The 25 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now

26.09.2023 - 09:15 / nytimes.com

Thai

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.

Italian

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.

North African, Middle Eastern

Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis built their reputations on rigorous Italian fare at their downtown ace Bestia, but this is the restaurant that showed us what they could really do. Bavel is a roaring, pleasure-driven powerhouse of North African and Middle Eastern cooking, and even dishes that were on its opening menu five years ago, like the laminated strips of malawach with crème fraîche and strawberry zhoug, feel fresh, fundamental and totally uninhibited.

Jewish, New American

The steaks at Birdie G’s may be impeccable, but some of the restaurant’s most exciting maneuvers are often vegetarian, or almost vegetarian, or entirely vegan. (The chef, Jeremy Fox, did write a cookbook called “On Vegetables,” after all.) The kitchen seems to delight in sneaking cheeky, technical marvels and from-scratch fermentations, pickles and preserves into the most casual of dishes, without drawing too much attention to them. And the kids’ menu, with its matzo margherita pizza and fresh pasta with butter, is one of the most charming in the city, if you’re keeping up with that sort of thing.

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 no-reservations policy is only a tiny nuisance — 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.