It’s a joy to choose a restaurant, but it’s not always easy. That’s where we can help. In the Where to Eat Right Now series, we’re highlighting our favorite places in cities across the United States. These lists will be updated regularly, as restaurants close and open, and as we find new gems to share. When visiting restaurants, we do not give advance notice and we pay for all our meals.
This family-run Thai restaurant in Sherman Oaks has a superpower: shape-shifting. Tuesdays are for Thai-inspired tacos and tostadas, which make sense the second you taste them, or for cheffy, one-off collaborations, while the last weekend of each month means it’s time for Justin Pichetrungsi’s freestyle tasting menu. But what some might consider the ordinary days in between are a joy, too, with dishes like the mouthwatering fish custard haw mok or Southern Thai fried chicken. That’s when the restaurant plays the part of neighborhood gem and you can see all the loving updates that Mr. Pichetrungsi made after he took over from his parents and bulked up the wine program.
14704 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks; 818-501-4201; anajakthai.com
Italian country cooking is an endlessly replicated genre in Southern California, but a visit to Chad Colby’s open kitchen and glowing, grown-up dining room is an energizing reminder of how irresistible it can be when handled with focus and skill. Go for the slightly esoteric, perfectly made pastas, like dimpled foglie d’ulivo, perky malloreddus and slippery, thin-skinned plin dell’ alta langa, but don’t let it be at the expense of the olive oil-soaked focaccia, the beans baked with bread over a wood fire or the intensely flavored ice creams.
4653 Beverly Boulevard; 323-510-3093; anticonuovo-la.com
With all due respect to grilled meat on skewers, Cody Ma and Misha Sesar have been using the hashtag #notjustkebabs since they started Azizam as a pop-up in 2021, determined to expand the idea of Iranian food in Los Angeles. Their casual Silver Lake cafe is devoted to the kind of deeply delicious, often labor-intensive cooking that doesn’t like to show off about how much prep (a lot) goes into it. The kitchen bakes nigella seed-freckled barbari each day for its sandwiches, which might be filled with sliced beef tongue or herb-packed kuku sabzi. Stay for a bigger meal, and the rewards are bigger, too: The kofteh Tabrizi is a single, family-size, fruit-studded meatball in tangy broth. The ash-e-jo — an unassuming jewel based on Mr. Ma’s mother’s recipe — is a luxuriously slippery rendition of the stew, stacked with barley, lentils, kidney beans and chickpeas, and crowned with caramelized onions and fried mint. It tastes like being home, no matter where you’re from.
2943 Sunset Boulevard; 323-928-2286; azizamla.com
Victor Heights | Modern American
Inside a Los Angeles bungalow, hedged by banana trees and bougainvillea, Baby Bistro composes its frisky little menu — so small you should order the whole thing, for an unceremonious tasting that zips by in the twinkling warren of the dining room. The chef Miles Thompson swaps in new dishes often, which means a great one (like the cucumbers and raw squid, aged to the texture of a gummy candy, prickling with yuzu kosho) could disappear at any moment. The upside is that he and the co-owner Andy Schwartz have built a restaurant that feels inviting, unpredictable and alive, and where all the wine bottles are under $100.
1027 Alpine Street; 213-266-8784; babybistrola.com
Monterey Park | Vietnamese
Banh Mi Hoa Phat
Go here for the crispy pork banh mi. The weightless rolls, baked in-house each day, have a fine and crackling crust and the roasted pork belly is almost deliriously crisp. Part of the magic of this San Gabriel Valley restaurant is in its owner Ken Hy’s knack for packaging the sandwiches to maintain all those superlative textures. Even if you order your sandwich to stay, it’ll be tucked in a perforated box along with baggies of pickles, chiles, herbs and sauce, so that you can assemble it yourself.
301 North Garfield Avenue, Unit A, Monterey Park; 818-822-2212; no website
The chef Kwang Uh built his reputation at this highly experimental and weirdly affordable gem of a lunch spot, where tubs of fruits and vegetables labeled with blue tape were always fermenting away on the open shelving. The new Baroo, run with his partner and wife, Mina Park, might share a name with its predecessor, but it leaps forward in a beautifully designed dining room with an elegant tasting menu that moves quickly and lightly. Look on the underside of the menu for the names of everyone who labored over the meal: Now it’s not just a couple of cooks on a shoestring budget doing the most with the least, but a whole team at work behind the scenes, paying attention to every detail.
905 East Second Street, No. 109; 213-221-7967; baroolosangeles.com
A “set meal” at Borit Gogae is, in fact, a magnificent Korean feast that emphasizes the real luxury of going out: variety. Barley rice is at the center of the meal, which comes with a basket of dozens of banchan. The table crowds with dishes: fried kelp, acorn jelly salad, mung bean pancakes, snails in vinegar. And when you think that surely must be it, the pumpkin porridge and perilla seed chicken soup arrive. The food tends to be gently seasoned; don’t miss the gochujang or bottle of sesame oil that live on the table for you to adjust things to your taste.
3464 West Eighth Street; 213-388-8818; instagram.com/boritgogae
Downtown | Japanese, French
A delicately crunchy slice of ham katsu, enrobed in Mornay sauce, rests on a slice of sweet, buttery housemade shokupan, almost entirely hidden by a softly fried egg. Even the basic croque-madame here is a thoughtfully composed thrill. Charles Namba and Courtney Kaplan, known for their sake-focused Japanese restaurants, have opened a chic, freewheeling bistro that almost feels as if it were imported from the 11th Arrondissement, but has a distinctly Los Angeles flavor. It’s an ideal spot to meet for an aperitif and an aioli garni, but even better to make a long and winding dinner out of its hits. Take the tomatoes and burrata (yawn!) scattered here with fried shiso leaves and a habit-forming ponzu jelly, so soft and delicate that it becomes the dressing. This is the magic of a good bistro: a place where you can come across the familiar, and even predictable, and fall in love with it again.
1850 Industrial Street; 213-800-9750; cameliadtla.com
Plush, but not fussy. Cozy, but not cramped. Dunsmoor is beautifully lit by glowing lamps and the warmth of the hearths where Brian Dunsmoor and his team cook oysters, pork chops and trout over fire. They also bake cornbread in cast iron so the edges get dark and crisp before letting a luxurious amount of butter melt into the top. The menu is concise, but dishes lean toward exuberance, and even the flavors of a soupy bowl of Carolina gold rice with Gulf shrimp are turned all the way up. If you didn’t book a table, Dunsmoor has a jewel box of a bar next door that’s only for walk-ins, and you can make a night out of this smaller menu, too.
3501 Eagle Rock Boulevard; no phone; dunsmoor.la
East Hollywood | Seafood, Raw bar
There aren’t many places I’d rather be in the late afternoon when it’s time for a drink and a bite than Found Oyster’s narrow bar, or its cluster of sidewalk seating. The restaurant takes reservations now, but if you didn’t make one, you can wait around with a glass of wine until you’re sitting down happily with some head-on prawns, a crab cocktail and a dozen just-shucked oysters. Considering that seafood is the point here, the bar steak and fries are far better than they ought to be, as is the weekend schnitzel hidden under a big salad draped with white anchovies. And while the restaurant doesn’t make dessert, it’s hard to complain when they sell slices from Nicole Rucker’s pie shop Fat + Flour.
4880 Fountain Avenue; 323-486-7920; foundoyster.com
Historic South Central | Seafood, Mexican
Bay scallops and chocolate clams from Baja. Line-caught tuna from around the Channel Islands. Spot prawns from Santa Barbara. Gilberto Cetina runs a mariscos stand inside Mercado La Paloma that seems fairly unbuttoned, but don’t be fooled: He’s serving some of the highest quality and most beautifully prepared seafood in Los Angeles. Order these not just in sunny ceviches, cocteles and tostadas, but also grilled, fried, roasted and stewed with stacks of hot tortillas on the side — Fátimah Juárez nixtamalizes and mills the corn next door at Komal (also on this list). Once you understand the draw of Mr. Cetina’s counter, you’ll want to reserve a seat for the eight-course tasting menu he serves two nights a week.
3655 South Grand Avenue No. C9; 213-986-9972; holboxla.com
Wedchayan Arpapornnopparat and Tongkamal Yuon first got my attention during the pandemic with their sai oua, each link of the Northern Thai-style sausage holding more deep and vivid flavor than seemed possible, packed for easy pickup and cooking at home. Their second outpost in Atwater Village is small and casual, but the cooking is more lively, expansive and playful than ever, with mind-bendingly delicious results. See: satay mushrooms from Long Beach, grilled over charcoal; platters of Dungeness crab curry with sticky rice; and lip-tingling beef nam tok. You can still get some of the food to go, but don’t be distracted by the convenience of takeout — eating those chewy rice noodles right out of the wok is reason enough to sit down here.
3170 Glendale Boulevard, Unit C; no phone; holybasildtla.com
Hollywood | Modern American
It shouldn’t be, but it’s rare for every dish in a 12-course tasting menu to be both completely distinct and totally delicious. Dinner at Jacaranda, which quietly and confidently contains a remarkable technical range, flows from one marvel to the next, giving you something different to delight in each time. The effect is abundance — how can one dinner hold so many beautiful things? (But also, why does this musk melon taste so good?) Jacaranda is a return to fine dining for the chef Daniel Patterson, best known for Coi in San Francisco, now partnering with his wife, Sarah Lewitinn, a former music producer, and you can now choose a shorter six-course menu there, too, if you’re not in the mood to commit.
6623 Melrose Avenue; 323-393-5462; jacaranda.la
Arts District | Taiwanese American
You don’t have to know Jon Yao’s story to enjoy his restaurant. You could be oblivious to his journey from a scrappy, ambitious Taiwanese-leaning restaurant in a strip mall to this chic, decidedly luxurious space downtown, complete with all the bells and whistles required of a serious, big-budget fine-dining restaurant. You could simply go, sit down for the $325 tasting menu, and let it work its magic — revealing to you, moment by carefully choreographed moment, exactly what this format is capable of and why submitting yourself to it can be such a worthwhile pleasure.
777 South Alameda Street, Building 1, Suite 114; 213-797-5770; katorestaurant.com
Historic South Central | Mexican
Fátima Juárez started out making the tortillas at Holbox, an exquisite seafood restaurant inside Mercado La Paloma that’s also on this list. She now runs her own molino just across the mercado’s shared dining area, where she nixtamalizes heirloom corns from Mexico to make blue, red and yellow masa each day for her small, but thrilling menu of tacos, tlacoyos, chucitos and more. Even the dishes that aren’t built with masa are exceptional, like the delicate, barely sweet molotes of mashed plantain, fried until crisp and giving way to a tender center of melting, freshly made quesillo, all of it bobbing in a smooth, thin and highly drinkable mole negro.
3655 South Grand Avenue, No. C9; 213-275-1062; komal.toast.site
Lasita bills itself as a Filipino rotisserie and natural-wine bar, but in addition to the beautiful chicken Inasal, marinated in vinegar and calamansi juice, served crisp and practically hairy with the fibers of so many crushed aromatics and spices, there’s a whole menu to fall for here. Swirls of fatty lechon, whole fish, lumpia, pancit and all sorts of stylish and surprising specials that come and go quickly.
727 North Broadway No. 120; 213-443-6163; lasita-la.com
The married chefs and owners Niki Vahle and Anna Sonenshein built their following at Little Fish on the fame of a fried fish sandwich, but the cooking here is both more complex and more rewarding. The stuffed olives, served warm, are somehow luxurious. There really isn’t a better tuna melt in town. And the Dungeness crab salad with summer squash is one of my top dishes of the year. The restaurant itself is also beautiful — cool, buzzing and full of light — ideal for a medium-to-long lunch with a glass of wine from the manager Kae Whalen’s excellent list.
5035 Melrose Avenue; 323-376-6728; littlefishla.com
West Adams | Oaxacan, Mexican
Alfonso Martinez built his reputation with a grill in the garden outside the offices of the Comunidades Indígenas en Liderazgo. There, he created an oasis for those seeking thin, toasted tlayudas filled with gently steamed cabbage and golden dregs of lard, and sold moronga, a fantastic blood sausage flecked with onion, yerba buena and dried chiles. His new spot is one of the highlights inside Maydan Market, and you can order that moronga chopped inside breakfast tacos with black beans, eggs and quesillo.
4301 West Jefferson Boulevard; 213-399-4704; ponchostlayudas.com
One of the many joys of living in Los Angeles is that a quick breakfast around the corner might involve tacos — specifically soft, hot, housemade corn tortillas piled with daikon pickles and thinly sliced, grilled rib-eye, dripping with lime juice or sweet, smoky beets al pastor. Macheen, an energetic taco pop-up with a residency inside Milpa Grille in Boyle Heights and regular appearances at Smorgasburg and Distrito Catorce, continues to expand on the form with equal parts finesse and playfulness (and isn’t above adding an egg to a taco, if that’s what your heart desires).
2633 East Cesar E. Chavez Avenue; 323-269-2995; instagram.com/_macheen
Victor Heights | Sushi, Japanese
Pay attention at Morihiro, and you might notice the rice mill, which Morihiro Onodera, a chef, potter and star in the Los Angeles sushi scene, uses each morning to polish the rice he imports from Japan. His restaurant’s new location still leaves room for omakase at the counter, where you can measure the evening in clusters of that warm rice as they move through Mr. Onodera’s hands, one by one, tinted with vinegar before they’re finished with transcendent shivers of fish. But the thrill of the new Morihiro is that it also has an à la carte menu, making the entry point to dinner just a little less steep, as well as fantastic cocktails (and genuinely excellent nonalcoholic drinks) made by Han Suk Cho.
1115 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 100; 323-522-3993; morionodera.com
The chef Nozomi Mori shops at the Santa Monica Farmers Market to make her excellent pickles, and turns the first vegetables of the season into juicy tempura with a neon flutter of bottarga. Each morning, she makes mochi filled with sweet red bean paste, serving these at the end of the meal with matcha that she whisks. If this doesn’t sound like your typical sushi omakase, that’s because it isn’t. The rice is clean and light, and the fish is high-quality and masterfully cut, but the real thrill is in the way Ms. Mori builds on the structure and the flow of the omakase in her own distinct style, moving you from one captivating bite to the next.
11500 West Pico Boulevard; 424-273-1146; morinozomi.com
The little banchan shop spills into a courtyard where you can feast on warm seasoned rice, sweet pepper muchim, marinated okra, perfect spirals of rolled omelets and more of whatever Jihee Kim has cooked in her tiny open kitchen that day. Ms. Kim, who started Perilla as a pop-up during the pandemic’s first wave of restaurant shutdowns, is guided by Korean cooking and fermentation techniques as much as by what excites her at the farmers’ market. The results are as unpredictable as they are delicious.
1027 Alpine Street, Building E; no phone; perillala.com
Downtown Los Angeles | Taiwanese
Bowls of savory soy milk, doused with vinegar and chile oil, and pork-floss-filled fan tuan made with purple sticky rice are a small, essential part of breakfast at Vivian Ku’s Taiwanese restaurant. The downtown location is informal, but the menu is more expansive and ambitious than her first Pine & Crane, with breakfast now a permanent fixture, lots more dishes through lunch and dinner, a bigger tea program and a list of Taiwanese whiskeys that you can try neat or in chilled, fizzy highballs.
1120 South Grand Avenue, Unit 101; 213-536-5292; pineandcrane.com/dtla
Aaron Lindell and Hannah Ziskin’s Echo Park pizzeria confidently shifts from thick, airy, crisp-edged Sicilian corners inspired by, say, California Pizza Kitchen’s barbecue chicken pizza one day, to cracker-thin bar pies jeweled with wrinkly, charred Jimmy Nardello peppers the next. Though Ms. Ziskin’s daily dessert specials and seasonal sheet cakes would be reason enough to join the loyal crowd that gathers outside as soon as the restaurant opens. Slices — both savory and sweet — are always worth the wait.
1305 Portia Street; 424-543-4970; instagram.com/quartersheets
Even if you’re not from the neighborhood, you can feel right at home at this horseshoe oyster bar in Highland Park, particularly when partner Joe Laraja and the staff talk about the oysters they’re opening while mixing excellent cocktails for the crowds that pour in for happy hour. Raw bar platters, hush puppies and clams casino are all a very good idea, though so is the pimento cheeseburger and the tidy hanger steak.
4701 York Boulevard; 213-521-8878; queensrawbar.com
There’s nothing fancy about this tiny, occasionally chaotic strip mall restaurant, but Pa Ord easily outcooks fancier kitchens when it comes to its specialty. The birds are slowly roasted whole, deeply browned, sliced so that every piece of juicy, seasoned meat holds a crackle of glistening skin and a fine, soft layer of fat. There’s no wrong way to order it — with rice, skinny jade noodles or in the glorious kind of salad where the meat is the salad. Keep in mind that no part of the bird goes to waste, which means that after carving the roasted bones are simmered to make a dark, rich broth for a particularly life-affirming duck noodle soup. And if you didn’t save room for it, it’s one more reason to come back.
5136 Hollywood Boulevard; 323-599-6511; instagram.com/roastduck_bypaord
Venice | Californian, Japanese
The chef Travis Lett, who opened nearby Gjelina and defined its sensibility of effortless seasonality and abundance, now runs this very Los Angeles izakaya with Ian Robinson. Here, the food and the drinks are both powerful draws. RVR (pronounced “river”) is on the cool, commercial strip of Abbot Kinney, but it’s all warmth inside when you’re communing with the sweet, vivid clam ramen or grilled duck tsukune. The kitchen is focused, technically precise and, this being a Lett joint, particularly focused on vegetables — the section of the menu devoted to them holds the most surprises and delights, and goes longer than some restaurants’ entire menus.
1305 Abbot Kinney Boulevard; 310-573-8077; rvr.la
No takeout, no exceptions! Yerord Mas may be a tiny, no-frills restaurant in a former doughnut shop, but Arthur Grigoryan takes his work here seriously, drawing dishes from Armenian home kitchens through time and across borders. His menu pulls flavors of the Armenian diaspora from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and the former Soviet Union, showing how they all belong together in Los Angeles. And you’ll be so glad to be in the dining room when you’re feasting on kyuftas, kebabs and that particularly marvelous pita, baked in a pizza oven on the sidewalk, arriving at your table still hot and puffy with steam.
6800 San Fernando Road, Glendale; 747-283-1017; yerordmas.toast.site
