The Top 100 Places to Eat and Drink Near United Polaris Lounge
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Rank 2. Tomat
Californian New American
A pale-green dining room dressed in rust-leather banquettes sets the stage for seasonal cooking that takes shape as evening falls. The kitchen moves deftly through local produce—charred vegetables nested in ajo blanco, a Liberty Farms duck split and crisped, dressed with pomegranate-walnut mole—and closes with sticky toffee pudding and burnt-milk gelato. The effect is farm-direct without the fuss.
- Esquire 2025 · The Best New Restaurants in America
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #82 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 3. Ayara Thai
Thai
Vanda Asapahu commands this family spot with wood tables and a patio, moving deftly between canonical Thai—a papaya salad with genuine heat, green curries built on fresh chili paste—and French-inflected desserts like Thai tea flan with bitter caramel and berries. The kitchen respects heat tolerance without apology, treating spice as negotiable only after the dish's essential character is set.
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Rank 4. Two Hommés
West African/Californian
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · The 101 Best Restaurants in California
- Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #29 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 5. The Serving Spoon
Soul Food
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Rank 6. Fat + Flour
Bakery
- James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker · Nicole Rucker
- James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker · Nicole Rucker
- LAist 2023 · Cookies · Best Bites
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Rank 7. RVR
Japanese
- Esquire 2025 · Restaurant of the Year
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant
- The New York Times 2025 · The Restaurant List
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Rank 8. Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen
Soul Food Southern
- James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Greg Dulan
- James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Greg Dulan
- Time Out #25 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
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Rank 10. Si! Mon
Central American
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · José Olmedo Carles Rojas
- Eater Chef of the Year · José Olmedo Carles Rojas
- LAist 2025 · Afro-Caribbean shrimp dumplings · Best Bites
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Rank 13. Gjelina
Mediterranean
Brick floors and climbing vines frame a garden-like room where young crowds gather for simply prepared Mediterranean cooking. Saffron spaghetti with bottarga and grilled hanger steak anchor a menu built around vegetables—Japanese sweet potato with jalapeño yogurt, oyster mushroom with tarragon butter—sourced largely from local suppliers and treated with evident care.
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Rank 15. KazuNori
Japanese
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Rank 16. n/naka
Kaiseki Japanese
Chef Niki Nakayama's intimate tasting room presents a graceful interpretation of kaiseki that moves between delicate broths and grilled wagyu, drawing on Japanese and California sources with a light hand. Her signature abalone spaghetti with cod roe and black truffle never leaves the menu, a flourish that signals her vision even as each course shifts.
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Niki Nakayama
- James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Niki Nakayama
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Rank 17. Coni'Seafood
Nayarit-style Mexican
The back patio at this family-run institution feels like the real dining room—a proper place to eat shrimp prepared three ways: breaded in tacos, head-on in chile and beer sauce, swimming in ceviche bright with lime. Since 1987, the kitchen has held steady to Nayarit traditions, sourcing from Sinaloa's waters, and a whole fried fish with chips remains as reliable as the morning tide.
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Los Angeles Times 2024 · Tacos de marlin · The 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles
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Rank 18. Dear Jane's
Seafood
Glass walls frame the marina at Dear Jane's, where old-school seafood and Continental cooking arrive in generous, theatrical portions—caviar scattered across plates, shrimp Louie assembled tableside. The blackened salmon holds its char against a bracing parsley-caper sauce; a wedge salad swaps cream for vinaigrette without apology. Confident, unironic cooking that knows exactly what it is.
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Rank 19. Love & Salt
Italian-Inspired
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Rank 20. Fishing with Dynamite
Seafood
A small seafood restaurant steps from the beach, all sunlit wood and casual warmth. The raw bar anchors the menu—oysters and clams that the staff navigates with ease—while kitchen work stays spare: prawns in garlic butter, scallops over curry sweet potato. Cooking this clean needs no apology.
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Rank 21. Manhattan Beach Post
International
A sprawl of tables near Manhattan Beach Pier fills nightly with families passing small plates across worn wood. Chef David LeFevre sends out head-on prawns in saffron mayo, pork porterhouse with Asian pear kimchi—California cooking with global seasoning and an eye toward sharing. The noise, the crowd, the deliberate smallness of each dish: it's all in service of the meal as conversation.
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Rank 22. Nando Trattoria - Manhattan Beach
Sicilian Italian
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Rank 23. Vin Folk
Wine Bar
Kevin De Los Santos and Katya Shastova have opened a neighborhood wine bistro in Hermosa Beach where the mussels tart arrives in flaky pastry with fennel cream, and chili crab nestles into warm risotto. The room feels unhurried, the wine list approachable, the cooking deliberately generous—each plate designed for sharing, each flavored with a wandering international hand. Book ahead.
- Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #31 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
- Eater Best Place to Be a Regular · The 2025 Eater Los Angeles Award Winners
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Rank 24. Kusano
Omakase Sushi
Chef Kusano works his counter alone, pouring drinks and plating nigiri with equal focus in this pocket-size omakase. The fish arrives spare and direct—mostly nigiri glazed with nikiri, though uni arrives dressed under squid and seaweed, a moment of theater in an otherwise austere meal. What emerges is omakase stripped of pretense, efficient and reasonably priced.
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Rank 25. Hatchet Hall
Southern
A sprawling Southern dining room with a pergola-shaded patio that fills with groups and noise, vintage leather banquettes backing an L-shaped bar where the energy never flags. The menu ranges wide across regional classics—deviled eggs, collard greens with smoked turkey, fried green tomatoes—each executed with the confidence of a kitchen that knows its tradition.
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Rank 26. Somerville
Progressive New American
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Rank 28. Beethoven Market
Italian
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Rank 29. Vespertine
Contemporary
Jordan Kahn's avant-garde tasting menu unfolds in a striking red-steel structure, each plate a visual and technical marvel—scallop with passionfruit and horseradish tuile, flowers suspended in tomato water. The meal sustains its invention through dessert, with zero-waste ethos woven throughout.
- Michelin Guide 2 Stars
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #33 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
- Bon Appétit 2018 · America's Best New Restaurants
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Rank 30. Charcoal Venice
Steakhouse
Josiah Citrin's Venice steakhouse wields fire with precision: grass-fed ribeyes from premium ranches hit the grill alongside seasonal vegetables and handmade pastas, each charred to a specific point of intention. The room—concrete, minimalist, alive with a cocktail crowd—suggests backyard barbecue stripped of nostalgia and rebuilt as something cleaner, more deliberate.
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Rank 31. Nardò Culver City
Southern Italian
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Rank 32. Seline
Californian
Chef Dave Beran's tasting menu at Seline pivots between high-concept ambition and playful surprise, serving ice cream mid-meal and edible succulents in caraway soil. Black cod with wild bay laurel and lamb with burnt strawberry jus demonstrate his gift for balancing sophistication with an edge.
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: California · Dave Beran
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #13 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 33. HomeState
Tex-Mex
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Rank 34. Asadero Chikali
Mexicali-Style
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Rank 36. Dulan's On Crenshaw
Southern
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · Fifty Under $50
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #56 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 37. Carnitas El Artista
Michoacan-Style
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Rank 38. Sushi Masuyoshi
Omakase Sushi
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Rank 39. Pasjoli
French
Dave Beran's Santa Monica bistro channels unapologetic French cooking in a wood-and-brick dining room that hums with purposeful ease. Brioche with chicken liver mousse and pressed duck for two stake his claim; a chocolate soufflé clinches it.
- James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
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Rank 40. Chulita
Oaxacan Mexican
Chulita's spare, sun-flooded dining room near Venice Beach sets the stage for Oaxacan cooking tempered by California sensibility. House-made tortillas wrap tender barbacoa and charred steak; the quesadilla de calabaza, filled with local cheese and topped with pipián, announces serious technique. It's a place where tacos arrive all day and vegan churros somehow don't feel like an afterthought.
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Rank 41. Destroyer
Contemporary
Jordan Kahn's Destroyer strips the room down to white walls so the plate becomes the only spectacle: avocado confit with onion ash, rice porridge layered with restraint and texture, chocolate crémeux dusted in frozen cucumber cream. Each dish reads as a small architectural problem solved.
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #14 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 42. Kogi BBQ
Korean
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Rank 45. Mori Nozomi
Omakase Japanese
Chef Nozomi Mori conducts an eight-seat omakase with the restraint of someone who trusts her ingredients—flown weekly from Japan, paired with Santa Monica produce—to speak without ornament. From the silken chawanmushi that opens service to the final matcha, each piece arrives as evidence of her knife work and her conviction that refinement lives in what you leave out.
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- Esquire 2024 · The Best New Restaurants in America
- The New York Times 2025 · The Restaurant List
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Rank 46. RYLA
Contemporary Japanese
Ray Hayashi and Cynthia Hetlinger's contemporary kitchen in Hermosa Beach threads Japanese refinement through small plates designed for debate—a shared ox tongue curry rice arrives sweet and vegetable-forward, its buttery meat anchored by corn-kissed rice. Desserts like matcha tiramisu and strawberry shiso sorbet suggest chefs unafraid of playful contrast, each plate arguing for a second look.
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Rank 47. Tito's Tacos
Mexican
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Rank 48. Jikoni
Kenyan/Nigerian
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Rank 49. Alta Adams
Southern
A string-lit patio draped in vines sets the stage for soulful cooking that rewards group dining—golden fried chicken arrives juicy and spiced, alongside sweet potatoes and herb-touched black-eyed pea fritters. The buttery coconut cake tastes like an heirloom recipe, unpretentious and complete.
- Eater The All-Time Eater 38
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #44 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 50. Creamy Boys
New Zealand
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Rank 51. Pasta Sisters
Italian
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Rank 53. Juliet
Contemporary French
The patio at Juliet glows with the ease of a Parisian afternoon transplanted to Culver City. Chicken liver mousse in a delicate tart, sea bream with ratatouille and pistou, éclairs that justify their own course—the kitchen executes French fundamentals with quiet confidence, wine by the glass chosen with care. This is cooking that knows what it is and trusts you to notice.
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- Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 10 Nominee · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. West
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Rank 56. Cosetta
New-School Italian
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Rank 58. Shunji
Sushi
Chef Shunji Nakao's counter in this minimalist Santa Monica space opens with delicate appetizers—smoked mackerel, sesame tofu—before progressing through nigiri of uncommon precision. The sea perch and eel justify prices that reflect uncompromising sourcing and a sushi veteran's refusal of the ordinary.
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Rank 59. 1 Pico
Coastal New American
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Rank 60. Cobi's
Southeast Asian Thai
A pink cottage with mismatched tables and petal-strewn corners serves spirited Thai and Malaysian food, from crispy curry puffs to wood-grilled prawns in ginger sauce. The dining room's floral chaos matches an ambitious menu that refuses to settle on a single Southeast Asian voice.
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Rank 61. HomeState
Tex-Mex
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Rank 63. Tev's Kitchen
Caribbean
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- James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Jeremy Fox
- The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now
- Time Out #22 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
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Rank 65. Orla by Michael Mina
Refined Mediterranean
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Rank 66. Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen
Soul Food
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Rank 67. Din Tai Fung
Taiwanese
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Rank 68. Lugya’h
Mexican
At a counter inside Maydan Market, Chef Alfonso Martinez hand-presses tortillas and cooks them over live fire in cast-iron comals, then loads them with beans, cheese, cabbage, and salsa. The moronga—a blood sausage that tastes of spice and depth—elevates these tlayudas into something substantial enough for two, and the casual, convivial setup makes them feel like a gift.
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Rank 69. Sweet Rice
Thai
At a shopping-center counter in Gardena, a Thai breakfast shop serves jok—congee threaded with pork meatballs and fresh ginger—alongside noodles and soups that justify the pilgrimage. The mango sticky rice, when available, tastes like the meal's afterthought becoming its entire point.
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Rank 70. The Belvedere
French
The dining room at The Belvedere maintains the formal grandeur of old Hollywood without apology, all starched linens and architectural restraint. It is the kind of place where the ritual of a long meal feels less like indulgence than inheritance.
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Rank 71. Petitgrain Boulangerie
French Bakery
- The Infatuation Our Favorite Bakeries In The Country Right Now
- Eater Best New Bakery
- Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 73. Pizzeria Sei
Japan-Italy Pizza
At Pizzeria Sei, a handful of counter seats frame the kitchen where chefs shape individual pies with a Japan-Italy hybrid sensibility—the cornicione puffed and mochi-tender, the Bismarck topped with a poached egg, the Margherita faithful. Gas and wood fire finish them equally well. Pizza as shape-shifter, refined and playful at once.
- 50 Top Pizza 2025 · #2 · 50 Top Pizza USA
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Time Out #23 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
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Rank 74. Mélisse
Modern French
Chef Josiah Citrin's Santa Monica flagship enters through a discreet side door into an underground room where French decadence—truffles, wagyu, dry-aged duck—arrives with tableside ceremony. Two decades running, it remains unabashedly luxurious, indulgent without apology.
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Rank 75. Wagyu Butcher
Japanese
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Rank 76. Sushi Inaba
Sushi
Chef Yasuhiro Hirano works in near-anonymity behind a counter in a shuttered room, aging exotic fish with the precision of someone still discovering what sushi can be. Soba with uni, baby eel "udon," kombu-cured kasugodai—each course arrives as a small argument for silence. One seating nightly, a handful of seats, the kind of place you hear about in whispers.
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Rank 77. Brothers Cousins Tacos
Mexican
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Rank 78. Rustic Canyon
Market-driven New American
Rustic Canyon treats the farmers market as its playbook, building a menu of unfussy, sturdy dishes—terrines and roasted chicken alongside bay scallops in saffron—within a Santa Monica dining room whose warm light and close booths feel made for lingering. The seasonal cocktails arrive with the same market logic, and twenty years of community traffic has only deepened the place's sense of purpose.
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- LAist 2025 · Chochoyotes · Best Bites
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #48 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 79. Cento Pasta Bar
Contemporary Italian
In a West Adams courtyard strung with lights, Chef Avner Levi's Italian-contemporary pasta bar balances refinement with ease. Beet pasta twirled in brown butter and poppy seeds, topped with whipped ricotta, arrives as both visual statement and genuine pleasure, while a Key lime pavlova offers tart-sweet closure. The food is careful without pretension.
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Rank 80. Sushi Sonagi
Omakase Sushi
An eight-seat counter open weekends only, where Chef Daniel Son orchestrates a tightly choreographed omakase that moves from delicate ankimo to minimalist nigiri. The dolsot sekogani—female snow crab heated in a stone pot until the rice crisps—arrives as the evening's fulcrum, its richly seasoned meat a brief, perfect argument for limitation and focus.
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Time Out #20 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
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Rank 81. Holbox
Coastal Mexican
Gilbert Cetina works a counter inside Mercado La Paloma with the precision of a jeweler, coaxing impossible brightness from aguachile and ceviche with seafood so fresh it arrives still trembling. His grilled lobster and house-made tortillas, dressed in an arsenal of salsas, suggest that restraint and impeccable sourcing need no fanfare.
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- 50 Best 2025 · #42 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Gilberto Cetina
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Rank 82. Citrin
French-California New American
Chef Ken Takayama's kitchen marries French discipline with California's seasonal abundance, offering both à la carte and prix-fixe paths through dishes like artichoke agnolotti and skin-on rouget in bouillabaisse. The cooking justifies its ambitions whether you're gilding with caviar or content with the craft alone.
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Rank 83. CUT
Steakhouse
Inside the Four Seasons on Wilshire, Wolfgang Puck's steakhouse commands a polished dining room built for high-stakes dinners. Creekstone filet mignon arrives with Armagnac peppercorn béarnaise; the wagyu tallow fries linger in memory long after. A temple to beef and power meals, unapologetically expensive.
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Rank 84. Komal
Mexican
In the Mercado Del Paloma, Chef Fátima Juárez coaxes depth from heirloom corn nixtamalized in-house, each quesadilla and tlacoya a small study in restraint and smoke. The fried plantain in black mole and short-rib tacos demand salsa applied with purpose, not timidity.
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Emerging Chef · Fátima Juárez
- Bon Appétit 2025 · America's Best New Restaurants
- Esquire 2025 · The Best New Restaurants in America
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Rank 86. Chinchikurin
Hiroshima-Style
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Rank 87. Providence
Seafood
Michael Cimarusti's tasting menu at Providence draws from pristine wild-caught seafood and classical technique, each course arriving with the fastidiousness of a jeweler arranging stones. A soft-poached egg trembling with uni, a lobster mousse tartare set in crab beurre blanc—the meal never falters in its commitment to clarity and restraint.
- Michelin Guide 3 Stars
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- 50 Best 2025 · Michael Cimarusti · Chefs' Choice Award
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Rank 88. Hakata Izakaya Hero
Japanese
- Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #72 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 89. Fuegos La
Argentinian
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Rank 90. Killer Noodle
Ramen Noodles
Killer Noodle fuses Japanese tan tan ramen with Sichuan heat, balancing peanut-forward broths against ground pork and tofu in bowls served hot or dry. The six-level spice menu demands the water pitcher; the screaming-red room matches its casual irreverence.
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Rank 92. The Lobster
Seafood
A seafront dining room with Pacific views and tightly packed tables devoted to Maine lobsters and regional catches. The kitchen steams them to perfect tenderness, the butter almost ceremonial; crab cakes arrive seared and meaty, their crisp edges tempered by peppery greens. Efficiency over intimacy, but the ocean and the shellfish justify the trade.
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Rank 93. République
Southern European Mediterranean
A sprawling bakery and restaurant with soaring brick ceilings that pulses from dawn pastries through evening service, République channels a bustling European market hall. The Southern European menu pivots on impeccable ingredients—warm beignets, silky risotto, braised beef—executed with unfussy precision.
- James Beard Awards 2023 · Winner · Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker · Margarita Manzke
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Brunch Venue
- Time Out The best bakeries in America
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Rank 94. Johnny's
Jewish-Influenced
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Rank 95. Din Tai Fung
Taiwanese
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Rank 96. Somni
Spanish
Chef Aitor Zabala has restored Somni into a Catalan dream of meticulous small plates—mussel escabeche, gazpacho, shiso tartare tempura—where kitchen and service move in perfect synchrony. The hushed dining room, anchored by a colorful bull's head, channels Spain through endless textural invention and restrained elegance.
- Michelin Guide 3 Stars
- The Infatuation 2025 · #2 · The Top-Rated New Restaurants
- Los Angeles Times 2025 · #50 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
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Rank 97. Colapasta
Modern Italian
A few blocks from the Pacific, Chef Stefano De Lorenzo's modern trattoria trades pretense for clarity: hand-rolled pasta, a rotating soup, simple antipasti. The calamarata arrives tender in bright tomato sauce with stracciatella and oregano, each element tasting of deliberate choice rather than excess.
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Rank 98. Spago
Californian
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A block from the Promenade's chaos, this industrial space channels Indian cooking through a clay tandoor that deepens every protein it touches. The dosas arrive crisp and various—stuffed with spiced potato or reimagined as dessert with Nutella—marking a kitchen unafraid of both tradition and invention.
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Rank 100. Torimatsu
Japanese