The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Johnny's

Hand-pressed tortillas cooked on a comal over live fire are the opening act at this casual Mexican counter inside Maydan Market. The tlayuda is the main event: a hearty, meal-worthy situation loaded with beans, cheese, cabbage, and salsa, built to share if you add one of the proteins. The moronga is the one to get. Order at the counter, find a seat, and arrive with an appetite.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A courtyard anchored by a large tree strung with twinkling lights sets the mood at this West Adams pasta-forward Italian restaurant. Chef Avner Levi started as a pop-up, and the laidback ease of that origin stuck. Pasta is the point, housemade and taken seriously, though the lamb ossobuco braised with mole earns its place on the menu too. The crowd tends toward neighborhood date-night, which the setting handles without trying too hard.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

1. Time Out #17 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
2. Los Angeles Times Al pastor taco · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

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

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
2. US Coffee Championships #2 · U.S. Brewers Cup · Christian Bak

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

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

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

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 · Best New Cafe

1. Sprudgie Awards 2023 · Finalist · Best New Cafe

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

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

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.

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

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

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. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Best New Cafe

1. Los Angeles Times Fifty Under $50

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

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

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

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

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

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

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

1. Sunset Inspired Italian · Where to Eat and Drink

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

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

The photo wall by the door, stacked with chefs, actors, and politicians, tells you everything about how long Park's has been the go-to Korean BBQ spot in LA. Servers manage the tabletop grills for you, slicing and flipping prime cuts from bulgogi to galbi, with American Wagyu for the committed. The kimchi pancakes arrive on cast-iron skillets, hot and crisp, and the cold noodles cut through all that smoke.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Time Out #29 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

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. Los Angeles Times #5 · 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. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
3. Los Angeles Times #66 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

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

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

1. The Infatuation 11 Of The Best Donuts In America

The website is ilovemole.com, which tells you everything about what this Oaxacan restaurant is here to do. The orange façade announces it from blocks away, and inside, the grill station fills the room with the smell of blistering peppers before you've even sat down. The moles, particularly the negro and rojo, are the reason regulars keep coming back. Complimentary chips arrive already drizzled with mole coloradito, so you're committed before you've ordered.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Time Out #39 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

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

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

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

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

The draw at this Koreatown restaurant is a whole duck roasted in a clay pot, stuffed with chestnuts, sweet potato, rice, and herbs, and it requires a day's notice, which is either a dealbreaker or the first sign you're dealing with something serious. The bird arrives bronzed and carved tableside. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, it's the kind of place that rewards anyone willing to plan ahead and bring a group to share the thing properly.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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

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

An Ethiopian restaurant sitting quietly in the Little Ethiopia stretch of Fairfax, where injera-lined silver platters arrive on the table and a fork is beside the point. The family-run team keeps the room simple and lets the food argue for itself, which it does. The kitfo draws regulars back, and the Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. Come with a group large enough to order widely, or you'll spend the meal regretting what you skipped.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times #86 · 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

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

Order at the wood counter, catch a glimpse of the kitchen behind it, and try not to eat the pastries before your food arrives. Liu's Cafe is a small, low-key Chinese diner on 6th Street where the seats fill fast and the menu leans into comfort: wontons, braised pork belly rice, chili oil noodles, a pot of milk oolong on the side. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the sesame cold noodles won a LAist Best Bites nod.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. LAist Sesame cold noodles · Best Bites

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

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

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

Wood smoke from the rotisserie drifts a block down Western before you even see the place, which is as good an advertisement as any. This Koreatown Peruvian spot has been an old-school institution for decades, turning out whole chickens over live fire with a crispy, marinated skin that keeps the family recipe firmly in-house. The twice-fried fries and the spicy green aji sauce are not optional. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the wait will remind you why.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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

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

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

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

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

A pasta bar in Koreatown where the menu reads like a thought experiment: what if Italy and Korea had sorted things out earlier? Husband-and-wife chefs run a tight, dimly lit room with bar seating wrapping the space, the kind of setup that makes a solo dinner feel intentional rather than sad. The Korean-Italian mash-ups go all the way through to dessert, so order broadly and let the table sort out the overlaps.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · America's Classics: California

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

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Alfonso “Poncho” Martinez

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Eater Best New Restaurant

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles
3. Los Angeles Times #29 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

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

1. Time Out #9 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

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

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

Servers in traditional garments, each one quietly wired with an earpiece, set the tone at this upscale Korean barbecue institution on Olympic. The menu leans into the classics, short ribs and galbi done with evident kitchen seriousness, and the banchan spread alone warrants the trip across town. Tables fill with large groups feeding the grill, and the waits run long, so treat the room as the whole evening rather than a stop along the way.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

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

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

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

Jordan Kahn's daytime cafe in the architecturally eccentric Hayden Tract looks like a place that takes itself very seriously, and then the food shows up and you realize it has earned the silence. The interior is stripped to near nothing, which focuses you entirely on plates that are genuinely intricate without announcing it. A morning or lunch stop, but not a casual one.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times #14 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Time Out #28 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

Chris Bianco, the Phoenix pizza legend, brought his wood-fired pies to Los Angeles and the lines haven't stopped since. This is a pizza shop in ROW DTLA with a handful of pies on the menu, a takeout window, and outdoor seats where people happily eat standing up over open boxes. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which should settle the New York argument. Lunch adds sandwiches; the antipasto platter fills the gaps.

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Food Pioneer · Chris Bianco
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Los Angeles Times #68 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Greg Dulan
2. Time Out #25 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Greg Dulan

A seafood restaurant where the fried fish sandwich at lunch is reason enough to show up, with clean batter, juicy fish, and the kind of balance that makes most sandwich shops look sloppy. This Melrose Ave sit-down spot is the newer sibling of an Echo Park original, keeping the same focus on sustainably sourced fish and California produce. The room is bright, the wines lean natural, and the service knows what it's doing.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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. Time Out The best bakeries in America

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

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America

1. Food & Wine Turkish Coffee Cream Pie · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year

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

1. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America

The name translates to "butcher shop," which tells you exactly where the kitchen's priorities lie. This sprawling Korean BBQ spot on Western Avenue runs on premium beef, grilled tableside over your own flame, with banchan that keeps arriving and service that actually keeps up. The tomahawk feeds a table of four with ease. Everything else, from dry-aged prime rib to marinated short rib, gets finished with little more than soy and salt.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The line stretching down 8th Street is basically the sign out front at this downtown taqueria. Sonoratown runs a tight counter-order operation: tacos, burritos, and quesadillas, all built on house-made flour tortillas in the Sonoran style. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which explains why finding a seat, indoors or out, is mostly a matter of luck and timing.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times Fifty Under $50
3. Los Angeles Times Caramelo with costilla · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

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. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America

1. Punch Best New Bartenders · Kevin Nguyen
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America

1. The New York Times 22 of the Best Bakeries Across the U.S. Right Now

Servers in hanbok and a warren of curtained private rooms signal that this isn't your average Koreatown Korean restaurant. Yong Su San specializes in royal court cuisine, the elaborate dishes once prepared for Korea's aristocracy, and the setting leans into that history with carved wooden seats and cushioned booths. Large groups tend to arrive for set menus, but the à la carte banchan spread alone makes an argument for a quieter table for two.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

An Echo Park izakaya with exposed red brick and a sake list the servers are eager to walk you through. The menu is built for sharing, running from chawanmushi with dungeness crab to grilled skewers and delicate tempura, all of it casual in presentation and careful in execution. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and ranked among the Los Angeles Times' top restaurants in the state. Book well clear of a Dodgers home game unless you enjoy circling the block.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Los Angeles Times #37 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

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

Meats arrive in quarter-pound portions here, the menu structure doing double duty as the restaurant's name. This is an upscale Korean BBQ spot in Koreatown where the lines wrapping the block suggest the neighborhood has already made up its mind. Reservations help, or an early lunch will. Solo diners are required to order at least two cuts, which, given the marbled short rib coming off the grill, is less a hardship than it sounds.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Concrete floors, hanging plants, and a long bar anchoring the room set the tone at this sleek Korean restaurant in Koreatown. The menu is built around shareable plates, with wagyu cooked over charcoal and a crispy scallion pancake with mentaiko sauce doing most of the heavy lifting. Save room for the pastry course, which lands closer to art project than afterthought.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. AAA Four Diamonds