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The Eater Los Angeles Heatmap has existed for nearly two decades to answer the age-old question: “What’s hot and new in LA?” Eater editors do thorough reporting on the most exciting restaurant openings to hit Los Angeles , as well as smaller openings and hidden gems worth having on the radar . Though the local dining scene has endured tremendous challenges in recent years, the city’s spirit of breaking ground and exploring new cuisines and forms continues every month. In this map, we narrow the field to those places which are drawing the most excitement, buzz, crowds, and early positive chatter, focusing largely on restaurants that have only been open for six months or less.
When an Eater editor visits a new restaurant, even if it just opened, we share insider tips on what to expect and what’s worth ordering as well. Leaving the list this update are American Beauty, Backbone, Helms Bakery, and Zaytinya. March’s newcomers are Japan-based kushiyaki spot Torikizoku, Italian hotpot Alba, Korean barbecue specialist Yangmani, and Sri Lankan cult-favorite Kurrypinch.
For even more of an insider’s perspective on how to eat well in LA, pick up our new book: The Eater Guide to Los Angeles . For restaurants that have established themselves as one of the city’s best, check out Eater LA’s Essential 38 . Orla Santa Monica Michael Mina’s modern Egyptian restaurant plucked out of Vegas’s Mandalay Bay has landed at the luxurious Regent Santa Monica Beach hotel.
One of America’s most prolific fine dining chefs, Mina’s menu at Orla reflects his upbringing eating homestyle Egyptian and Greek fare, like crispy falafel with bigeye tuna; gnudi and lamb meatballs; and kebab platter with filet mignon, lamb kofta, and chicken dolmas. A stark contrast to the Vegas edition, the AvroKO-designed Orla in Santa Monica offers fantastic, nearly unfettered ocean views from its outer tables, while the luxe interior boasts shapely tan leather banquettes. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Also featured in: The 18 Best Santa Monica Restaurants The Best Splurge-Worthy Restaurants in Los Angeles Fitoor A seasoned restaurant group from the Bay Area opens a branch of its modern Indian restaurant, Fitoor, inside the tony Viceroy Santa Monica serving wood-fired branzino, dal butter makhani, and lamb shank rogan josh curry.
The restaurant joins the likes of Badmaash, Pijja Palace, Arth, Kahani, and Baar Baar, who have introduced fresh takes on traditional Indian dishes to Angelenos over the years. Fitoor sees it fit to bring a nice polish to dishes like curry leaf tandoori prawns with tempered buttermilk or chicken seekh masala. A wood-fired oven churns out Indian-style pizza, like pulled butter chicken pulcha or chicken tikka and jalapeño, in case one wants a little dose of familiar comfort.
— Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Seline Pasjoli chef Dave Beran has returned to a tasting menu-only format with Seline, a spiritual successor to his previous Michelin-starred restaurant Dialogue. Opened in early December, Beran acknowledges Seline as the more complete, fully-thought out effort that Dialogue helped establish. Beran, a former chef de cuisine of Alinea and executive chef of Next, tailors the ingredient mix to seasonal California offerings, serving them in a $295, 14-course journey that includes roast squash, faux-oysters, glazed maitake mushrooms, and caviar-topped coffee custard sauce for dessert.
The dark, brooding room offers pops of color from controversial artist David Choe while the fully open kitchen makes one sense the action from start to finish. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Also featured in: The 18 Best Santa Monica Restaurants The Best Splurge-Worthy Restaurants in Los Angeles Marea New York City’s celebrated coastal Italian restaurant has finally landed on the West Coast with a rather fetching dining room tucked along Beverly Hills’ tony Camden Drive, already home to Cipriani and Mr. Chow.
Here, the same honey onyx bar welcomes diners, beckoning them either to the patio or the main dining room that feels like a billionaire’s yacht. The food might also befit a billionaire, not so much in price (the place certainly isn’t cheap), but in excellence and quality. Uni toast topped with a thin shaving of lardo or a parade of crudo tends to be the way most people start.
Antipasti of grilled octopus with smoked potato or branzino tartare make way for the sizeable scratch-made pasta, which are the real stars of the menu. Plump, sweet ruby shrimp are studded into twisted gnochetti laced with rosemary oil while the red wine-braised octopus made famous in Manhattan gets woven into strands of slender fusilli. One wouldn’t even notice the rice bone marrow binding the fusilli and octopus together.
Most people order the Dover sole as their entrees, though steak and other seared fish options abound. A visit to Marea isn’t complete without dessert; the coconut-inflected meringue and the house-spun ice creams are the highlights. Book a reservation through SevenRooms .
— Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Also featured in: The Best Splurge-Worthy Restaurants in Los Angeles Somni In a complete rebirth, former two-Michelin-star restaurant Somni has opened in a new West Hollywood location under chef Aitor Zabala. Somni occupies a cloistered set of buildings just north of Santa Monica Boulevard serving precise Spanish-inflected modernist tasting menus to a rounded duet of countertops. The high-ceiling space acts as a theater of sorts to Zabala’s kitchen crew, assembling dashi meringue fish topped with Astrea caviar or escabeche mussels dressed with borage flowers.
Expect every flavorful turn to be delightful, especially for the sky-high $495 price that will inevitably feel justified after experiencing perhaps the most innovative meal in Los Angeles. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Sign up for our newsletter. Check your inbox for a welcome email.
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Alba New York Italian hotspot Cucina Alba has landed in West Hollywood with a restaurant simply called Alba. The West Coast outpost has been in development for over two years by partners Cobi Levy, Will Makris, and Julian Black who were drawn in by the allure of LA’s year-round outdoor dining and bounty of produce. The restaurant serves a “holiday Italian” menu comprised of agnolotti in a rich black truffle fonduta, gnocchi in sage butter, and orecchiette in arrabbiata sauce.
A balloon of burrata is served with spring peas, and a constant flow of fluffy focaccia comes out of the oven, landing on tables to be torn apart. Sip on a tiramisu espresso martini or wine from Tuscany, Napa, and Burgundy. On a nice night, make sure to grab a table on the expansive patio, which has a handful of cabana-like booths for an intimate night out.
Book a table through Resy . — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Somerville A sumptuous supper club just opened on Slauson Avenue from Yonnie Hagos and Ajay Relan, the duo behind the budding chain of Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen shops and Downtown’s Lost Rooftop Cocktail + Taco Bar . Their first Los Angeles restaurant, Somerville , offers full-service, compelling cocktails, a curated wine list, live music, and American food standards, including Parker house rolls, Black Angus burgers, fried chicken and caviar sliders, and more.
Reservations are listed on OpenTable . — Mona Holmes, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Also featured in: The Best Restaurants in South LA The Best Splurge-Worthy Restaurants in Los Angeles Torikizoku Popular Japanese yakitori and izakaya chain Torikizoku has opened its first U.S.
location in Torrance. The first Torikizoku opened in Osaka in 1985. The restaurant specializes in yakitori (chicken skewers), but offers a wide range of kushiyaki (any kind of skewers).
Chicken options include kizoku yaki (jumbo yakitori), momo (thigh), teba (wings), tsukune (meatballs), hatsu (heart), sunagimo (gizzard), and yagen (cartilage); the rest of the menu is rounded out with hotate (scallop), ebi (shrimp), uzura (quail eggs). Chefs prepare the kushiyaki in a glass-enclosed “yaki-bar,” dipping the skewers into tare (sauce) before putting them on a gas grill. Non-skewer options include karaage, okonomiyaki, yuzu shio ramen, and soboro don.
Reservations are not currently available at Torikizoku. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Calabama Fans of Cara Haltiwanger’s pandemic-era “ bucket drops ” can now come to Calabama’s permanent home in Hollywood for a dependable dose of Southern comfort. Headlining the menu are Haltiwanger’s signature breakfast sandwiches layered with bacon, egg, cheese, grilled onions, and avocado and served with a proprietary spicy-sweet dipping sauce, along with other staples from her Alabama childhood, including sweet tea, delicate biscuits, and pimento cheese.
— Cathy Chaplin, former senior editor Yangmani One of LA’s best Korean barbecue restaurants, Yangmani, has moved into new digs on Western Avenue in Koreatown, leaving behind its tight space on Olympic Boulevard. The restaurant specializes in gopchang (pig’s intestines) and daechang (marinated beef intestines), alongside a lineup of high quality cuts like rib-eye cap and marinated galbi. The best way to try the house-specialty intestines is in the Chang Combo, which comes with beef intestine, beef mountain tripe, beef large intestine, and beef abomasum.
Round out the meal with cold noodles, doenjang jjigae (soybean stew), and Korean-style beef sashimi. Street parking in the area is limited, but Yangmani offers valet. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Also featured in: Get Into the Guts of LA Dining With 19 Delectable Offal Dishes Casa Gish Bac Beloved Oaxacan standby Gish Bac has expanded into bigger digs in Pico-Union, with plans to close the original Arlington Heights location in six months.
The new Casa Gish Bac offers a larger dining room for guests to enjoy favorites from the Indigenous Zapoteco couple behind the restaurant, David and Maria Ramos, like barbacoa enchiladas, moles, and refried black bean enfrijoladas served with fresh tortillas and a protein of choice. Casa Gish Bac will also have Mexican wine and beer on the menu, while the original location was limited to just non-alcoholic beverages. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Bar Siesta Though the wave of Spanish restaurants around Los Angeles has crested somewhat after a torrid 2022 and 2023, Bar Siesta has arrived in the former Alimento space in Silver Lake to remind Angelenos of the enduring charm of tapas with a crisp glass of vermouth.
Bar Siesta comes from Botanica co-owner Heather Sperling, who met Siesta tinned fish company founders Lucia Flors and Carlos Leiva, the trio forming a bond over their love of Spanish food and culture. At Bar Siesta, expect a wide array of classic bites made with seasonal farmers market produce from former Rustic Canyon chef Keith Philips, like thrice-cooked Weiser potatoes with aioli, Siesta Co. Cantabrian anchovies over pan con tomate, and chicory and persimmon salad with Manchego.
Book a reservation through Resy . — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Also featured in: The Best Restaurants in Silver Lake The Most Romantic Restaurants in Los Angeles Ki Talented Korean American chef Ki Kim, previously of Michelin-starred Meteora and his own Koreatown tasting menu restaurant Kinn, has opened Ki in the subterranean batch of upscale restaurants in Little Tokyo beside Kaneyoshi and Bar Sawa. In this fully formed space, Kim can crystalize his approach to contemporary Korean cuisine, leaning on seasonal ingredients.
A cod milt gimbap starts the meal with a terrific bite, leading to a thoughtful arrangement of top-notch seafood fusing Korean cooking sensibilities and flavors. The meal, almost fully prepared at the counter for no more than eight diners, plays out like a well-choreographed theatre, where Kim and two other chefs arrange plates in concert. Think flounder in aji amarillo piled onto large leaves, grilled lettuce ice cream with caviar, and roasted lamb saddle with stuffed morel mushrooms.
Kim’s journey has taken him through some of the country’s most hallowed establishments, and Ki is his first opportunity to make his own impression. Even just a month or so in, the early results are astonishing. Book a reservation through Tock .
— Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Good Alley The San Gabriel Valley will never tire of great dumplings, and this latest entrant from the owners behind Ji Rong Duck House plays the part well. Good Alley goes into a strip mall slot serving a range of pleated soup-filled dumplings in the style of Henan, a good 400 miles from Beijing in inner China. Other dishes include beef noodle soup, beef rolls, cauliflower dry pot, and clay pot pork with pickled cabbage.
The chic ambience lined with traditional paintings and latticed lanterns could be plucked out of a fashionable district in any large Chinese city. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Also featured in: The Best Boba in Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley.
