The best fine-dining restaurants in Los Angeles

Despite an infamously difficult reservation process, Niki Nakayama's modern kaiseki restaurant—of two Michelin starred Chef's Table fame—remains an indispensable part of the city's fine dining scene. The Japanese restaurant delivers a nontraditional kaiseki meal ($325) that excites, delights and even soothes across every aspect; in short, it lives up to the hype and the bloodsport level effort involved in snagging a reservation. Nakayama invokes a mix of contemporary and traditional sensibilities throughout n/naka's ever-changing 13-course tasting menu—which, unlike many others in this city, also offers an option for vegetarians. Each course invokes the rhythms of a particular season, seamlessly blending classical Japanese cooking with the inherent seasonality of California cuisine.

Brandon Go’s two Michelin-starred kaiseki counter inside the Arts District’s expansive outdoor mall, ROW DTLA, offers an intimate, multi-course seafood-centric meal plated using handcrafted ceramics imported from Japan. While bookings for this artful, once-in-a-lifetime chef's table experience fill up almost instantly when Tock reservations are released on the first of each month, those who luck out in booking this transportive meal generally agree it's worth the hassle. The space is intimate and almost reverent, the ceramics are handcrafted and imported from Japan, and Go's precision and technique come by way of training under some of Japan's top chefs. Steamed abalone with an unctuous liver sauce; an owan course of delicate crab meatball soup; and fresh fruit coated in a salted sake jelly might all arrive before you, with Go and his protégés working the counter all the while. 

With each passing year, Jon Yao's tasting menu reaches new heights. The lauded self-taught chef—and native Angeleno—blends his Taiwanese and San Gabriel Valley roots to create a tasting menu that’s something new entirely: Asian-inflected fine dining that’s almost too pretty to eat. Now firmly ensconced in a larger, sleeker space at ROW DTLA, Yao's former strip mall restaurant has evolved to a new—and much more expensive—level. A bar-only tasting menu plays to Kato signatures, including the city's best milk bread, while the regular tableside menu evolves with the seasons. In the last year, Yao has found his stride with seafood dishes that nod to Cantonese banquet hall classics and a stunning trio of delicate Asian-inspired desserts.

Starting at $645 per person (a price that includes a non-alcoholic drink pairing), the newly resurrected Somni is one of the city’s most expensive, difficult-to-snag reservations. Now led by Aitor Zabala—who’s trained at El Bullí, among other Spanish fine-dining icons—the ambitious 14-seat chef’s counter offers a wealth of whimsical delights befitting of the meal’s nearly $1,000 take-home price tag. Every detail has been carefully considered, from handcarved wooden plates to the custom steak knives accompanying the txuleta, or ultra-mature steak. Another highlight? The delightfully unorthodox caviar course, served on dashi meringue. In fact, the meal impressed me so much that I think the brand-new restaurant might already be one of the city’s very best.

Since 2005, Michael Cimarusti has set the gold standard for seafood-focused tasting menus—and garnered a James Beard Award and two Michelin stars in the process. As an L.A. fine dining institution, you'll find all the hallmarks of the white tablecloth experience: top-notch service, delicate amuse-bouches and, of course, high-quality shellfish and finned fish from all over the world. Cimarusti combs the world's waters to showcase pristine seafood in imaginative (and occasionally sustainable) ways, like Providence's signature farm-raised caviar and Santa Barbara uni nestled above a decadent egg yolk.

After opening during the early pandemic, this Mexican fine dining restaurant by Enrique Olvera (of Pujol in Mexico City and NYC’s Cosme) has quietly become one of the best restaurants in the city. The understated yet stylish ambience and unforgettable seafood-centric small plates, grilled meats and playful vegetable mains easily put it in the same league as its always-popular parking lot neighbor, Bestia, but the restaurant defies any simple comparison. When every bite reflects Damian's commitment to traditional Mexican cooking techniques and ingredient sourcing, there's no one singularly great dish to order, but you’d be remiss not to order the unforgettable duck carnitas and art-like hibiscus meringue.

Though buzzy new Italian spots open all the time in Los Angeles, none manage the same level of refinement and consistency that emanates from Nancy Silverton’s Michelin-starred Osteria Mozza. From the chef’s famous raviolo, which oozes ricotta cheese and bright yellow egg yolk to the fresh, creamy mozzarella paired with all the manner of accoutrements, this upscale osteria still fires on all cylinders a decade and a half after its initial debut. Though it’s tempting to forgo vegetables here, order at least one antipasti next time you visit. On a menu of greatest hits, it’s the primary section that still changes with the seasons—demonstrating the kitchen’s excellence even when Silverton isn’t necessarily working the stove.

The pandemic may have shrunk chef Josef Centeno's Downtown  restaurant empire, but his Italian-Japanese concept Orsa & Winston, has survived the worst crisis the restaurant industry has seen in living history and kept its Michelin star to boot. On the Fourth Street restaurant's $150 tasting menu, expect hyper-creative, genre-bending dishes like scallops and uni in a flower-dotted rice porridge or tempura-like fried shiso leaf under abalone. Across every dish, you'll find lots of L.A. love, global inflection and a deep understanding of balance that make every meal here enjoyable. Even facotring in supplements, it’s still one of the less eye-poppingly expensive fine experiences around town.

Few restaurants can accomplish what Nancy Silverton's ode to Italian flame-grilled meats does on a daily basis. With one of the best charcuterie programs in the city and a stunning open kitchen, Mozza's younger sibling flame-grills tomahawk porkchops, cures fennel salami and dry-ages massive Flannery Beef steaks so big they almost feel like they rock the table when they land. This is a rustic Italian steakhouse that’s worth the meat sweats, and it’s worth the splurge; you may be spending around $200 on steak, but don’t think about skipping the sides of roasted sustainable veggies—nor that focaccia di recco, which oozes stracchino cheese. The staff mans the open grill like nobody's business, so whatever you order, you’ll be in good hands.

For all the warm sushi rice and dragon rolls, L.A. boasts plenty of excellent Edomae-style sushi bar, with perhaps no better example than this relative newcomer hidden away in the basement of a Little Tokyo office building. Run by veteran sushi chef Yoshiyuki Inoue, Sushi Kaneyoshi tops out in luxury, refinement and overall wow factor. The exact seafood used in Kaneyoshi’s approximately 20 courses changes seasonally, but diners are likely to dig into a delicate Hokkaido crab chawanmushi, along with one of the city’s best preparations of ankimo (monkfish liver) and nodoguro (blackthroat sea perch) for the cool price of $300 per person. A word of warning: Tock reservations here are tough to snag, but the eventual outcome is well worth the time and effort.

At Camphor, light-as-a-cloud French cuisine feels more than apt within the restaurant’s airy white and blue dining room, where old-school touches and a featherweight culinary approach combine in a stunning blend of elegant, yet nontraditional, fine dining. Here, Alain Ducasse veterans Max Boonthanakit and Lijo George offer what looks like the usual French bill of fare, with one major twist: far, far less butter and oil. Combined with a few South Asian-inspired dishes—the must-order gunpowder anchovies among them—Camphor’s refined, slightly tweaked menu of classics puts this Michelin-starred Arts District bistro in a class of its own. This extends to dessert, where a phenomenal bread pudding with vanilla ice cream and kiwi glacée hold their own next to citrus milk—a creamy vanilla mousse topped with refreshing seasonal fruit and wildflower hnet.

Name a more iconic L.A. fine-dining institution...we’ll wait. After almost 40 years, Wolfgang Puck's Spago is still everyone's old fine dining standby, but its ever-changing menu keeps the restaurant feeling fresh and relevant. (Don’t worry, you can still order the smoked salmon pizza.) Spago purists will be pleased to hear the kitchen is refreshingly old-school when it comes to presentation, but modern flourishes are what keep this icon feeling fresh without ditching its hits. If it's your first visit you must order Spago’s iconic tasting menu for the classics, but if you’re a repeat guest, the most fun you can have is offroading with the fleeting and hyper-seasonal specials, especially when it comes to dessert. Spago’s been serving stellar cuisine since the Reagan era, proving that age ain't nothing but a number.

After a nearly yearlong stint at Jordan Kahn’s Vespertine and Meteora, chef Ki Kim is once again pushing the boundaries of modern Korean fine dining. Located in the same Little Tokyo complex as Sushi Kaneyoshi and Bar Sawa, the chef's new tasting experience ($285) reads as a more elevated, satisfying version of Kinn, Kim’s now-closed Koreatown restaurant. Kimbap topped with creamy cod milt serves as a worthy appetizer to a 12-course menu that nods to the head chef’s personal biography and past experiences on both coasts working fine dining. I’ve been familiar with Kim’s cooking since Naemo, his quarantine era dosirak pop-up, and can honestly say that Ki is the chef’s most fully realized project to date. A $190 beverage pairing spanning wine, sake and tea, along with ultra-polished service, befit the high price point and translate into a worthy special-occasion eatery for those who enjoy Korean cuisine, rare seafood, fine dining or all of the above.

Equal parts celebrity hotspot and exceptional fine dining destination, this ultra-stylish Sunset Strip hotel eatery offers flawless “vegetable-forward” cuisine and an air of sweeping, expensive romance that’ll make you forget all about the fact you’ll have to pay $22 for the EDITION's valet parking, if not more. Here, hosts in slinky white dresses and kitten-heeled boots will usher you to the plant-filled, warm-hued dining room—and the overall effect is downright cinematic. Every dish that arrives dazzles here, from the must-order milk bread topped with caramelized beefsteak tomatoes to the skirt steak, which comes with garlic confit and an exquisite red salt. Larger groups can splurge on the eye-poppingly expensive gooseberry phyllo pizza drizzled with aged balsamic dinner; the tableside preparation and final product make it well worth the price of admission.

For an elegant French meal, David Beran’s traditional bistro along Santa Monica’s Main Street wows with flawless service, first-rate cocktails and a five-course prix-fixe tasting menu ($95 or $125). The standard offering includes seasonally inflected dishes like steak tartare and chicken rillettes with mushrooms, while the pricier option centers around pressed duck, Pasjoli’s most popular dish. Compared to the menu’s previous iterations, the newer format offers more value for your money. The decadent duck fat caramel adds nuanced flavors to the apple tart served at the end of the $125 menu, while the supplemental chocolate soufflé serves an indulgent end to the $95 menu’s dainty preparations of beef, chicken, pasta and seafood. At the bar, you’ll find à la carte standouts, including a grilled cheese that tastes like French onion soup, plus mini cocktails for those who’d like to sample multiple drinks without tipping over by the end of the night.

If money is truly no object, the legendary craftwork at Morihiro Onodera’s eponymous Atwater restaurant is a gourmand’s delight. Book the bar-only omakase ($400), and you’ll enjoy a mix of kaiseki-style appetizers presented on ceramics made by the veteran chef himself and a diverse array of dry-aged and fresh fish (including a few I’ve had nowhere else). Best of all is the option, once Onodera finishes making the last nigiri, to repeat as many sushi courses as you like—but personally, I left here full enough after the twenty-odd courses. If I had to pick just one place to spend $300 or more on sushi, I honestly still prefer Kaneyoshi, though Morihiro does offer a less expensive table omakase ($250) prepared by assistant chefs. Still, Onodera’s 40 years of experience and detail-oriented approach translate to one of the city’s finest omakase experiences, albeit not my absolute favorite.