(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)
The annual 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles guide is an invitation to gather. Our two restaurant critics eat and debate for months to narrow down their selections. Their choices illuminate the city while answering the pressing question of where you should be dining right now, and why.
This year’s mix includes 29 new names. Among them are a handful of restaurants returning to the list after moving locations or reupping their game.
From a haven for Puerto Rican specialties in Woodland Hills to a Southern revival in West Hollywood, check out the newcomers from the 2026 guide.
Showing Place Places
A Tí
Echo Park Mexican $$
(Ron De Angelis/For The Times)
Andrew Ponce’s Echo Park beacon began in September 2024 as a bar serving a short menu in a transitional space. As the menu expanded over two years, Ponce’s style has cohered and become more assured. His L.A.-coded Mexican cooking reads as a love letter to the city written in ever clearer, more confident penmanship. Some dishes rechannel professional experiences. Others are familial, or nod to the region’s culture. His tuna tostada brings it all together, a crackling delight of overlapping fish slices the color of fruit punch, lemony aioli peeking out around the edges and splotched salsa negra among a grove of whole cilantro leaves. Crispy beef tacos land the midcentury hard-shell taco nostalgia, yet its mulchy beef shank filling is a riff on an oxtail braise that Ponce mastered while in Bestia’s kitchen: It has sneaky depths. Alongside seasonal salads and aguachiles and more tacos and duck mole, I feel most often pulled to sip tequila or mezcal from among a tight selection of small-batch distillers.
Read Bill Addison’s review of A Tí.
Read Bill Addison’s review of A Tí.
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Aunt Yvette’s Kitchen
Eagle Rock Ethiopian $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The menu at Yvette and Russell Platoff’s Ethiopian restaurant in Eagle Rock shares parallelisms with its longstanding counterparts along Fairfax Avenue in Little Ethiopia. Servers will encourage groups to order the vegetarian combo, a color wheel of carrots, yam, cabbage, greens and spice-stained lentils and split peas spread around the circumference of a platter lined with injera. Classic meats — long-simmered doro wat, stir-fried tibs flecked with rosemary and serrano — arrive next, arranged in the tray’s center. But the Platoffs also assert whimsy and inventiveness to create a niche that’s all their own. Tree-trunk tables, emerald-toned tiles and art that once hung in Yvette’s grandmother’s dining room radiate chic supper-club vibes; it’s wise to make reservations at lunch or dinner. Specials like ye beg alicha (lamb stew), featuring an unusually direct thwack of fresh ginger, reveal the kitchen team’s confidence with creative liberties. Their ingenuity culminates in two ice creams they’ve nicknamed fire and ice: One is cardamom, and the other is berbere, the core Ethiopian spice blend that almost sizzles through the frosty sweetness, leaving the meal ringing in your memory and on your palate.
Badmaash Venice
Venice Indian $$
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The city’s love affair with the Mahendro family’s Indian gastropub started more than a decade ago in downtown Los Angeles, when Pawan and his sons Nakul and Arjun introduced Angelenos to a menu of chicken tikka poutine, lamb burgers and chili-cheese-stuffed naan. More than a decade later, the family has opened a third Badmaash, in Venice Beach. The new location is their most ambitious yet, with a patio overlooking Abbott Kinney Boulevard, a full bar and an expanded menu of Pawan’s exuberant ruminations on traditional Indian cuisine. Steak frites are doused in an au poivre spiked with masala. Tender lamb neck korma is slow-roasted and smothered in creamy brown-butter cashew and hazelnut curry. Market produce is used to make a “fruit chaat” with tamarind, red chaat masala, mint and toasted almonds. It’s the Badmaash you know and love, only more seasonally minded, sexier and with olive-oil-washed vodka martinis.
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Bao Kee Cafe
South El Monte Cantonese $
(Dylan James Ho/For The Times)
Toisanese is a rustic-leaning regional subgenre of Cantonese cuisine, often punctuated with cured meats and salted fish, from an area of Guangdong about 75 miles west of Macau where the first wave of Chinese emigrants departed for the United States beginning in the 1850s. Kevin Liao opened Bao Kee Cafe in South El Monte with co-owner Bonnie Chen in 2022, earning community loyalists for the specific Toisanese cooking and, in particular, soups with ingredients that mine the precepts of traditional Chinese medicine. “Ranch chicken tonic soup,” a small, potent elixir otherwise translated into English as “chicken essence,” goes down like instant, intravenous nourishment. Also seek Toisan-style cured meats over rice and a homey, textured, sweet-sour dish that translates from Cantonese as “five-willow fried eggs” and is listed on the menu as “deep-fried eggs with pickled vegetables.” Last fall, Liao and Chen debuted a second, larger outpost in Hacienda Heights with a rangier menu that includes Hong Kong-style roast meats and braised goose in clay pot, a Toisan specialty. I’m most fond of the South El Monte original.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Bao Kee Cafe.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Bao Kee Cafe.
Barra Santos
Cypress Park Portuguese $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Perched on a barstool at Barra Santos in Cypress Park, with a glass of tawny Port and a plate of bacalhau fritters, it’s possible to feel like you’re seated at an impossibly chic wine bar in Lisbon. Here at one of the only Portuguese restaurants in Los Angeles, chef-partner Melissa López’s menu is an amalgamation of recognizable Old World Portuguese comfort foods and newer, smart interpretations. Her peri peri chicken is painted in a bright and tangy marinade with a sharp chile kick that grows ever more addictive with each mouthful. Sop up the sunset-colored sauce with a mountain of crunchy French fries. Or make a meal out of some of the most compelling bar bites in the city, with plates of grilled Portuguese sardines and anchovies draped over marinated peppers with potato chips. Just be sure to leave room for dessert. The pastéis de nata are some of the best in the city.
Broken Spanish Comedor
Culver City Mexican $$
(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)
Broken Spanish, Ray Garcia’s modern Mexican groundbreaker, closed in 2020 but has been reborn. What was once a downtown nerve center for Garcia’s ambitions has been transformed into something closer to a mid-scale neighborhood restaurant. In his new digs, a steep-roofed Culver City building where previous tenants included Roy Choi’s A-Frame, Garcia tacked “Comedor” onto the name, a word meaning “diner” or “cafeteria.” Whether you’re reacquainting yourself with his style or experiencing it for the first time, jump in with an order of refried lentils cooked with fistfuls of epazote and creamy with quesillo. Some signatures remain intact, including the chicharrón reimagined into a crisp-soft pinwheel of pork belly and duck albondigas permeated with smokiness from chipotle and bacon. Both dishes call out for mezcal alongside, and the restaurant obliges with an astounding selection of agave spirits. All in all, an informal room and scaled-back menu don’t diminish Garcia’s original intentions with Broken Spanish. They make them easier to appreciate.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Broken Spanish.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Broken Spanish.
Colossus Harbor
San Pedro Bakery $$
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
Colossus Harbor is the third spinoff of Kristin Colazas Rodriguez’s Colossus Bread bakery, known for its exceptional breads and pastries. It’s located at the bottom of a luxury apartment complex in San Pedro, with sweeping views of the Main Channel across the street. Executive chef Jeff Paletz expanded the bread program into something that resembles three restaurants in one: a morning pastry and coffee destination with flaky, buttery croissants; a place for lunchtime sandwiches like the mushroom French dip; and a cozy date-night spot with bubbly-crust pizzas the size of truck tires. The dough, made from bread flour, hard red spring wheat and spelt, features an addictive chewy texture and a sharp sourdough tang. It’s the sort of crust you wouldn’t dare leave behind. And to pair with your pizza? There’s a small market area featuring mostly natural wines from the Mediterranean, with crisp, bracingly acidic whites and lusty reds.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Colossus Harbor.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Colossus Harbor.
Darling
West Hollywood Wood fired $$$
(Shelby Moore/For The Times)
Terrific news: Sean Brock got the memo. One of the nation’s defining Southern chefs, Brock arrived last year in a cavernous West Hollywood space (with an incredible high-fidelity sound system in the front lounge) and presented a menu serving … his take on California cuisine. It was off the mark. So Brock rightly course-corrected. Kerchiefs of country ham over summer melon, crackling-custardy cornbread with smoked tomato jam, grilled chicken mopped with a sophisticated barbecue sauce, lady pea succotash and other beautiful vegetable sides, a peanut tart with sorghum for dessert: The South is now in the house, where it should have been all along. Brunch means biscuits, fish over butter grits and Brock’s deboned, delightfully unhinged riff on not-too-fiery Nashville-style hot chicken, fried in a combination of smoked butter, country ham trimmings, schmaltz, lard and bacon fat. My one non-Southern recommendation: Dry-aged steak burgers are having a moment in L.A., and Darling is arguably making the best among them.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Darling.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Darling.
Electric Bleu
Mar Vista French Californian $$
(Yasara Gunawardena/For The Times)
Craig Hopson and Mai Sakai’s Mar Vista restaurant is an ambitious French bistro caressed with California seasonality and the occasional pop of Aussie nostalgia. There’s pâté en croûte with golden pastry surrounding a Port- and brandy-marinated filling splendacious with fat and the nearly metallic tang of offal. Steak au poivre in a Cognac-and-veal stock hot with peppercorns. Crispy fries dusted in an “electric” salt that pays tribute to one of Hopson’s childhood favorite foods in Australia. The restaurant is also home to one of the best, most accessible tasting menus in the city. The five-course menu is priced at less than $100 and does not require the participation of your entire party. Pro tip: Order one or two tasting menus for the table, and the rest a la carte. A couple slabs of steak au poivre. A little Gruyère fondue ravioli. A seasonal stone fruit salad. Velvety chocolate mousse for dessert. Everybody wins.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Electric Bleu.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Electric Bleu.
Henrietta
Echo Park Californian Italian $$
(Ron De Angelis/For The Times)
Henrietta is easily my favorite new opening of the last year. Owner Max Lesser and chef Alexis Brown have succeeded in creating a destination-worthy neighborhood restaurant that feels familiar, even on your first visit. While the sun is shining, there are excellent deli sandwiches and salads. Think an Italian sub filled with spicy capicola and, instead of fries, a mountain of crisp and creamy smashed potatoes smothered in garlic aioli buried under a snowstorm of Parmesan cheese. In the evening, a concise menu of familiar dishes — beef tartare, tuna crudo, half-chicken, rigatoni — only in Brown’s hands, they’re even more satisfying. The chicken is served as a deconstructed Caesar salad, with fuchsia chicories, warm croutons and an addictive dressing sharp with vinegar. Bluefin crudo is dressed in a nearly electric calamansi and blood orange vinaigrette. Wine pro Katie Vonderheide put together a small, eclectic, accessible list of things to drink.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Henrietta.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Henrietta.
Holy Basil Santa Monica
Santa Monica Thai $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
People tilt their heads in disbelief when I insist that the most inspired, maximalist Thai cooking in Los Angeles can be found in a closet-sized restaurant at the bottom of a luxury development in Santa Monica. Wedchayan “Deau” Arpapornnopparat’s downtown and Atwater locations of Holy Basil seem like respectable warmups to the newest home for his musings on Thai street food, incorporating his Chinese heritage, Bangkok upbringing and years spent in India. You’ll still find signature dishes like lhon, with puri puffs filled with Dungeness crab, uni and coconut cream fragrant with lemongrass. And the yum kao, an addictive mixed bag of crispy rice, peanuts and slivers of red onion. But now, new favorites emerge, like the gra pow reimagined with sliced duck breast in a garlic-forward XO sauce with plenty of funk. It’s garnished with a picture-perfect, crispy-edged fried egg and rounds of bird’s eye chile that detonate like tiny firecrackers.
Jacaranda
Hollywood Californian $$$$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
To describe Daniel Patterson’s cooking at the 30-seat tasting-menu restaurant he runs with his wife, music industry veteran Sarah Lewitinn, I zoom in on a dish as orange as an egg yolk: a squash blossom stuffed with a shrimp-and-squash dumpling in a circle of sauce made of squash, saffron and turmeric. Dots of oil infused with shrimp heads, dried scallops, ginger and other aromatics pull the brain in the direction of Cantonese flavors, but the overall effect evokes more of a vibe — a broadly Southern Californian, strolling-on-a-cloudless-summer-day kind of feeling — than it does any one cuisine or culture. Moments like these have me rooting for Jacaranda, which opened in May and is evolving quickly and for the better. The couple had originally envisioned their first joint venture as a nightly dinner party, but Patterson’s cuisine is the kind of equation (flawless ingredients plus intellectual heft) suited more to occasion dining than a casual event. As they adjust the tone, other elements are already in place, including ace beverage director Rick Arline and turn-your-head artwork by Lewitinn’s uncle, Abstract Expressionist Landès Lewitin.
Jade Rabbit
Santa Monica Chinese American $
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
What’s “real Chinese food”? For Bryant Ng and his wife, Kim Luu-Ng, it’s orange chicken, the dishes his parents prepared at home and everything in between. At the couple’s counter-service restaurant in Santa Monica, Bryant is embracing Chinese diaspora cuisine in his quest to create his own style of Chinese American food. Beef and broccoli is stir-fried with tomatoes, onions and fried potatoes like lomo saltado. Spicy Sichuan fried chicken, reminiscent of la zi ji, is marinated in fish sauce, buttermilk and white pepper. Fans of the couple’s previous restaurant, Cassia, will recognize the chickpea curry and its creamy coconut base as a meatless reimagining of his family’s traditional Singaporean-Chinese recipe. At Jade Rabbit, you build your own bowl with various proteins and vegetables. Bryant’s greatest triumph may be a golden slice of scallion garlic cheese toast, intended as a nod to Sizzler. It’s ultra buttery and crisp on one side, then pillow-soft on the other. Call it Chinese American, or just plain bonkers delicious.
Le Dräq
Downtown L.A. Eclectic $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Josef Centeno thrives on change to reach his highest creative altitudes. At the turn of the year, he essentially rebranded his downtown Tex-Cal-Mex cantina Bar Amá as Le Dräq, a hybrid project that fuses Amá’s essence with the soul of Bäco Mercat, the restaurant he closed during the pandemic in 2020. His bäco creation — a round of yogurt-leavened flatbread folded around a mound of various global-inspired ingredients like an extra-large taco — is itself a vehicle of constant reinvention. An ideal meal at Le Dräq, then, might look like two or three vegetable-focused small plates (pimento cheese-stuffed squash blossoms, perhaps, or snap peas pinging with Meyer lemon, feta and salsa seca), a fried shrimp or soft-shell crab bäco and the green chile enchiladas that Centeno brought from his hometown San Antonio. The menu is in constant, innovative flux. I’m pretty certain you can count on the tall, gloppy, excellent cheeseburger and, at brunch, a snuggly wrapped egg-and-potato breakfast burrito that arrives in a golden crackling cheese crust.
Lielle
Pico-Robertson California-Nordic $$$$
(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)
A newcomer, less than a year old, has soared all the way to the guide’s highest slot? Yes. Swedish chef Marcus Jernmark stunned us both with his finer-dining debut in a glamorous subterranean lair on West Pico Boulevard. “Finer,” meaning: four substantial set courses, which change every six or so weeks, for a reasonable $150 per person in our era of $400 tasting menus. The restaurant, packed nightly, doubles as a master class on how to conduct an effective introduction to Los Angeles. This isn’t someone trying to demonstrate what “California cuisine” should be; it’s someone keeping us rapt with his own story. Jernmark’s genius — pairing his Scandinavian instincts with the riches of our local harvests — doesn’t jump out through a perfunctory scroll of Lielle’s dishes on social media. Everything is meticulously plated, but you have to taste the flashbulb-bright acidity among hills of snipped vegetables and luxe seafood, and how he pairs meats and fruits for maximum dramatic tension. And the bread! Two loaves bookend dinner: Crusty-plush sourdough to be smeared with cultured butter that’s nearly cheese, and golden cardamom buns soaked in a Jernmark concoction riffing on boozy spiced Swedish punsch.
Lielle is astonishing from the outset, a rarity heightened by the front-of-house staff’s united, enlightened mode of hospitality; the surroundings, designed to evoke a sumptuous wine cave; and a spectacular, diverse wine list worthy of the atmosphere. Is it the great higher-end debut of the decade? Quite possibly, and there’s a bonus: Jernmark and his team just opened Marée, a bistro upstairs from Lielle, with fun brainstorms like mussels “gratin” and the city’s next must-have burger.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Lielle.
Lielle is astonishing from the outset, a rarity heightened by the front-of-house staff’s united, enlightened mode of hospitality; the surroundings, designed to evoke a sumptuous wine cave; and a spectacular, diverse wine list worthy of the atmosphere. Is it the great higher-end debut of the decade? Quite possibly, and there’s a bonus: Jernmark and his team just opened Marée, a bistro upstairs from Lielle, with fun brainstorms like mussels “gratin” and the city’s next must-have burger.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Lielle.
Little Fish Melrose Hill
Seafood $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The Filet-o-Fish-transcending sandwich that chefs Anna Sonenshein and Niki Vahle popularized through an Echo Park takeout window is now the gateway lure (though served only at lunch) to the couple’s first full-service project. Little Fish Melrose Hillqualifies as a seafood restaurant, but its owners sidestep a template that calls for shellfish towers and fried calamari. Dishes — from a tiny mussel sandwich crunching with potato chips to silky crudos and seafood-pork sausage with the right smooth bounce — meander through and between cuisines, landing as an effective union of Sonenshein and Vahle’s culinary gifts. That extends to desserts: Creations like bay leaf-stracciatella ice cream drizzled with Cabernet reduction rate instantly among the city’s most sophisticated sweets. Kae Whalen, one of L.A.’s great wine minds and hospitality freethinkers, leads the front of house and helps define the smart way Little Fish positions itself along the borderlines of casual and fancy, quirky and elegant. The room plays its part too, situated on a prime corner where L.A.’s singular light shifts, gilds and dims as daytime segues to dinner hours.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Little Fish Melrose Hill.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Little Fish Melrose Hill.
Loli Farms
Pasadena Peruvian $
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Owners Sandra Loli and Mauricio Vincenzi transformed this former Pasadena gas station into a temple devoted to pollo a la brasa, or Peruvian-style chicken. The chickens slowly turn in a wood-burning oven, filling the room with the heady, sweet aroma of pecan, apple and almond woods. The bronzed skin is tacky with the bird’s own fat and sugars, and beautifully caramelized along every ridge. The meat hums with a gentle smokiness and a complex, fruity chile flavor that’s warm, rounded and highly addictive. You eat the chicken with an aji verde electric with Peruvian yellow peppers and huacatay, pungent black mint. And with a mild aji amarillo fragrant with oregano and garlic. The restaurant is a joyful celebration of Peruvian culture and cuisine, with a menu that boasts so much more than the excellent chicken. Look for crunchy golden tiles of yucca frita, loaded salchipapas, lomo saltado sandwiches and liters of Inca Kola.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Loli Farms.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Loli Farms.
Lucia
Beverly Grove Caribbean $$$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
For Cleophus “Ophus” Hethington, celebrating Black foodways is central to the stories he tells on the plates at Lucia, the only fine-dining Afro-Caribbean restaurant in Los Angeles. His pastelón tastes like the sort of thing you make for someone you’re falling in love with, reimagined with sheets of plantain as thin as pasta between interchanging layers of Wagyu sofrito and pecorino béchamel. The beef cheeks that fill the patties are so tender, they’re practically spreadable. And the jerk chicken you might want or expect is replaced by a behemoth lamb shank, marinated in a pantry’s worth of spices like black cardamom and allspice, then braised until wobbly and tender enough to cut with a feather. The Fairfax restaurant also happens to be one of the most striking in the city, with a glowing 18-foot palm sculpture over the bar. And with nightly DJ performances, it’s a setting worthy of a grand night out.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Lucia.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Lucia.
Lugya'h
West Adams Global Oaxacan $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Maydan Market is restaurateur Rose Previte’s incredible 10,000-square-foot project inside a former West Adams factory. Underneath its exposed beams of wood and steel, seven dining options — a spinoff of Previte’s D.C. sit-down restaurant, Maydan L.A., and six counters each with its own visual and culinary identity — orbit a central hearth wrapped in bronze. Among the crush of options, we send you first to Lugya’h. Alfonso “Poncho” Martinez serves the specialty the city affectionately came to know as “Poncho’s tlayudas” during decadelong Friday night pop-ups in his South L.A yard. Over 14-inch corn tortillas, he spreads black bean refritos, lacy quesillo and handfuls of shredded cabbage. Martinez, who is Zapotec, grew up with cooks in Oaxaca’s Central Valleys who folded grilled tlayudas into fan shapes. That’s how he serves them too. Among meaty additions, look for moronga, an exceptional herbed blood sausage, its recipe a wedding gift to Martinez from the father of his wife and business partner, Odilia Romero. Beyond the must-try tlayuda, the complex, coppery-brown turkey leg is also wonderful.
Mish Delicatessen
Fairfax Jewish Cuisine $$
(Rebecca Peloquin/For The Times)
A plate of matzo brei that doesn’t taste like wet, eggy cardboard? A knish that doesn’t resemble a potato-laden rock? With each visit to Mish, Eric Greenspan is erasing every bad deli experience of my Jewish childhood. His cooking is equal parts nostalgic and swashbuckling, with a menu that brazenly reimagines foods most Jewish Americans hold near and dear. His matzo brei is like a plate of excellent pancakes torn to bits, punched up with scallions and black pepper. Kreplach are filled with pastrami, fried, tossed in a schmaltzy sauce and covered in “Jewish chili crunch” made from chiles and the seeds and seasonings found in everything bagel spice. He’s making excellent Montreal-ish bagels in a wood-fired pizza oven. Dara Yu is behind a pastry and bread program that boasts brown-butter hamantaschen. And bartender extraordinaire Julian Cox created the cocktails. Mish is the Jewish deli of my wildest dreams.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Mish Delicatessen.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Mish Delicatessen.
Olive & Rose
Long Beach Farm-to-table $$$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
One of the best representations of market bounty in recent memory may be the crudités plate at siblings Lauren and Philip Pretty’s Long Beach restaurant. In the center sits a pool of cilantro oil over a silky smooth broccoli hummus. Arranged around the plate are pieces of baby corn, squash, purple potato, cucumber, bok choy, fennel, beets, cauliflower and heirloom tomato. I relish each preparation, the way the hummus accentuates the freshness of every element on the plate. Known for their fine-dining restaurant Heritage, the pair’s Olive & Rose is decidedly more casual, housed in a renovated Midcentury Modern motel. Chef Philip’s ever-changing menu is short, with an option to sample one of everything as a prix-fixe for the table. There might be a tomato tart hidden under a flurry of leek ash. Or a filet of salmon over a rustic sauce Provençale. I’m looking forward to whatever the siblings dream up next.
Perse
Persian $$$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The newest project from Farinaz Pirshirazi and her brother Farbod, who also run the Persian restaurant Toranj in Westwood and Manhattan Beach, has an especially shiny surface: Its open-air space, decorated in light woods and shades of cream, perches on the third floor of Brentwood Plaza Gardens along San Vicente Boulevard. It can take studying the menu, or asking Farinaz for guidance, to find the hidden treasures beyond elaborately plated versions of familiar kebabs and dips. The biggest prizes are regional dishes, rarely seen in Los Angeles, inspired by the coastal Gilan Province in northern Iran. Tahdig presented under a smoke-filled cloche mirrors the flavors of freshly harvested rice traditionally smoked over fruit woods. A sauce of walnuts, barberries and pomegranate molasses adds fragrant tart-sweetness to whole branzino. Same goes for brunch: Order the omelet with smoked dates, the billowy saffron pancake and the kuku sibzamini (potato frittata as flat fritters) to taste flavors that, in their rarity and deliciousness, break from the pack of most local Persian repertoires.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Perse.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Perse.
Saqartvelo
Van Nuys Georgian $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Speaking from the pre-streaming era, sometimes a greatest-hits collection can be a masterpiece of sequencing and narrative, rather than a retread of played-out anthems or a randomly compiled playlist. That’s how it feels to dine at Saqartvelo, run by women who all grew up in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. If you’re new to Georgian cuisine, this Van Nuys cafe is an ideal immersion experience. If you’re familiar with Georgia’s stews, dips, dumplings and justly famous breads, you’ll find heart and intention behind the repertoire. The standard-setter on every table: Adjaruli khachapuri, the canoe-shaped, cheese-filled vessel, finished with an egg yolk and baton of butter for stirring into the molten center. Boiled khinkali — soupy dumplings bundled with oniony pork and beef, their wrappers pleated to resemble sun rays — tend to arrive next. Among brothy stews, the most compelling is called chakapuli. Cubes of diced beef hide among submerged herbs. The first spoonful is a ricochet of tarragon, which grows rampant in Georgia in the springtime and tastes bracingly delicious in this dish year-round in California.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Saqartvelo.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Saqartvelo.
Sqirl
East Hollywood New American $$
(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)
Jessica Koslow’s Virgil Village cafe was the brunch disruptor behind ricotta toast and sorrel rice bowls. Now open for dinner, Sqirl has a menu that laser-focuses on hyperseasonal ingredients, fermentation and strategic pops of mouthwatering acid. Chicken liver mousse is sheathed in a layer of compound celery butter, its grassy edge slicing through that familiar offal funk. Think of it as the ricotta toast of dinner. Agnolotti are filled with caramelized onions and smoked beets. The cold-smoked pork collar is served with perfect, flaky tortillas. Koslow leads an all-star kitchen team that includes executive chef Guillermo Mendez, chef de cuisine Sandra Felix and beverage director Kayla Garcia, who is the mastermind behind the cocktail program. Her take on a cosmopolitan struck just the right acidity with fresh citrus. It was the cocktail I wish I was sipping in the 2000s. And Sqirl is where I want to be eating dinner in 2026.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Sqirl.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Sqirl.
Tacos La Carreta
Long Beach Mexican $
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Since 2020, José Manuel Morales Bernal has been forging a distinct, umami-blaring taco style from his family’s Sinaloan recipes. He operates trucks in Santa Ana and Riverside, and established a taqueria in Whittier in 2024. His renown started with the first truck he parked in north Long Beach, and though you should try his specialties anywhere you can, there is still nothing quite like Tacos La Carreta at its origin point. To manage his expansion, he’s wisely narrowed the menu down to essentials. Chief among them are chorreadas, crisped corn tortillas covered with melted cheese, asiento (a rendered pork paste that’s the secret ingredient), chopped meat (asada, adovada, tripe or a combination), finely minced cabbage, chopped onion and a ladle of warm, thin tomato-based salsa. Smoky, stacked in flavor, singular. Also unmissable: toritos, flour tortillas enfolding a roasted Anaheim chile that’s split to cradle cheese and one of the aforementioned three meats. What’s that porky-buttery-nutty pheromone among the cabbage and salsa? Yes, a little more asiento.
Taínos L.A.
Woodland Hills Puerto Rican $
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Taínos L.A. owner Odessa Rodriguez and her uncle Edwin Torres wanted to create a cocoon of nostalgia for L.A.’s Puerto Rican community with their Woodland Hills restaurant. A longtime chef in both his hometown of Ponce and in San Juan, Torres’ cooking is distilled through the lens of his specific route to California. He lard-fries the chicharrón for his mofongo, creating prized pops of crunch and salt throughout the mashed green plantains. Rellenos de papa are halos of remarkably light, fluffy mashed potato around deeply savory ground beef. The pernil is cooked low and slow until the rendered fat creates a sweet and sticky crust around meat so tender, it nearly melts. Rodriguez credits Bad Bunny with a recent swell in appreciation for Puerto Rican food and culture. She’s probably right, but I have a hunch that her crowded dining room has more to do with the mofongo coming out of Torres’ kitchen.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Taínos L.A.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Taínos L.A.
Taquearte California
Pico Rivera Mexican $
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
There is no hesitation when claiming that Taquearte, a strip mall restaurant in Pico Rivera, serves L.A.’s best chilaquiles. Owners Monica Quinto and Anyelo Farfán are championing a style of chilaquiles specific to their childhoods in Mexico City. The chips are buried under an avalanche of green or red sauce, queso panela, zigzags of crema and diced onion. The sauce crackles with the bright, citrusy charge of tomatillos and serrano chiles. If you order the chilaquiles spicy, the guacachile announces itself in rippling waves of heat. And the chips remain in a magical state of limbo, between crisp and wilted. Before noon, there are molletes, the birotes smeared in refried beans and chorizo and blanketed in a single layer of mottled cheese. After noon, the kitchen turns out tacos campechanos on vast corn tortillas topped with grilled nopales, onions and fried potatoes with your protein of choice. Whatever time you visit, the city’s best chilaquiles will be waiting.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Taquearte.
Read Jenn Harris’ review of Taquearte.
Wilde's
Los Feliz British $$
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
When chef Natasha Price partnered with childhood friend Tatiana Ettensberger to open Wilde’s a year ago, taking over a snug corner space in Los Feliz, the buzz around the place simmered and concentrated into a single word: “British.” No question, some quintessential British comforts took a spotlight. Cheesy-snacky Welsh rarebit. An elegant rendering of fish and chips. Sticky toffee pudding for dessert. Full English breakfast and sausage rolls rolled out for weekend lunch service. “British,” though, was repeated so often its meanings vacuum-sealed around Wilde’s identity, ultimately squeezing more tightly than would prove helpful, or accurate. The restaurant is a different one than when it launched, and a better one: more expansive as a dining experience, and in its cooking, more specific and far lighter. By all means, crunch into Welsh rarebit to start, but then disappear into seasonal plates of Dungeness crab in saffron sauce, or sea bass with braised plums and fried marjoram, or a brothy tomato bisque with shellfish and cranberry beans. Is it modern British? Cal-Brit? Labels are so tempting, and so reductive.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Wilde’s.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Wilde’s.
Yerord Mas
Glendale Armenian $$
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles has never seen an Armenian restaurant like Yerord Mas before. Setting up in a former Glendale doughnut shop, Arthur Grigoryan traces his family’s diaspora journey through a tight menu: pistachio-laced hummus inspired by an ancient Egyptian cookbook; meticulous variations on vegetarian and beef kyuftahs; a crisp, generous fattoush made with pastel-colored farmers market produce. Grigoryan’s $38 basturma brisket sandwich, a monument of high-quality ingredients and personal expression, transcended its viral social-media moments, both positive and negative. It’s the image you’ll still see online most associated with Yerord Mas, but Grigoryan, as of press time, swapped its laboriousness for kebabs, including beef and lamb meatballs in cherry sauce, a reinterpretation of the most famous dish from Aleppo, Syria. In other words, Yerord Mas remains in fascinating, real-time evolution.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Yerord Mas.
Read Bill Addison’s review of Yerord Mas.
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