The Top 100 Places to Eat Near The Cellar Restaurant

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Pakistani-Indian restaurant on a Fullerton strip that otherwise runs to taquerias and carnicerias, which tells you something about how much confidence it takes to open here. The room is bright and a little hip, with a craft mocktail bar in the back. Beef is quietly central to the menu, though chicken and vegetable dishes hold their own. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and on Eater's list of essential Orange County restaurants.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

Lanterns of every shape crowd the ceiling of this intimate sushi shop tucked into an open-air strip mall in Fullerton, which is either the last thing you'd expect or exactly the kind of setup that delivers. The menu is short, with daily specials filling the gaps, and the nigiri and sashimi are where the kitchen is clearly most at ease. The rolls get their own dedicated section too, if that's your move.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program

The popovers arrive with housemade tomato jam before you've even settled in, which tells you a lot about how this Anaheim steakhouse operates. Saddle-and-spur decor sets the mood at this meat-forward room, though produce from the restaurant's own farm keeps things from feeling purely carnivorous. The prime rib and scalloped potatoes are built for sharing, as is everything else, unless you've skipped lunch with conviction.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants
3. Los Angeles Times #32 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

Dinner inside a working greenhouse, with outdoor tables ringed by citrus trees and herbs, sets the mood before a plate arrives. Poppy & Seed is a fine dining room in Anaheim's Packing District built around organic, locally sourced Southern cooking, the kind where shrimp and grits shares a menu with steak tartare brightened by pickled sea beans. A James Beard semifinalist, it draws a crowd that dresses up without overdoing it and lingers well past sunset.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Michael Reed

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

Coca-Cola glazed pork belly and Doritos-dusted chilaquiles set the tone at this taco-forward Mexican restaurant in Cerritos, where the chef brings a fine-dining background to handmade tortillas and spicy salsas. The menu leans into LA's Mexican-American hybrid instincts, with truffle accents sitting comfortably beside beer-battered cod. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a spot on the LA Times taco list.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times Short rib taco · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

1. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · United States' Best Hotel Restaurant

Tucked into an easy-to-miss strip mall in Buena Park, this compact ramen shop seats maybe twenty people in a room that skips every non-essential, including ambiance. The menu is short and ramen is the clear center of gravity, from a rich, creamy spicy red miso to a lighter chicken broth that holds its own. The Michelin Bib Gourmand makes sense the moment the bowl arrives. Pork buns float in quietly and do their job.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Large metal bowls of steaming pho arrive trailing the scent of anise, and the broth is sweet enough that people come back for it the way some people return to a therapist. This Westminster pho shop splits its menu into beginner and adventurer sides, with noodle style and cut of beef chosen at the counter. The Los Angeles Times named it among California's 101 best restaurants, and the Michelin Guide has it listed too. Bring patience; the room fills fast.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Bakery
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Bakery
3. The New York Times 22 of the Best Bakeries Across the U.S. Right Now

The handwritten menu changes nightly, which tells you almost everything about how seriously this strip-mall sushi counter takes itself. Tucked into an unremarkable Garden Grove plaza, Taira runs as both omakase and izakaya à la carte, so you can commit fully or just graze. The Michelin Guide picked it up, and the warm, personal hospitality from the team makes the modest room feel like considerably more than its address suggests.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. US Coffee Championships #3 · U.S. Coffee in Good Spirits Championship · Glen Ackerman

1. AAA Four Diamonds

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

Cochinita pibil marinated in citrus and achiote, pulled and served with fresh tortillas, is the kind of dish that makes Yucatán cooking click. This modern Mexican restaurant in Tustin focuses on the smoke- and spice-driven food of the peninsula, and it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Mezcal cocktails come customized with tamarind and mole bitters, and the charred habanero salsa arrives whether you ordered it or not, which is the right call.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

A Michelin-starred French fine dining room on the third floor of South Coast Plaza, which sounds like a punchline until you're actually sitting at the chef's counter watching a pristine kitchen run through a prix fixe that manages to feel personal rather than ceremonial. Tony Esnault's cooking leans classic French with a roaming curiosity. The patio is a quiet bonus, and the whole place moves at a pace that makes a mall feel very far away.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

The clipboard by the front door tells you everything: this pho shop in Garden Grove has been an old-school institution long enough that the wait is just part of the ritual. The spartan room has a bright yellow wall covered in accolades, including a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and nobody glances up from their bowl long enough to admire them. The oxtail broth is what regulars order without looking at the menu.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Distressed wood and exposed brick give this intimate Santa Ana sushi counter the feel of a tavern that took a sharp left turn into Japan. Chef Gino Choi runs an omakase where the mood is warm and unhurried, and the courses keep pace with his evident enthusiasm for the form. The Michelin Guide has it listed. Tucked into a quiet stretch of downtown, it draws the kind of crowd that drives past the freeway exits everyone else takes.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

A converted Craftsman in the Rose Park neighborhood, far enough from the Long Beach waterfront to feel like a local secret. Heritage holds a Michelin star and runs a single multicourse tasting menu, priced more modestly than you'd expect, built around produce from the team's own nearby farm. The California cooking leans seasonal and fruit-forward throughout, savory and sweet alike. The sibling duo running the kitchen and floor keep things unhurried without losing the thread.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Tucked into the back of a Rowland Heights strip mall stacked floor-to-ceiling with restaurants, this Taiwanese spot is the kind of place you almost drive past three times before finding. Inside, the warehouse floors and generously spaced tables make it unusually calm for a menu that reads like a small novel, packed with seafood, consommés, and rice dishes. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and regulars tend to already know what they're ordering before they sit down.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

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

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

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

Handmade flour tortillas and hand-pressed masa are the foundation at this Mexican gastropub in downtown Santa Ana, where a post-pandemic reset trimmed the menu down to tacos, quekas, and churros and made each one count. The Bib Gourmand reflects that focus. Grilled tomato and dried chili salsa ties the tacos together; habanero salsa does the same for the quekas. Happy hour makes running the whole short list an easy call.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Los Angeles Times Citrus marinated chicken taco · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Viet Nguyen

The refrigerators hum louder than the dining room at this bare-bones dumpling shop tucked into the back of a City of Industry strip mall. Water is available if you ask, and the menu makes more sense once you find the poster on the wall. None of that matters much when handmade dumplings arrive with fillings like lamb with fennel or pork with lotus root, and noodles come glossed in scallion oil.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

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. 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

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. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. Los Angeles Times #43 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding 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. Time Out #16 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
3. Los Angeles Times #24 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

The banquettes are printed with jokes, which tells you something about the mood at this rustic Spanish tapas bar from chef Amar Santana. Sherries and Spanish wines run deep, the bar area is a good-looking place to park yourself, and the kitchen sends out croquetas, paellas, and little grilled sandwiches layered with jamón ibérico and Manchego. Two outdoor patios round out the options when the weather cooperates, which in Costa Mesa it usually does.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

Omakase in a Rowland Heights strip mall, and the price point will make you do a double-take. Sushi Yuen runs a tight, focused counter where most nigiri comes imported from Japan and the kitchen opens with seasonal courses that punch well above the room's modest surroundings. Lunch is walk-ins only and draws a devoted crowd. The Michelin Guide has had its eye on the place, which should settle any doubts the parking lot raises.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

Ten seats tucked into the back corner of a Costa Mesa shopping mall, which sounds like a punchline until you're actually sitting at the counter. Hana re runs a leisurely omakase that moves through composed dishes and delicate nigiri with the kind of unhurried calm that makes the parking lot outside feel very far away. The sake list gives you something to think about between courses.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

A scarlet lobster logo, shells painted gold and silver on the wall, and half the tables splitting one at any given hour make the signature self-evident at this Cantonese restaurant in Alhambra. Henry's is an unassuming room doing homestyle cooking that's increasingly hard to find, selected by the Michelin Guide and named to the LA Times' 101 best. Come at dinner when the full menu opens up, and ask what vegetables are in season.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. Time Out #34 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

Chef Rocio Camacho has built a mole-focused Mexican restaurant in Bell Gardens around a question most kitchens dodge: why stop at one? The room is spare and unpretentious, the moles are not, running from an ink-dark Oaxaqueño to a spicy-sweet manchamanteles to a bright verde, each layered enough to hold your attention from first bite to last. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a James Beard semifinalist.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Rocio Camacho

The dining room looks straight out over the water at Newport Beach, which would be enough for most restaurants to coast on. This modern New American spot holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and earns it by pairing that view with a menu that swings from inventive vegetable dishes to an ambitious slow-roasted porchetta. The crowd comes for the scenery and stays because the food keeps surprising them.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County 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

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

1. US Coffee Championships #3 · U.S. Coffee in Good Spirits Championship · Glen Ackerman

Chengdu Taste does not negotiate with your spice tolerance. This Alhambra Sichuan restaurant has been packing in crowds for years without once softening its approach, and the dining room smells like chili oil and vindication. Toothpick lamb, heavy with cumin, is the move that everyone talks about. The Michelin Bib Gourmand is on record here, and lunch is the local's trick for skipping the line that forms most evenings.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Time Out #36 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

Dim sum ordered off a menu rather than flagged down from a cart means everything arrives from the steamer still properly hot, which sounds obvious until you've had the other kind. This Cantonese seafood restaurant in Rosemead holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and draws the kind of crowd that fills large round tables for both weekend dim sum and proper evening dinners. The seafood is the reason to stay through dinner.

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #6 · Elite 30 Canada
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Tony Ho

Ordering here happens on a tablet, which suits the no-frills dining room just fine because the Chinese noodle shop menu is the whole point. The rou jia mo, a flatbread sandwich stuffed with slow-cooked Kurobuta pork, is the kind of street food that makes you forget every other errand you had planned. Braised beef noodles and soup dumplings round out the things you'll feel obligated to order. Rosemead strip mall, easy parking, zero pretension.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles

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

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Finalist · Best New Cafe

An upstairs omakase spot above Pacific Coast Highway where the fish comes from Japan and the menu follows the seasons like it has somewhere to be. The kaiseki-style progression moves from delicate cold bites through sashimi and nigiri to dessert, each course composed with the kind of precision that makes you slow down mid-bite. Newport Beach casual this is not, but the room is chic without being stiff about it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. Condé Nast Traveler The best new restaurants in the world
2. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
3. The New York Times The Restaurant List

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.

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

A fire engine-red Berkel slicer sits in open view of the dining room, which tells you something about how seriously this fine dining French restaurant takes its charcuterie. Husband-and-wife team Florent and Amelia Marneau run a kitchen that moves between classical and modern French without making a fuss about it. The glassed-in kitchen and soft globe lighting keep things elegant without going stiff. The cocktail list tracks the seasons, and the wine pairings are unusually fairly priced.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County 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. US Coffee Championships #3 · U.S. Coffee in Good Spirits Championship · Glen Ackerman

Samosas fried to a proper crisp, with that classic potato-and-pea filling, are a good early sign at this Punjabi restaurant in La Puente. The kitchen leans into north Indian cooking, which means the heat stays measured and the flavors do the work instead. The room is warm in the way that matters, with staff who pay attention. The tandoori dinner is a reasonable way to commit to the whole thing.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

1. LAist Makali pita · Best Bites

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Honoree · Sustainable Cafe or Coffee Roaster

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles
2. Los Angeles Times Chorreada mixto · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants
2. Los Angeles Times #91 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. LAist Smashburger · Best Bites

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. Time Out #15 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
3. Los Angeles Times Tacos dorados de camarón · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

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

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. The New York Times The Restaurant List

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

The parking lot fills fast and the wait on weekends is real, but this Cantonese noodle shop in Rosemead moves its crowd along with the confidence of a place that has never needed dim sum carts to draw a line. Everything arrives hot and carefully seasoned, from steamed buns packed with char siu to rice noodle rolls that most tables order twice. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and priced like they forgot to notice.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The signature fried shrimp taco has a shell that shatters like tempura, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Jalisco-style mariscos shop in Pomona. The menu is short: tostadas loaded with lime-forward ceviche and that taco, nothing more. Raul Ortega started with a truck in Boyle Heights and the city never really let go. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. First-timers order one; everyone else orders a plate.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The menu at this tiny Arcadia noodle shop is short by design, because the kitchen is doing exactly one thing: Shanxi-style hand-pulled noodles, springy and chewy in a way that dried pasta simply isn't. The pork belly and fermented soy number has regulars arguing over what to call it. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, cash-and-carry energy, and a strip mall address that filters out anyone not paying attention.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. Time Out #4 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

1. Time Out #13 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
2. Los Angeles Times #75 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

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

1. Eater The 38 Essential Orange County Restaurants

Doors open at 11:30 and close a few hours later, which tells you everything: this small Taiwanese restaurant in Temple City operates on its own terms, and the lines that form before opening tell you the neighborhood is fine with that. The menu hangs above the cash register, so you read it standing up. Tea arrives in a Styrofoam cup without asking. Expect to be out in twenty minutes, holding a Michelin Bib Gourmand memory.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The strip-mall facade on Las Tunas gives nothing away, but inside, the room goes full imperial, red and gold and blue, with the kind of scale that makes you feel a dinner party is the minimum viable unit. This is fine dining rooted in royal Manchu cuisine from the Qing court, so luxury ingredients arrive without apology. Come with a crowd and order widely; the menu rewards the ambitious table. A Michelin Guide selected restaurant.

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles
2. Los Angeles Times #88 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles

The line outside this small Malaysian café in Alhambra is the first thing you notice, and it doesn't thin out much once you're in. The menu is short and focused on classics: Hainanese chicken, curry with roti canai, kaya toast. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which feels about right for a neighborhood spot where the takeout tickets never stop piling up. Come with patience and without a reservation, because neither option exists.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Notable Roaster

A Michelin-starred bistro in the Arts District where the steak au poivre and golden frites hold their ground alongside some genuinely inventive plating. The kitchen leans French but isn't reverent about it, which is part of the appeal. The Provence Martini made Esquire's list of the finest in the country, so the bar pulls its weight too. It fills up fast and the open kitchen keeps the room loud and kinetic.

1. Esquire Provence Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Time Out #18 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

A sign-in sheet on the sidewalk is your first clue that this strip-mall dumpling shop in Monrovia runs on its own terms. The menu is short, roughly half of it devoted to the namesake specialty, and the kitchen makes everything fresh each morning rather than pulling from a freezer. The pan-fried options tend to disappear fastest. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which explains the lines without quite preparing you for them.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Eight seats, weekends only, two seatings a night: Sushi Sonagi runs on its own terms, and regulars plan weeks out to keep them. The omakase here comes from a second-generation sushi chef working a deeply personal menu, where female snow crab arrives in a stone pot, gets pressed into a crispy crust at the table, and then disappears fast. The Michelin Guide has had its eye on this Gardena counter, and the room fills accordingly.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Time Out #20 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

Sichuan cooking in a bright, window-lined room in Alhambra, where the mapo tofu and tea-smoked duck have followed loyalists from the old address a couple miles away. The kitchen runs on scarlet numbing oils and chopped chilis, and a bowl of fish in rattan pepper broth will leave your lips buzzing in the best possible, er, notable way. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a private room handles large parties well.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

No carts circle the dining room at this Alhambra dim sum house, which tells you something about how seriously the kitchen takes the whole operation. Orders come by menu, servers move fast, and the lobster noodle roll arrives on a platter dressed with the shell itself, a small piece of theater that gets noticed across the room. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, and the crowd on a weekend morning is exactly what you'd expect.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
2. Los Angeles Times #93 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. Los Angeles Times Brisket taco · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles

A neighborhood Japanese restaurant in Seal Beach where the chefs know the regulars by name and the regulars never need a menu. The sashimi lineup alone draws them back, moving from kampachi and clam through several varieties of oyster before landing on nigiri finished with quiet precision. Nothing here is trying to be trendy, and the room seems glad about that. The Michelin Guide has it listed among its selected restaurants.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. Time Out #32 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now

The facade is aggressively nondescript, which means most people walk right past a Northern Thai restaurant that the Michelin Guide has quietly noted. Inside, the room goes full color and quirk. The menu is long, but the Chiang Rai Local Food section is where to spend your attention. The kitchen defaults to gentle heat, so speak up if you want the real thing. The khao soi here swaps the usual chicken for thin-sliced raw ribeye, finished tableside by the hot broth.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

A Craftsman bungalow with a front porch, herringbone floors, and a brick fireplace that makes a convincing case for staying all evening. This is a refined Southern restaurant where fried chicken, biscuits, gumbo, and fried green tomatoes anchor the menu, with the kitchen adding enough unexpected turns to keep things interesting. The crowd tends toward date-night and linger-over-a-second-glass, which fits the room's cozy, parlor-like logic perfectly.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

Neapolitan-style pizza on the Pacific Coast Highway, where the crust stays soft and just barely charred at the rim, the way it should. This southern Italian restaurant keeps things unfussy: good product, warm service, a room that feels festive without trying too hard. It landed at number 25 on 50 Top Pizza USA, which tracks for a place where the pizza tastes like the owner is proving a point about where they're from.

1. 50 Top Pizza #25 · 50 Top Pizza USA