sushi shop, which has been at it long enough to qualify as an old-school institution on Ventura Blvd. Three omakase options anchor a menu that unfolds across five pages, including a full page of desserts, which is either ambitious or a gentle warning to pace yourself. The daily specials are the move; the à la carte prices have a way of climbing quietly.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Udon carbonara with smoked pork belly and parmigiano tells you everything you need to know about where Leona's is coming from. This high-end Japanese fusion restaurant in Studio City pulls creative types into a room that earns the effort, then feeds them a menu that treats tradition as a suggestion rather than a rulebook. Seafood gets serious attention, and the chef's specials shift with the season. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Los Angeles Times Fifty Under $50

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles

A rainbow bull's head salvaged from the original location watches over the 14-seat counter like a totem, and that detail tells you everything about the mood here. Somni is a Spanish creative tasting menu in a converted bungalow just off Santa Monica, with three Michelin stars and a courtyard that feels like it was designed inside a dream. The chef trained at El Bulli, and the cooking lands accordingly: intricate, theatrical, and dead serious about having fun.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. 50 Best #46 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
3. The Infatuation #2 · The Top-Rated New Restaurants

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. Los Angeles Times #17 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. Los Angeles Times Lamb barbacoa taco · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Best New Cafe
2. US Coffee Championships #2 · U.S. Brewers Cup · Christian Bak

Dark-wood paneling and a white marble antipasti counter signal that this is not your red-checkered-tablecloth Italian place. Nancy Silverton's Melrose osteria holds a Michelin star and takes bread and mozzarella with a seriousness most kitchens reserve for the main course. The pastas are the draw for regulars, but the team is equally intent on pulling you toward the less obvious corners of the Italian table.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
3. Time Out #11 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

1. Sprudgie Awards 2023 · Finalist · Best New Cafe

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Brunch Venue
3. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · United States' Best Hotel Restaurant

1. Los Angeles Times #92 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

Hidden behind Sugarfish in Beverly Hills, this jewel-box omakase counter operates as its own thing entirely, with no connection to the chain out front. The chef, a traditionalist who still finds room for surprises, runs a tight sequence of nigiri, sashimi, and handrolls built around exceptional seafood. It holds a Michelin star, and the room seats few enough that you're watching every cut happen in front of you.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A satin-smooth wood counter on the second floor of the Two Rodeo Drive galleria, where Rodeo Drive's foot traffic floats by below and Derek Wilcox runs a quiet, focused omakase above it. The American-born chef trained extensively in Japan, and that comes through: cuttlefish from Kagoshima, needlefish from Miyagi, bluefin lightly smoked over rice straw. The nigiri is the reason to stay attentive. Miura holds a Michelin star.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Tangled greenery, trance music, and moody lighting set the scene at Jordan Kahn's tasting menu restaurant on Melrose, where the room feels like a forest you wandered into by accident. The cooking is live-fire and zero-waste, pulling from sustainably sourced wild and organic ingredients, and the drinks follow the same logic, no refined sugars anywhere. It holds a Michelin star, which tracks for food this particular about its own convictions.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The brick-and-skylight nave of a former bakery on La Brea sets the stage for one of those all-day operations that actually pulls off both halves. Mornings belong to the pastry counter, where the team's James Beard Award-winning work draws lines before the doors open. By evening the open kitchen is running a Southern European Mediterranean menu for a full dining room that never quite empties.

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Winner · Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker · Margarita Manzke
2. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Brunch Venue
3. Time Out The best bakeries in America

The sunny yellow exterior and orange canopy on the corner of Melrose are hard to miss, which is fitting because neither is the pizza inside. Nancy Silverton's pizzeria has been an LA institution forever, with bare wood tables, skylights, and a Bib Gourmand to its name. The pies come out of the oven with puffy, golden edges, and the seasonal dessert selection runs deep enough to cause genuine indecision.

1. Eater The All-Time Eater 38
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Wolfgang Puck's steakhouse inside the Four Seasons on Wilshire is the kind of room where the banquette seating and the beef grades arrive with equal seriousness. Cuts run from American prime to Australian Wagyu to Japanese A5, and the price of your entrée will make this feel like a consequential evening regardless of what's being celebrated. The crowd tends to be well-dressed and on somebody's expense account.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Best New Cafe

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. AAA Four Diamonds

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Winner · Best Chef: California · Lord Maynard Llera
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. Time Out #19 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

Jon Yao's tasting menu restaurant lives in the Row DTLA, where polished concrete and an open kitchen set a spare stage for cooking rooted in Taiwanese heritage and San Gabriel Valley muscle memory. The ten courses are not shy about seasoning, and the drinks program, a James Beard winner in its own right, pulls equal weight. Kato holds a Michelin star and a spot on North America's 50 Best, and Yao won the James Beard for Best Chef: California.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
3. 50 Best #49 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

By day, the butcher counter at Curtis Stone's Hollywood steakhouse moves heritage cuts from partner farms; by night, crystal chandeliers and a fireplace turn the same room into an Art Deco dining room with a Michelin star. The wood-fired grill is the organizing principle, and the dry-aged beef arrives with the confidence of a kitchen that was also selecting the animal earlier that afternoon.

1. World's 101 Best #41 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Red curtains separate the bar from the dining room at this Michelin-starred Hollywood steakhouse on Melrose, and the lipstick carpet does the rest of the atmosphere's heavy lifting. Kevin Meehan reimagined Kali as an old-school steakhouse, so Creekstone Farms beef anchors the menu while beef tartare and crème brûlée handle the opening and closing arguments. The loaded potato, baked then fried to order, is not a thing to skip.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A wood-burning oven does the heavy lifting at this intimate Italian steakhouse tucked into Nancy Silverton's Melrose compound. The kitchen leans hard into live fire and big cuts, with cooking that's boldly seasoned and more seasonal than you'd expect from a place where meat is basically the religion. The wine list runs deep into Italy. Booking is tight, and the room fills fast with people who clearly did not come to order a salad.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Time Out #14 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Time Out #30 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Hospitality

The thing that sets this West Pico pizza shop apart is the cornicione, puffy and pinched with a mochi-like chew that signals the Japan-meets-Italy premise before you've taken a proper bite. Individual pies come red or white, traditional or quietly strange, and a counter with a front-row view of the prep keeps the room honest. Ranked second in the country by 50 Top Pizza USA, Pizzeria Sei draws a crowd that treats a Tuesday like a reservation worth keeping.

1. 50 Top Pizza #9 · 50 Top Pizza World
2. 50 Top Pizza 2025 · Pizza Maker of the Year · 50 Top Pizza World Special Awards
3. 50 Top Pizza #2 · 50 Top Pizza USA

A single pasta course, spaghetti with abalone and black truffle, never rotates off Niki Nakayama's menu at this intimate kaiseki tasting room in Culver City. Everything else shifts with the seasons, moving through delicate broths and grilled Miyazaki wagyu in a long, unhurried procession. Getting a table is a project in itself, but Nakayama comes out at the end to say hello, which feels less like a formality and more like the point. It holds a Michelin star.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Niki Nakayama
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Niki Nakayama
3. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The dining room at this West Hollywood EDITION hotel restaurant looks like a luxury spa that decided to feed people: white velvet booths, staff in beige, and enough greenery to require a groundskeeper. The menu leans vegetable-forward but keeps dry-aged lamb and steaks around for the unconvinced. Prices sit firmly in hotel territory, which the hotel guests seem not to notice.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West

Named for a Caribbean island off the Yucatán coast, this Michelin-starred coastal Mexican seafood counter sits inside Mercado La Paloma in South Central, sharing the space with six other vendors and no liquor license, so lemonade it is. The chef grew up spearing fish on that same peninsula, and the ceviches, aguachiles, and grilled lobster on heirloom corn tortillas taste like it. North America's 50 Best lists it at number 26.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Gilberto Cetina
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. 50 Best #26 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Best New Cafe

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Time Out #38 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

Ice cream mid-savory-course is either a provocation or a mistake, and at Dave Beran's Seline it's very much the former. This is a high-concept California tasting menu built around themes like the arc of the seasons, where a miniature garden of edible succulents arrives before lamb with burnt strawberry jus. Beran holds a James Beard Award for Best Chef: California, and the room earns the attention it gets.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Best Chef: California · Dave Beran
3. Los Angeles Times #13 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

The barrel-vaulted ceiling and windowless room give Lielle the feeling of a place that doesn't need to be found easily. It's a tasting menu restaurant on Pico, holding a Michelin star, where chef Marcus Jernmark runs Californian cooking through a precise European sensibility without tipping into fussiness. Scoring a reservation takes some effort, and the room, once you're in it, is intimate enough to make that feel deliberate.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

An eight-seat counter where the seafood flies in from Japan several times a week and the Santa Monica farmers market fills in the rest. This is omakase at its quietest: minimal room, soft-spoken service, no flourishes competing with the fish. The knifework on a piece of squid nigiri is the kind of thing you notice without knowing why. A Michelin star, and a spot on the New York Times Restaurant List.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
3. The New York Times The Restaurant List

Boat noodles are the draw at this Thai noodle shop tucked into a Hollywood strip mall, where the broth runs thick, dark, and serious, and you pick your protein, noodle type, and heat level before the bowl hits the table. The portions are small by design, which is the shop's way of nudging you toward ordering two. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and on the LA Times 101 list. The stir-fried holy basil with pork is not an afterthought.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

Eleven seats at a counter, hidden behind a door inside Bar 109 in Melrose Hill, with reservations that will take some planning to secure. Corridor 109 is a seafood tasting counter where the chef draws mostly from Japanese fisheries, serving much of it raw with a Japanese-leaning sensibility. The single non-seafood course, wagyu over oxtail jus, lands near the end like a punctuation mark on an otherwise ocean-driven menu.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

One seating a night, a handful of seats, and a reservation that requires the patience of a monk. This is a two-Michelin-starred omakase counter in a strip mall on East 7th, where the chef sources, slices, and explains every course himself, plating on Japanese pottery from his personal collection. The menu chases the season hard, and the sake list runs deep for anyone who wants to go down that road with it.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Best Chef: California · Brandon Hayato Go
3. Time Out #2 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Eater The Best Soft Serve in Los Angeles

The counter seats maybe a dozen people, the room is barely wider than a hallway, and it runs noon until late without a break. Petit Trois is a French bistro in Hollywood doing the classics straight: escargots, steak frites, a legendary omelet. French hip-hop plays while the kitchen ignores it completely and turns out textbook bistro cooking. The "Big Mec," a double cheeseburger finished with bordelaise, is the one concession to the neighborhood.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Time Out #24 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

You get instructions in advance on how to find the entrance, which sets the tone for what follows inside. Restaurant Ki is a ten-seat contemporary Korean tasting menu tucked into downtown LA, where the chef pulls global technique into Korean foundations without making a fuss about it. It holds a Michelin star, and a James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant didn't hurt its reputation either. Worth finding the door.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best New Restaurant
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best New Restaurant

1. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America

Jordan Kahn's two-Michelin-star tasting menu operates inside a structure Culver City locals call "The Waffle," a red steel lattice that looks like it landed from somewhere with better architecture. The food inside is just as committed to the bit: courses that are visually theatrical and technically serious, edible flowers floating in tomato water, flavors that feel like they were calibrated rather than cooked. Dress accordingly; this is not a casual Tuesday.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. Los Angeles Times #33 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

1. Los Angeles Times Fifty Under $50

A hand-cranked rotisserie sits at the center of the open kitchen, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Italian restaurant on Beverly. The room has the warm, dark energy of a place that knows it's good, with backlit booths and a crowd that books early. Hearty pastas, big proteins, and vegetables that actually want to be there. The New York Times put it on their LA list, and the Los Angeles Times ranked it in their top ten statewide.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

1. Food & Wine Borekas · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year

You enter through a discreet side door, which sets the tone for Josiah Citrin's long-running Santa Monica tasting menu. Inside, the room feels like a velvet underground with good silverware, and the French decadence runs toward the gratuitous side, which is the point. Tableside saucing, antique silver press, dry-aged duck, truffles on everything. Two Michelin stars.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. Los Angeles Times #23 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Persian crispy rice arrives with egg yolks that make sharing a genuine moral dilemma. Kismet is a casual Middle Eastern restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard where seasonal vegetables and bright flavors run the show, and nothing on the table feels heavy. The Michelin Bib Gourmand room draws a Los Feliz crowd that looks like they biked here and also know exactly what they're ordering. The staff matches the energy perfectly.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Los Angeles Times #27 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

1. Los Angeles Times #100 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Inch-thick pan pizzas baked to order out of a tiny Echo Park shop with a vinyl and cassette collection on the walls. Quarter Sheets draws a crowd serious enough that a wait is part of the deal, and the pastries from the team's baker, a James Beard semifinalist, are a genuine surprise at a pizza counter. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the New York Times put it on their restaurant list. Wear whatever you'd wear to a friend's place.

1. Food & Wine Best New Chefs · Hannah Ziskin
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

Satsuki rice porridge finished with parmesan cream and uni tells you everything about what Josef Centeno is doing at this prix-fixe counter in Downtown LA. Italian and Japanese cooking share more DNA than people expect, and this Michelin-starred omakase-style room leans into that overlap with crudos brightened by fruit and herbs and seafood that reads Mediterranean one bite and Japanese the next. The open kitchen keeps it intimate, which is a polite way of saying you'll want to be paying attention.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Los Angeles Times #25 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. Time Out #12 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

Finding Sushi Kaneyoshi, tucked into a basement of Little Tokyo, is half the evening. Once you locate it, the counter is serene and minimalist in the way that signals a serious omakase, and Chef Yoshiyuki Inoue fires a Michelin star from behind it. He throws pottery himself, and some of that handmade ceramics holds the courses. Every detail gets this treatment, down to the miso soup you'd normally ignore.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Los Angeles Times #24 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. Time Out #16 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Esquire Restaurant of the Year
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

No ocean in sight from this busy East Hollywood corner, but the seafood at Found Oyster doesn't seem to notice. It's a no-frills bar and seafood spot where the team applies a firm philosophy: impeccably sourced shellfish needs little beyond a squeeze of lemon to do its job. The oysters come from the general manager's family farm, which is either charming or unfair competition, depending on how you look at it. The New York Times and the LA Times have both taken notice.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
3. Los Angeles Times #78 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Seats at the chef's counter let you watch the whole operation unfold at this sleek DTLA tasting menu spot from the husband-and-wife team behind it. The look is concrete floors and black-and-white walls, the format is modern Korean, and the pairings run alcoholic or not. The Los Angeles Times ranked it third on their list of the city's best restaurants in 2025, and the James Beard Foundation nominated the chef for Best Chef: California.

1. Eater The All-Time Eater 38
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: California · Kwang Uh
3. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America

A Michelin-starred counter tucked into the second floor of a Sawtelle strip mall, which tells you something about Los Angeles. Chef Hayato Kojima runs an intimate omakase for a handful of diners at once, no printed menu, no fixed courses, just whatever he sourced that morning explained warmly by staff who bridge the language gap. Everyone eats together, so arrive on time or the whole table waits.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

Tucked into Mandarin Plaza on Broadway, this contemporary Chinese American restaurant and bar is the project of a first-generation chef cooking his own story onto the plate. The cocktail program is serious enough to earn national bartender recognition, so start there before the food arrives. Dishes are built for sharing, the kitchen is open to the room, and the whole setup feels more like a dinner party than a transaction.

1. Esquire Bartender of the Year · Kenzo Han
2. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best New Restaurant
3. Punch Best New Bartenders · Kenzo Han

String lights and climbing vines turn the back patio into the kind of dinner setting that makes you forget you're in the middle of a city. Alta Adams is a Southern restaurant on the West Adams corridor, and the kitchen cooks with the confidence of someone who has been making fried chicken and coconut cake their whole life. Portions run generous, which makes it a natural for groups. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: California.

1. Eater The All-Time Eater 38
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times #44 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Matt Groening is a regular, and his illustrations hang on the wall alongside the framed press clippings, which tells you something about the Jitlada experience. This Southern Thai restaurant occupies a well-worn strip mall on Sunset, but the menu runs to hundreds of dishes, split between familiar Thai standards and a deep catalog of southern specialties that most LA Thai spots don't touch. A James Beard nominee, and the kind of place regulars will talk your ear off about.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Best Chef: California · Sarintip “Jazz” Singsanong
2. Time Out #8 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Sarintip “Jazz” Singsanong

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Emerging Chef · Fátima Juárez
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. The New York Times Molotes de Plátano · The Best Restaurant Dishes We Ate Across the U.S.

Skylights flood the slender dining room here, which helps explain why Fairfax regulars have been packing it since forever. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo run this easygoing Italian-American cafe built around a long counter and a wood-fired oven that handles both pizzas and pasta with equal confidence. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the servers move like they know it. Expect lightly charred pies and house-made pasta in a room that never feels like it's trying too hard.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles

A French-leaning wine list runs deep at this cozy New American bistro on Western, but the kitchen earns its share of the attention. The menu is short and seasonal, built around what the market turned up that week rather than any fixed idea of itself. The cooking is restrained in the way that actually requires confidence. Wine Enthusiast named it one of the top new restaurants in 2025, and the Michelin Guide has it selected.

1. Wine Enthusiast Top 50 New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times #59 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

1. The Infatuation Our Favorite Bakeries In The Country Right Now
2. Eater Best New Bakery
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles

Citrin sits in the same building as the tasting-menu-only Mélisse, but it offers a more flexible format, with prix-fixe and à la carte alongside each other. The kitchen runs on French technique and California produce, classical at the bone but with modern, global instincts. Caviar and truffle upgrades are available for the inclined, though the cooking holds its own without them. It holds a Michelin star.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Food & Wine McSatan · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year
2. Los Angeles Times #53 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. Los Angeles Times Poseidon taco · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Winner · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
2. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

1. Food & Wine Best New Chefs · Wedchayan "Deau" Arpapornnopparat
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now

1. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
3. Los Angeles Times #47 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Two wood-burning ovens run the show at this Glassell Park Southern restaurant, and nearly everything on the menu passes through them at some point. Oysters, cornbread, pork chops, braised greens that bubble by the coals all night. Long communal tables and wax candles fill the main room; counter seats face the kitchen. A quieter wine bar in the back serves a shorter menu for anyone who wants the vibe at half the volume.

1. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

The clay pot of three-cup Jidori chicken arrives at your table still simmering, which tells you everything about how seriously this casual Taiwanese restaurant takes itself. Exposed brick, concrete floors, and a laid-back South LA vibe don't telegraph the kitchen's precision, but the Michelin Bib Gourmand does. Vegetarian takes on mapo tofu and dumplings hold their own alongside the meat dishes, and the lotus root salad is quietly worth ordering.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
3. Los Angeles Times #76 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Dave Beran's Santa Monica bistro leans hard into France with no apologies and no asterisks. Wood beams, exposed brick, and white kitchen tile set the scene, and the pressed duck for two is the kind of centerpiece that makes the table next to you lean over and ask what you ordered. The marble bar handles a more casual drop-in just fine, with Champagne and caviar if you're feeling it. A New York Times pick for the city's best.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now

1. Time Out The best bakeries in America

The No. 19, a hot pastrami on rye with Swiss, coleslaw, and Russian dressing, is the thing strangers stop you to ask about when you're carrying it to your table. Langer's is an old-school deli, been around forever, with booths, a full menu of latkes and chopped liver, and breakfast served all day. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which feels about right for a place where the sandwich does all the talking.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Time Out #40 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Eater Best Bakeries
2. Eater Best Hometown Bakery · The 2025 Eater Los Angeles Award Winners

Brick floors, creeping vines, and a crowd that seems to have been cast by a Venice Beach location scout. This Abbot Kinney institution is a Mediterranean restaurant built around wood-fired pizzas and shared plates, with vegetables doing serious heavy lifting on the menu. It's spawned a bakery, a to-go counter, and a cookbook, which is a lot of offspring for one room. A Michelin Selected spot that's also on the all-time Eater 38.

1. Eater The All-Time Eater 38
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Time Out The best bakeries in America

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Emerging Chef · Rashida Holmes
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Rashida Holmes

Salt-and-pepper-crusted brisket smoked in the Austin tradition is the reason people line up at this Lincoln Heights barbecue shop. What started as a weekend backyard hobby grew into a proper room with a craft beer bar to keep you company while you wait. The Michelin Bib Gourmand is on record, and the James Beard committee has taken notice too. Come early; things sell out, and "we ran out" is the one review nobody wants.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
3. Los Angeles Times #41 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

The patio at this Culver City contemporary French restaurant seats as many as the dining room, which tells you something about how the place pictures itself. Dinner is when the kitchen finds its stride, moving through chicken liver mousse in a delicate tart, clean fish preparations, and proper desserts. The wine list leans hard into by-the-glass options, which the room seems to appreciate.

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Los Angeles Times #46 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

1. The Infatuation 11 Of The Best Donuts In America

1. Punch Best New Bartenders · Kevin Nguyen
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America

The tenth floor of a downtown hotel turns out to be a fine place to stare at Walt Disney Concert Hall while José Andrés's team works through a menu of modern Californian cooking with a Spanish lean. The facade opens fully, making the room feel more rooftop than restaurant. A Forbes Four Star. Earth tones, greenery, a busy bar, and a tomato tartare that arrives looking like the beef version but absolutely is not.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Rooftop Restaurant

A repurposed warehouse in the Arts District with polished concrete, exposed brick, and enough trailing greenery that you half-forget you're surrounded by industrial bones. Damian is a full-service Mexican restaurant where the kitchen takes the cuisine seriously without making you feel lectured about it. The terrace fills fast, the cocktails are sharp, and the fish taco quietly outclasses everything you thought you knew about fish tacos.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Time Out #7 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
3. Los Angeles Times #21 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

A lineup of house sambals lands on the table before you've made any decisions, which is a useful way to begin at this easygoing Malaysian restaurant on Beverly. Chef Johnny Lee's Chinese-Malaysian cooking runs from satay and charred okra to beef rendang with buttery roti, and the plates are sized for sharing, which softens the slightly higher tabs. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The Infatuation #9 · LA’s Best New Restaurants
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Holly Fox and Adam Weisblatt - Last Word Hospitality