The Best Places to Eat in Venice

Travis Lett, who put Gjelina on the map, runs this izakaya on Abbot Kinney with a partner. The room reads warm despite the cool-kid address, and the kitchen leans hard into vegetables, with that section of the menu running longer than most places' entire offerings. The drinks pull as much weight as the food. Named a James Beard Best New Restaurant Semifinalist and on the New York Times Restaurant List, it's the kind of spot where even the clam ramen feels like a considered argument.

1. Esquire Restaurant of the Year
2. The New York Times 2025 · The Restaurant List
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

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

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

The room at this Venice restaurant runs tropical colors over midcentury furniture, one block from the boardwalk, and the menu moves just as freely. Chef José Olmedo Carles Rojas brings a Panamanian upbringing and a Central American pantry to dishes that range from uni shooters to double-fried patacones with ajillo. A 2026 James Beard Emerging Chef Semifinalist, he's on Eater's Essential 38 and the LA Times 101.

1. Eater Chef of the Year · José Olmedo Carles Rojas
2. Los Angeles Times #52 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
3. LAist Afro-Caribbean shrimp dumplings · Best Bites

Dark masa quesadillas filled with Oaxacan cheese, in-house tortillas, and tacos served all day set the tone at this modern Oaxacan spot a short walk from the Venice beach scene. The room looks the part, all bright and California-casual, and the mezcal list gives you something to do while you decide between the barbacoa and the tinga de pollo. The Los Angeles Times put it on its Fifty Under $50 list, which tracks.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times Fifty Under $50

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Enrique Olvera's Casamata group opened this seafood-forward Mexican restaurant in a space that has been an Olvera address before, which is either poetic or just convenient real estate. Chef Chuy Cervantes runs the kitchen, sending out mariscos that make a strong case for the coastal zip code: local rockfish ceviche, Dungeness crab tostada with furikake, oysters with turnip salsa. Wine, beer, and cocktails round it out.

1. Eater The Hottest New Restaurants in Los Angeles

A post-fire renovation gave this Abbot Kinney neighborhood restaurant a fresher face, but the kitchen's restless energy is the same. Chef Casey Lane shops the farmers market in the morning and writes the menu by evening, so the charcoal-kissed dishes you order barely existed as an idea at breakfast. Pasta, whole fish, and whatever looked good at the stalls that day fill a room that Venice locals treat as a standing appointment.

1. Eater The Hottest New Restaurants in Los Angeles

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America