These are the 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is a miraculous place to eat.
For the tacos and sushi and pasta alone, we’re a wildly fortunate lot. Our size — our critical mass — brings the advantage of specificity. A taquero can differentiate himself by re-creating the smoky carne asada recipe passed down in his Sinaloan family. One chef finds fulfillment perfecting the Edomae-style nigiri she studied in Tokyo; another thrives on Californian liberties, dolloping caviar over tuna and slipping in a course of summer vegetables cherrypicked from the nearest farmers market. An obsessionist can revive a variation of ravioli that bleeds crimson from beets, attracting an audience of similar fanatics to feed.
The same promise holds for Korean barbecue, Lebanese flatbreads, dan dan noodles, stewed oxtails, crab curry … on and on. The possibilities lie just down the block, at the other end of the L.A. basin, in swank dining rooms, at roving trucks or weekly events or unpredictable pop-ups. Imagination and storytelling are the twin engines by which our most famous industry runs, and the same rings true for our peerless food culture.
Every year for a decade now, The Times has published its annual guide to 101 exceptional restaurants. It’s a map, and a panoramic snapshot capturing an already-blurring moment. First-timers comprise a quarter of the 2023 list. Among them are an Inglewood bistro that homes in on West African flavors, a Filipino rotisserie that doubles as a natural wine bar and a standout among our sudden surplus of shawarma options. Does a wholly unrecognizable reincarnation of last decade’s most daring Korean restaurant count as new? Check it out to decide.
Our Hall of Fame list, now numbering 33, includes 10 inductees so essential to our communities that they exist in a category that lives forever, free from a critic’s whims or rankings. I’ve also named a dozen all-time favorites for drinking wine, sake, small-batch mezcal, local craft beers and next-level tea and coffee.
These restaurants are so defining of what it means to eat and live in Southern California — that they’ve earned a place of honor for all time.
It’s worth acknowledging that this has been a difficult year. Hollywood’s dual strikes halted work for thousands of Angelenos for months, a reality that affected restaurant occupancies as well, and our country is involved in a second, particularly polarizing war. Falling back on tropes about how food brings people together feels empty. But these places, nearly all of them small businesses, do nourish us in literal and larger senses. We celebrate in them, escape to them, learn more about ourselves and others in them. We break away from the algorithms, even for a few minutes, to juggle tacos and feel the sun on our faces, as only we can in Los Angeles.
Sip on sake, craft beer, natural wines or agave spirits or try a soothing tea or uplifting coffee drink at one of our critic’s favorite places to drink in Los Angeles.
Kato
Those of us who have followed Yao’s career tend to refer to the airy, wood-and-concrete-lined space in Row DTLA as Kato 2.0, since the restaurant began as a bootstrap operation in a West L.A. strip mall in 2016. It’s been nearly two years since the move, an upgrade of outsize proportions, and every ambition that first landed Kato at the top of the 101 Best Restaurants list in 2019 has been more fully realized in spades. Yao’s longtime business partner, Nikki Reginaldo, leads a staff of servers with serious demeanors; she brings levity with wit and boss R&B playlists. Ryan Bailey came aboard in the new location as the third leader and the beverage guy. Between his 70-something-page wine list, including the city’s most trailblazing nonalcoholic drink program, and bar director Austin Hennelly’s alchemical, easy-sipping cocktails, I sometimes wish I could come solely to imbibe. But the food thrills. Look for the most unassuming presence by the stoves, and there’s Yao. His quietness hides his relentless creativity. He’s swapping out luxe Hokkaido scallops in plum reduction one week for lobster over buttery shrimp toast the next, using Sichuan pepper as brain teasers, making the rightful case for pig’s ears as delicacies, and offering a savory-sweet bao filled with salted egg yolk custard as a climax.
Dinner in the main dining room is $275 per person, with a slightly abridged $170 tasting menu of Kato classics at the bar that’s ideal for solo diners and usually includes a dish involving caviar, mussel liquor, smoked onion cream and a filling side of milk bread. It’s wonderful, but the main experience feels more refined, more driven, each time I visit. So much of our fine dining winks with signifiers of our culture — a sashimi plate here, a Mexican ingredient there — but Yao’s cuisine originates from an interior place. This is me, it says. And when we taste it, we understand: This is Los Angeles.
Read the full review of Kato 2.0.
Anajak Thai
Beneath the barrage of acclaim, this is a beautifully human endeavor. When you finally score a maddeningly difficult reservation you walk into Anajak to find … a small, sweet-looking neighborhood restaurant, with wine bottles lining every inch of shelf space between tables covered in white cloth. Wine director Ian Krupp will swing by to help untangle the amazing, admittedly overwhelming list. Haw mok, a steamed fish-curry custard, wobbles like a souffle as you carve out the first spoonful. Galangal, cumin and coriander grip gai yang-style grilled wings in their fragrance. The star of the Justin-era menu is fried chicken sheathed in rice-flour batter and scattered with fried shallots. The bird is prepared in the style of Nakhon Si Thammarat, a city in southern Thailand where Rattikorn Pichetrungsi, Justin’s mother, has family. Rattikorn remains very much involved with the business: In peak season her mango sticky rice rates as one of the city’s most soothing desserts.
Read more about Anajak Thai.
Hayato
It also takes tenacity to chase a reservation for a place that enjoys a cult-level following, costs $350 per person and serves 35 diners a week. Hayato ranked first in last year’s guide, and while I swear by its merits, I concede that scoring a seat can be a frustrating, months-long endeavor. Still. For the fruits of Go’s perfectionism — the man makes two batches of cloudless dashi per service so he can choose the better one, and always manages to find perfect strawberries or peaches or muskmelon for a rightly simple dessert — I say, even as a once-in-a-lifetime indulgence, persevere.
Read the full review of Hayato.
République
That’s truer than ever. Walter’s gifts are as evident in an autumn farmers market salad of endive, apples, dates and goat cheese as a now-signature roasted duck nestled with peaches in the summer and persimmons in the fall. Margarita finally won the James Beard Award for outstanding pastry chef this year, after eight nominations. I send locals and visitors alike for her exemplary pastries, and for breakfasts of kimchi fried rice or a potato pancake/soft-poached eggs/smoked salmon trio, two favorites among many options. The last decade clinched République as a cornerstone of Los Angeles dining, a bridge between casual meetups and formal occasions, an icon in its own right.
Holbox
He quickly began dreaming bigger, though, wishing to articulate a sum expression of the coastal flavors he loved across Mexico — and his own imaginings. Some of his menu’s early scene-stealers grew out of relationships he developed with top-tier seafood suppliers. They include limey kanpachi ceviche, garnished with avocado puree and tongues of Santa Barbara sea urchin, and the pata de mula (Baja blood clams) with more citrus and a sauce of morita chiles blended with balsamic vinegar that reaches a thrilling intersection of smoke, brine and acidity. Then there’s the smoked kanpachi taco buzzing with peanut salsa macha and a stretchy knot of queso Oaxaca, the fried octopus taco anchored by mulchy sofrito stained black from squid ink, and the bisque-like stew showcasing delicate seafood sausage.
Even though he can’t serve alcohol at the Mercado and considered relocating, Cetina decided to stay put and invested in a recent renovation. He gained four counter seats, but critically he expanded the kitchen, allowing him to hire additional staff. Doing so has created more room for community and creativity, and for possibility. Holbox is The Times’ 2023 Restaurant of the Year.
n/naka
Dinner will roll on gracefully from there, in forest scenes and seascapes of vegetables, noodles, locally caught fish and exactingly calibrated broths ... with probably a taste of top grade Wagyu along the way. If life lessons can be gleaned from fine dining, I always leave n/naka thinking about how the married chefs tinker with the strictures of kaiseki, which traditionally can be rigid, to suit their individualism. It’s one thing to commit to structures in work and life, their cooking seems to say; it’s another to achieve creative liberation through a chosen form. In all regards, the experience feels worth the investment to obtain a booking (reservations go live on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m.) and the cost, which is $310 per person.
Morihiro
He helped codify an L.A. style of omakase in which small dishes — some of which reflect technique-focused kaiseki traditions (a zensai plate of tiny, seasonal bites) and some of which spring from his imagination (big-eye tuna tartare heaped with caviar) — precede the parade of sushi. A table is a fine option, but if you can, splurge on a seat at the sushi bar in front of the master himself. The nigiri is spectacular: Onodera gives equal attention to superior seafood and the Japanese rice milled daily in the restaurant for his meticulously seasoned shari. Handsome ceramics, most made by the chef, bring another level of beauty. Staffers pour the most compelling pairings of any sushi bar in L.A. Rather than the muted stillness of most top-tier sushi bars, Morihiro brims with boisterous warmth. After several hours you will stand up from an omakase very full and very cheered.
Read the full review of Morihiro.
Providence
Cimarusti and his longtime chef de cuisine, Tristan Aitchison, make constant, restrained changes to their tasting menu. No one meal looks the same from night to night, but expect fish and crustaceans (caught mostly from American waters, though occasionally from Japan and elsewhere) served in vivid oils or buttery sauces with sculpted vegetables, all set down in lovely symmetries. It’s the extra touches that linger in the memory: the incredible sourdough boule using wheat from Tehachapi Grain Project; the pile-it-on luxe options of the restaurant’s famous uni egg as well as cocktails prepared tableside; and the city’s hands-down finest service team, led by Cimarusti’s co-owner, Donato Poto, who grasp the importance of human connection in such a rarefied setting. My sole wish here is for the return of Providence’s Friday lunch, a power scene that was like no other in L.A.
Moo’s Craft Barbecue
An important factor: The line to order can move along glacially, and another 20 to 30 minutes often elapses before your food is ready. Plan accordingly — sipping one of the more than two dozen beers on draft can nicely fill the time — or consider ordering takeout online for pick-up.
Bavel
At the table, it means the weightless hummus swirled into a moat filled with duck ’nduja is as wonderful as ever, as are the hulking lamb neck shawarma over laffa and Gergis’ leaf-shaped strawberry pastry balanced with tart sumac and sweet cheese. Anchoring ingredients — market vegetables, grilled prawns, lamb chops both charred and blushing — are canvases for chile pastes, tufts of herbs and deliciously soured dairy in many forms. Some counsel: The dining room, always full, rattles from the extreme decibels. Ask in advance for a patio table for a quieter experience. If you’re into wine, sommeliers can pull you down a rabbit hole of Grecian obscurities and older vintages of all sorts they might have stashed in the back.
Tsubaki
Between Tsubaki and the couple’s next-door bar, Ototo, Kaplan maintains the most enlightening and thrilling selection of sake on the West Coast. It too changes with the seasons, as brewers release effervescent nama sakes in the spring and fuller-bodied counterparts in the fall. On the plate and in the cup, the duo’s combined sense of experimentation makes the place (and those eating there) feel alive with possibility. Ever wondered where a food critic chooses to celebrate his own birthday? Here’s the answer.
Sonoratown
Quarter Sheets Pizza
That’s one more thing to anticipate at Quarter Sheets: constant change. To that end, the greatness Ziskin achieves with her layered, ever-varied creations is uncanny, almost spooky. It’s just cake! But it’s also more: It’s the sum of her imagination and years of experience, funneled into America’s edible synonym for celebration. Princess cake takes its cues from the traditional domed Swedish torte, including extra-bright raspberry preserves, billows of cream and a pale green marzipan shell. Then there’s the slab cake, which rotates weekly with the California seasons and the whims of a homegrown Los Angeles chef. It consistently delights, but its acidic-creamy-savory extremes might challenge too. Is her polenta chiffon with layers of sweet corn custard, peppery preserved blueberries and blackberries, and salted honey Chantilly the flat-out best cake I’ve consumed? Let’s just say I had thought of myself, dessert-wise, as a pie person. Now I think of myself as a pie and Hannah-Ziskin-cake person.
Antico Nuovo
Opened in 2019, Antico Nuovo has steadily found its footing and its audience among the crush of fine-dining Italian restaurants in Los Angeles. It might just be the best of them now. Bold or tenuous, each of the pastas stands out with such distinct personalities; they are the meal’s holy center. Begin by swiping crisp, lofty hunks of focaccia through roughly pureed green chickpeas rich in garlic and olive oil, or go lighter with impeccable amberjack crudo. Whether you’re nearly full after spinach and tomato cannelloni, or move on to crisp-skinned roast chicken, or share a massive tomahawk steak in Marsala jus that recalls Colby’s days as Chi Spacca’s founding chef, prioritize dessert. The seasonal ice creams deserve their renown, and the kitchen has lately been fashioning pistachio and chocolate cannolis that rival those I’ve had in Sicily.
Pasjoli
During the pandemic, Beran closed his tiny, cerebral tasting-menu restaurant, Dialogue, so he can be spied in Pasjoli’s open kitchen almost every night. As a chef he’s always been a precisionist brainiac, geeking out on laborious technique and symbolist presentations. The autumn season finds orange and brown micro-flora scattered like fall foliage over a buttery crab crêpe, and loamy duck rillettes in a tart shaped like a leaf and surrounded by black-green lettuces.
The food is evolving. Initially the restaurant aimed to re-create canonical Gallic dishes: steak tartare, a trembling onion tart that subbed for soupe a l’oignon, the gory and glamorous pressed duck that was, at first, tableside theater and now is prepared in the kitchen. Now there are dishes like a pork chop in a reduction sauce made from trotters and ham hocks and finished with a hazelnut vinaigrette, or gorgeously seared halibut over yuzu beurre blanc and a tumble of sautéed broccoli, spinach and pine nuts. It comes off as less controlled and more pleasure-centered. French is still the default shorthand for the cooking. “Beranaise” would be more accurate.
Sushi Kaneyoshi
My one note: In a time when California has better access than ever to Japanese sake, I’d love to see Inoue invest in a list that’s rangier and includes a few more interesting bottle options under $100.
Orsa & Winston
Chawanmushi with clams, gooseberries and caviar opened an early September dinner, highlighting the seemingly improbable combinations that Centeno pulls off time and again. After an entree of sturgeon paired winningly with huckleberries, the meal finished with a just-ripe pluot battered, fried and garnished with mascarpone cream and miso caramel. It put a bow on the Japanese-Italian themes while reminding me exactly where I was in the universe. Your meal likely will have wholly different ingredients, though you’ll catch the same imaginative throughlines that have kept Centeno’s creativity engaged for the last decade. The restaurant’s staff is smaller these days, which makes the place feel both more intimate and also somehow more romantic. Count on longtime server and sommelier Romain Racary to tell witty stories about the wines he’s pouring in his satiny Parisian accent.
Yangban
Everything has changed. During a brief closure in August the Hongs finished making over the restaurant into a clubby room: all coal-black banquettes, rich woods and white cloth light fixtures that resemble friendly, floating ghosts. The renewed format is table service with a structured menu of appetizers, mains and desserts. Many of the Hongs’ original ideas still inform the food. Smoked trout schmear, a favorite from the opening deli case, reappears on wonderfully dense potato bread as a standout appetizer. Matzoh ball rendered to the texture of ricotta fills Korean mandu, set in an almost velvety, triple-strength chicken broth. Rounded out with pickles and black rice, the crackly-sticky chicken wings glazed with garlic and soy make for an exuberant entree, and the buffalo milk soft-serve sundae with pine nut caramel only strengthens the feeling. Now is an ideal time to become acquainted, or reacquainted, with Yangban.
Saffy's
Read the full review of Saffy’s.
Mélisse
For diners, the transition will feel seamless: The experience remains the very definition of special-occasion dining. Bookended by one-bite sculptures served on gorgeous ceramics to start and finish, two-plus hours float by in a dance of veloutés and nages, uni and lobster, duck press theatrics and ganache tarts fashioned from Valrhona’s line of blond chocolate. Wine pairings aim to impress jaded oenophiles. The cost, beginning at $399 per person, rivals the price of our most opulent omakase counters. Records play on the topnotch stereo system. It was mostly 1970s and ’80s-era R&B during a recent dinner, and caviar just tastes better with Billy Ocean playing in the background.
Sushi I-Naba
Chi Spacca
Meat cookery remains the menu’s nucleus. Beyond massive, ever-excellent steaks, consider the slightly more manageable pork loin: It’s roasted in milk and covered, as if spring never ends, in a fine dusting of fennel pollen. Burgers (and variations on Silverton’s famous grilled cheese sandwich) are available on Mondays and Tuesdays for customers who specifically reserve at Chi Spacca’s chef’s counter. Among several options, all of them honestly first-rate and assembled with detail, start by trying the opulent take on a smashburger fashioned from dry-aged beef.
Birdie G’s
Ammatolí
A few pleasant ubiquities like arugula and beet salad crop up on the menu, but more than ever her cooking leans into tradition-minded dishes. Among exemplary hummus and lemony tabbouleh in the mezze selection, look for more intricate options like fried kibbeh stuffed with herbed spinach, and salty, edge-of-funky grilled halloumi paired with watermelon. Larger plates are excellent for groups, or for leftovers. One standout: Palestinian musakhan, roast chicken and onions piled on flatbread that’s stained nearly purple with sumac. The dish was traditionally consumed in autumn — eaten by hand, composing bites of bread, chicken and onion — with ample olive oil to taste and assess the year’s first local pressings. It’s as satisfying for dinner as it is for brunch alongside a skillet full of saucy shakshuka. I don’t know of more consummate classical Levantine cooking in Southern California.
Funke
When I see Funke standing at the kitchen pass in his signature denims, I know the varied rolled and extracted pasta forms will be presented fastidiously: ridged agnolotti with the green chard filling nearly seeping through the translucent dough; tagliatelle so light and fine its texture almost tickles; and rasccatieddi di miscchieddu, an oval rarity made by hand with semolina and fava bean flours that Funke learned while filming his show “The Shape of Pasta,” sauced in lamb ragù and scattered with rustling dried chiles. Funke, per its neighborhood and clientele, is expensive, but with his presence the cooking is so on-point. I’m forever glad that Shannon Swindle, one of L.A.’s finest pastry chefs, has become part of Funke’s inner culinary circle: Trust that whatever crostatas and pastries and ice creams feature the season’s fruits will be spectacular.
Kismet
For those of us who eat higher on the food chain, the lemony chicken phyllo “pies” dotted with pine nuts and, when it’s available, the massive sesame-crusted chicken schnitzel sandwich floating on brioche toast prove consistently comforting. To keep the inspiration flowing, Hymanson and Kramer have hosted some high-wattage guest talent, including New York-based Jamaican American chef DeVonn Francis. Watch Kismet’s Instagram account to see who’s next.
Heritage Barbecue
Here's Looking at You
Pizzeria Bianco
Knife Pleat
Osteria Mozza
Sushi Kisen
Baroo
They fulfilled their vow in late summer in the form of a sedate, industrial-modernist space in downtown’s Arts District. The new Baroo looks and feels nothing like its predecessor. Mostly that’s a gain: Park runs an engaged, genial team as general manager, and Uh’s calm demeanor and ever-straight back can be viewed through the large kitchen window. The opening menu is $110 for seven courses. To balk at a tasting-menu format is to miss out on sweet, delicate skate fried in seaweed batter and cradled in leafy greens, and slices of charred pork-collar meat fanned over a sauce that riffs on kimchi jjigae … and other dishes, honed but still flaunting a hint of wildness, that trumpet the return of an exceptional culinary mind.
Alta Adams
Henry's Cuisine
Damian
It’s important to mention Damian’s adjacent taqueria, Ditroit, hidden around back with an entrance down an alley, and the primacy of its extra-long fish flauta with a mulchy, piquant filling that evokes Baja’s smoked marlin tacos.
Read the full review of Damian.
Kuya Lord
Read the full review of Kuya Lord.
Bicyclette
Yang’s Kitchen
Poncho’s Tlayudas
Read the full review of Poncho’s Tlayudas.
A.O.C.
Perilla L.A.
Locating Perilla can feel like a treasure hunt on the first visit: Follow GPS to the Victor Heights address at the edge of Echo Park and look for the peachy-orange buildings. Turn the corner at Heavy Water Coffee and follow the row of tables shaded with umbrellas to Perilla’s tiny gabled home in a converted garage.
Read the full review of Perilla L.A.
Felix
Pine & Crane
Shin Sushi
Dear John's
Cassia
Soban
Bhookhe
A nearly 80-item menu also veers through chaat and puri variations, and curries that include a smattering of North Indian vegetarian classics like palak paneer. But I’m here to zero in on Rajasthani paragons. Beyond the thali, look for mirchi vada, green chile fritters filled with spiced potatoes and fried golden in chickpea batter, and a curry that centers around makhana, dried lotus seeds that are also known as fox nut. They bathe in a silky pool of milk and cream; fish out the cashews at the bottom of the pan for a study in crunch alongside the makhana, and save the gravy for dunking crusty bati.
Read the full review of Bhookhe.