The Best Restaurants in Los Angeles

As sprawling as it is, Los Angeles keeps its cards close. It’s an in-the-know city, where the best spots are hidden in plain sight and reservations should be secured well before you land at LAX. The best restaurants in Los Angeles are scattered across every corner of the city, and if you want to eat well in the City of Angels you should be ready to dress up, keep your composure (it’s a celebrity safari out there), and dive into a dining scene that blends glamour, creativity and culinary precision.

From Michelin-starred restaurants in Santa Monica to inventive fine dining in Downtown LA and low-key celebrity hangouts in West Hollywood, Los Angeles offers an unmatched mix of flavour and style. It’s a reflection of the city itself, given LA is one of the most ethnically diverse places in the world.

Whether you’re looking for a romantic dinner with skyline views, or a discreet omakase counter only locals and celebrities know about, take note on the below. These are the best restaurants in Los Angeles right now, broken down into five of the city’s most popular areas.

The best restaurants in Santa Monica & surrounds

Melisse

When an expensive, tasting-menu-only restaurant stands for more than 20 years in a city as fiercely competitive as LA, they must be doing something right. While traditional fine dining has been reshaped many times over the past decade, the Michelin-starred Mélisse keeps the formalities alive with a cosy, commanding atmosphere that runs through all the fine dining tropes with confidence.

Chef Josiah Citrin likes things simple with exacting French techniques, top-shelf produce and an obvious love of Japanese flavours. The menu changes far too often to nail down any favourites, but the signature egg caviar with smoked lemon crème fraîche is frequently cited as one of the most essential dishes in LA.

The best bit: A slightly more casual sister restaurant, Citrin, has been built around Mélisse and is a great alternative if reservations are hard to come by.

Rustic Canyon

Affordable fine dining is hard to find in LA, but chef Jeremy Fox’s Rustic Canyon handles balance better than most. Since 2006, the kitchen pioneered the farm-to-table movement long before it started trending, locking in bold, dramatic flavours with a hyper-local, hyper-seasonal mentality.

That’s why a dish as simple as wild-caught halibut with squash and tomatoes is such a standout, and why an internationally-inspired plate of Manila clams and pork belly adobo can still tell the story of California’s growing seasons, served with kokuho rice sourced from the oldest family-owned rice mill in the state.

The best bit: An award-winning wine list samples the world with more than 300 bottles showcasing everywhere from Portugal’s Douro Valley to California’s Sonoma County.

Seline

Chef Dave Beran has some fascinating ideas about flavour, and he showcases them in a brilliantly casual setting for Seline. Multi-sensory dining is everywhere in LA, but it’s rarely this sharp and self-aware. Beran brings wit and restraint to the kind of food that usually leans too far into performance, presenting a US$295, 15-18 course tasting menu that surprises without ever feeling forced.

The best bit: The playful atmosphere and entertaining kitchen make it feel like you’ve been invited over a famous chef’s house for dinner.

Giorgio Baldi

Kanye West, Jennifer Lawrence and Tom Hanks are just some of the stars that have been spotted at Giorgio Baldi over the years. Rihanna, who’s been known to visit the tiny family-run Italian restaurant up to three times a week, once told Rolling Stone that she bought a house in the Pacific Palisades just so she could be within the restaurant’s delivery zone.

The low-key celebrity staple is so famous amongst the upper crust that you’ll find paparazzi camped outside each night as glistening sports cars fight for coveted parking spots. The fresh, handmade pasta tastes better in the fairy-lit courtyard, which is dark enough so celebrities can hide, yet bright enough that you can see what they order: usually ravioli con asparagi and ciabatta with mozzarella, prosciutto and melted butter.

The best bit: The restaurant is more than just famous for the sake of it. Classic Italian food is done exceptionally well, accompanied by a bookish wine list with hard-to-find classics.

The best restaurants in West Hollywood

Somni

There aren’t even 20 restaurants in the entire country that have the prestige of three Michelin stars. Somni wears them proudly, blending modern South American cuisine with classic fine dining and a visually complex approach to the art of molecular gastronomy.

Chef Aitor Zabala offers only one seating each night, with a 2.5-hour set menu of around 25 meticulous and surprising plates. You’re forking out at least US$600 for the experience (inclusive of drinks), but in return you’ll get subversive creations that look like they belong in an art gallery, from savoury meringue sandwiches to caviar with tuna and cauliflower.

The best bit: Scoring a reservation at the most expensive restaurant in Los Angeles is nearly impossible, so even just sitting down feels like a reward.

Sushi Park

Located on the second floor of an otherwise drab Strip Mall on Sunset Blvd, Sushi Park is about as non-descript as they come. And yet it’s amongst the most well-known celebrity hangouts in Los Angeles, so much so that you’ll spy paparazzi camping outside, waiting for regulars like Jay-Z, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa to emerge after a night of outstanding omakase.

The interiors of this famously inconspicuous sushiya are equally unadorned, sporting an eight-seat sushi counter and five small tables. You’ll definitely need a reservation if you want to squeeze amongst the A-listers and surrender your taste buds to the team of studious sushi chefs.

The best bit: Celebrity sightings are pretty much guaranteed in such a small space.

Cavatina

Much like The Andaz and Rainbow Bar & Grill, Sunset Marquis is one of the star stops if you’re tracking West Hollywood’s incalculable rockstar history. Everyone from The Rolling Stones to Nick Cave have visited, and you’ll likely find them hanging out at the hotel’s restaurant, Cavatina, between shows.

Here, Executive Chef Luis Morales cooks home-style done exceptionally well, from plates of Japanese roasted pumpkin with black lentils, to tagliatelle with maitake and walnut bolognese. Simple, exacting dishes and perfected flavours shift away from the theatricality that characterises LA’s fine dining scene.

The best bit: This is where celebrities let their hair down, so your meal might come with a side of casual stardust and a story to tell later.

Casa Madera

Located inside The Mondrian, Casa Madera is one of LA’s most showstopping dining rooms, with sweeping city views framed by enormous arched windows. A mix of locals and hotel guests dress up for the occasion, while the restaurant’s elevated position on West Hollywood’s hills only enhances the sense of drama.

In the kitchen, chef Daniele Pisanu elevates Mexican classics with requisite flair. Grilled crab legs with Cajun butter, tiger shrimp tacos and wagyu short rib barbacoa pack bold, layered flavours, while inventive salsas and seasonal vegetables add freshness.

The best bit: Agave cocktails and mezcal flights are mandatory so you can toast to the sunset. That cinematic view puts everyone in a good mood.

Dan Tana’s

Most of LA’s potent celebrity hangouts aren’t fussy fine dining kitchens or well-known brands. They’re hardened institutions like this legendary red sauce restaurant packed into a tiny yellow house on Santa Monica Blvd. Dan Tana’s is a Hollywood film in itself. Its late, great eponymous founder was a Serbian immigrant who defected from Yugoslavia in 1952 while on a youth football tour, later finding success in the US as a footballer, actor and restaurateur.

The legacy of giant chicken parmigiana smothered in melted mozzarella and marinara, served alongside rich, indulgent pasta is still such a reliable lure for A-listers like George Clooney and Cameron Diaz. With the iconic Troubadour just two doors down, you’ll likely see plenty of rockstars coming through. Famously, this is where Don Henley and Glenn Frye wrote some of The Eagles’ biggest hits.

The best bit: Dan Tana’s is where famous people go to pretend they aren’t famous for a few hours, so the atmosphere is always unpredictable and you’ll walk away with a story or two.

The best restaurants in Downtown LA

Restaurant Ki

Chef Ki Kim runs the finest Korean restaurant in California with this tiny space hidden at the back of a basement in Little Tokyo, breathing the same air as Sushi Kaneyoshi (also on this best restaurants in LA list) and Bar Sawa. And while Restaurant Ki’s windowless dining room can feel restraining, a US$300, 12-course set menu dazzles with ambition and originality.

The team comb through standard luxury fare like caviar and fresh seafood, but dial in bigger, bolder flavours with fermented Korean ingredients that have been finely tuned for complexity. Ingredients like doenjang are used intelligently, whipped into a butter sauce and served over grilled sliced of lobster with raspberry powder.

The best bit: Upscale Korean food is only now starting to dominate America’s big cities so dining here feels like being ahead of the curve.

Sushi Kaneyoshi

It’s all about nuance at Sushi Kaneyoshi. Precision helps heighten certain notes in fine local seafood, from sophisticated seabream with rich citrus to light, airy tempura served with just the right amount of caviar so the saltiness balances the batter. At this Michelin-starred sushi spot, Chef Yoshiyuki Inoue has intimate knowledge of what each fish brings to table and how to lift their natural oils with technique and intention.

The experience is second-to-none in that regard, presenting LA’s finest sushi counter experience in a traditionally minimalist, soothing atmosphere that puts the entire focus on each piece of handmade sushi.

The best bit: You aren’t here to be seen, or spot any famous faces; you’re here because you’ve got a serious epicurean scratch that needs itching.

Hayato

Hayato is another one of those Little Tokyo essentials that exhales fine dining and honours tradition. Here, Japan is well-represented by a dynamic, two-Michelin-starred kaiseki helmed by chef Brandon Hayato Go. Food is served on vintage Japanese pottery and porcelain from the chef’s own personal collection, and each dish comes with an intelligent explanation of why it was chosen and what it adds to the experience.

It’s also one of the hardest reservations to score in LA with the city’s most reliable booking platform, Tock, known to crash the second spots open up. Effort will be rewarded with light, aromatic dishes that play into the harmony of Japanese haute cuisine and rip you away from DTLA’s dusty streets straight to the high polish of Tokyo.

The best bit: There are only seven seats and one sitting per night so the experience feels both intimate and exclusive.

The best restaurants in Beverly Hills

Dante Beverly Hills

Perched atop the fabulous Maybourne Beverly Hills, this edition of Dante is a glamorous sister to the famous New York staple, which was once named the world’s best bar. A legendary list of signature martinis is paired with a bigger focus on food, especially small, lightweight pizza that comes flying out of a woodfired oven standing between the kitchen and the hotel’s gorgeous rooftop pool.

A memorable ceiling fresco of abstract palm trees and hummingbirds by local artist Abel Macias and plush circular booths make this the most beautiful bar in the city, particularly when taken with those outsized, airy views stretching over Los Angeles. The mural is so vibrant that it attracts real hummingbirds to the balcony every afternoon around 3pm, just as happy hour begins and those best-in-class martinis drop to $10.

The best bit: Dante is known for having some of the world’s best martinis. Even if you don’t usually enjoy the classically stiff drink, this place will make you fall in love with the simple concoction almost instantly.

Avra

Avra brings the spirit of a sunny Greek island to the heart of Beverly Hills. The large dining room, all creamy stone, lemon trees and cascading greenery, feels worlds away from Wilshire Boulevard. The seafood display alone is worth a pause, taking in a gleaming market-style counter stacked with glistening langoustines, red snapper and branzino, grilled whole over charcoal.

The menu is simple, anchored by Mediterranean classics like zucchini chips, grilled octopus and just-cut sashimi dressed in lemon and oil. But that simplicity is lifted by a clear desire to meet and surpass the kind of solid gold standards you’d expect from Beverly Hills (even if most of LA’s best restaurants are found elsewhere).

The best bit: Choose your own fish from the ice counter and watch it hit the grill. It’s a touch of Mykonos magic just minutes from Rodeo Drive.

Matū

Leaning almost entirely on 100% grass-fed wagyu, Matū’s steak omakase is still one of the most prized dining experiences in a neighbourhood known for its fussy standards. Locals tend to avoid touristy restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s Spago, instead filing into these dependable local institutions where prices are, surprisingly, reasonable and consistency is a religion.

The kitchen is all about showcasing the various ways you can enjoy highly marbled wagyu beef, sourced mainly from New Zealand’s First Light Farms. While most of the other meat-centric kitchens in LA focus on Japan’s rich A5 wagyu, Matū has faith in the versatility of Kiwi beef, preparing it in various ways. Although there’s also an a la carte menu listing all the classic cuts and sides you’d expect from an upscale Los Angeles steakhouse.

The best bit: The best way to experience Matū is via the US$64-$115 set menu. Not many people know you can dine well in Beverly Hills for under US$100.

The best restaurants in Hollywood

Musso & Frank Grill

Since first opening in 1919, Musso & Frank Grill has served the titans of Hollywood, establishing its hold during the Golden Age of cinema with an unrelenting grip that still persists. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart to literary legends like F. Scott Fitzgerald were regulars, and you’re still likely to spot some big names any day of the week.

American classics are the way to go here, most of which haven’t left the menu since the early 1920s. This is the place to try true filet mignon, prepared over an open-fire mesquite grill that’s been the kitchen’s tool of choice for more than 30 years.

The best bit: Sliding into a red leather booth beneath the glow of vintage sconces feels like stepping straight into old Hollywood.

Lemon Grove

Hollywood forces you to work harder to find the magic. The neighbourhood lacks the polish it once had, but you can find life at spots like Lemon Grove. This rooftop restaurant and bar is a closely guarded secret atop The Aster hotel on Vine Street, consistently buzzy through the week and delicious with its dedication to comfort classics.

Rich handmade pastas are usually the go-to up here, but you’ll also want to work your way through The Aster’s extensive cocktail program. The drinks are some of the best you’ll find in Hollywood.

The best bit: Hollywood’s food scene isn’t what it used to be so finding your way up to Lemon Grove feels extra rewarding.

Feature image: Seline, courtesy of Pete Lee.