Where to eat
The restaurants locals actually recommend.
Arguably the most famous Oaxacan restaurant outside Mexico, with house-made moles, tlayudas, and live music. This is the anchor of LA's Oaxacan food identity, not a copy of it.
Open since 2008 and still turning out some of the city's best vegetable-forward cooking and charred, thin-crust pizzas. The quintessential Abbot Kinney meal.
Chef Niki Nakayama's one-Michelin-star, multi-course tasting in an unmarked house with a zen garden. A destination meal, and one of the hardest, most rewarding reservations in LA — book far ahead.
Chef Kris Yenbamroong's loud, fun, party-plastic-tablecloth room built around fiery northern Thai dishes and a serious natural-wine list. The opposite of takeout pad thai.
Nancy Silverton's flagship, anchored by a mozzarella bar that draws nightly crowds. A restaurant that helped define modern LA Italian cooking.
Open since 1917 and still the most honest snapshot of how LA eats. Get pastrami at Wexler's or tacos and work the stalls — a living cross-section of the city, not a tourist trap.
Every Sunday, 10am–4pm at ROW DTLA, dozens of rotating food vendors gather — this is where LA's future restaurant stars often start. Free entry.