The Best Restaurants in Los Angeles Right Now

Los Angeles has always had one of the most compelling — and most underestimated — restaurant scenes in the world. In 2026, it is impossible to underestimate. Between the city’s most recent Michelin Guide dropping new stars and a run of high-profile openings that has raised the bar across every neighborhood, there has never been a better moment to have a reservation in LA. These are the restaurants worth having.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Baldi Beverly Hills

Somni, West Hollywood

The most famous restaurant in Los Angeles right now is not a debate. Somni — Chef Aitor Zabala’s 14-seat counter in West Hollywood — earned three Michelin stars in June 2025, just seven months after reopening in December 2024, making it the first restaurant in LA County to hold that distinction. The El Bulli alumnus leads a meticulously choreographed multi-course tasting that weaves Basque and Catalan culinary traditions through California’s finest ingredients across an evening of extraordinary precision and creativity. Fourteen seats. One of the best restaurants in America. Reserve as far in advance as the system allows.

n/naka, Palms, Los Angeles

Chef Niki Nakayama’s modern kaiseki experience in the Palms neighborhood is the most personal fine dining experience in Los Angeles — a Michelin-starred tasting that draws on seafood, meat, and produce sourced across Japan and California, woven together with the kind of quiet artistry that has made n/naka one of the city’s most beloved reservations for over a decade. The one dish that never leaves the menu: al dente spaghetti with abalone, pickled cod roe, and black truffle. The kind of restaurant that changes how you think about what a meal can be.

Spago Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills

Wolfgang Puck’s two-Michelin-star flagship remains the definitive Beverly Hills dining institution — and one of the most enduring restaurants in American culinary history. Executive Chef Ari Rosenson shapes seasonal menus around the best of California’s produce alongside Puck’s legendary sensibility: smoked salmon pizza, grilled veal chop, floor-to-ceiling windows, an outdoor patio lit at night with the particular warmth that Spago has always understood. The standard for California fine dining, set in 1982 and never lowered.

Baldi, Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills

The Baldi family — responsible for Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica and e.Baldi in Beverly Hills, two of the most celeb-beloved Italian restaurants in the city — opened their latest expression at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills in February 2026. Tuscan steakhouse in concept, the 180-seat restaurant with central bar, semi-enclosed outdoor terrace, and private dining room centers on prime and Wagyu cuts cooked over open flame, alongside house-made pastas perfected across three decades of family cooking. The most anticipated Beverly Hills opening of the year — and it delivered.

SUSHISAMBA, West Hollywood

The internationally acclaimed Japanese-Brazilian-Peruvian concept that spent a decade abroad returned to the U.S. on March 16, 2026, atop 639 N. La Peer Drive in West Hollywood — and the 11,000-square-foot rooftop with a retractable roof, private dining room with its own elevator, and views of the Hollywood Hills is exactly the arrival the city had been waiting for. Chefs Maxwell Terheggen and John Um run a kitchen fusing sushi, sashimi, and robata-grilled dishes, including a Samba LA roll with A5 wagyu and soft-shell crab tempura developed specifically for this location. One of the most visually and culinarily spectacular new restaurants in LA right now.

Bad Roman, Beverly Hills

Quality Branded’s bold Italian concept — which made its name at Columbus Circle in New York in 2022 — arrived in Beverly Hills in 2026, taking over the former Palm Restaurant space at 267 N. Canon Drive. Designed by Brooklyn-based GRT Architects, the 3,570-square-foot room delivers the same maximalist Italian energy the New York original is known for: rich materials, playful design, and a menu built for a long, indulgent evening. The group’s first California venture, and already one of the most talked-about tables in Beverly Hills.

Mélisse, Santa Monica

One of Los Angeles’s most serious fine-dining addresses, Mélisse holds two Michelin stars and delivers one of the city’s most meticulously constructed tasting menus for $399 per person. Luxurious, detail-obsessed dishes — prawn and white asparagus cappuccino, quail ragout — executed with the kind of consistency that two-star restaurants earn and then spend years defending. The gold standard for Santa Monica fine dining.

Vespertine, Culver City

Jordan Kahn’s two-Michelin-star experience inside a wavy obelisk in Culver City remains one of the most singular restaurant experiences in any American city. Part science fiction, part fine dining — a progression of extraordinary, otherworldly dishes in a space that was designed as much for atmosphere as for eating. Vespertine is not for every mood, but for the right one, it is unforgettable.

Kato, Los Angeles

Kato jumped to two Michelin stars in the 2026 guide — a recognition of Chef Jon Yao’s extraordinary tasting menu that draws on Taiwanese and Japanese culinary traditions, sourced through California’s best producers. The omakase-style progression is personal, deeply considered, and unlike anything else operating in the city. One of the most compelling restaurants to emerge from the LA dining scene in years.

Providence, Hollywood

Three Michelin stars. One of the longest-running fine dining institutions in Los Angeles. Chef Michael Cimarusti’s seafood-focused tasting menu at Providence has held its position at the top of the city’s restaurant hierarchy for nearly two decades, sourcing the finest domestic and international seafood and treating each course as a precise expression of what the ocean and California’s waters can produce. The kind of restaurant that reminds you why fine dining exists.

Giorgio Baldi, Santa Monica

Before there was Baldi at the Waldorf, there was Giorgio Baldi — the 36-year-old Santa Monica institution that has been the most reliably excellent Italian restaurant in Los Angeles for three and a half decades. The hand-rolled pastas, the branzino, the tableside presentations, the room full of faces you recognize from film and television: Giorgio Baldi operates entirely on its own terms and has never needed to announce itself. A reservation here is still one of the most coveted in the city.

Hayato, Downtown Los Angeles

Chef Hayato Kojima’s kaiseki-inspired tasting menu earned its first Michelin star in 2026 — a formal recognition of what the city’s most devoted diners have known for years. The elegant, precise progression moves far beyond pristine fish to showcase the full breadth of Japanese cuisine through California’s seasonal ingredients. Intimate, considered, and now officially one of the most important Japanese fine dining experiences on the West Coast.

The best experiences are the ones you can’t book online. Unlock bespoke itineraries, private aviation, and VIP access at 500+ properties across 120+ countries through Haute Black — the exclusive platform built from 20 years of Haute Living’s extensive network. Become a Haute Black member today: [email protected].