If you find yourself in Venice Beach (Los Angeles) craving a good cup of espresso and a vastly different cafe experience, head over to Intelligentsia Coffeebar on Abbott Kinney Boulevard. Intelligentsia roasts their own coffee and sources them directly from coffee growers they work with to ensure high quality. The coffee bar is a cross [...]

If you are going to Los Angeles, make sure you visit The Bazaar by Jose Andres, a well-known Spanish chef, at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. The Bazaar is a massive space cleverly divided up into:

Bar Centro (a cocktail bar with high chairs and tables, and comfy lounging sofas);
Rojo y Blanca: a restaurant that [...]

You would never know from the location (two doors down from a Starbucks and around the corner from an unremarkable shopping center off the 10 Freeway) and the plain interiors that Sushi Zo serves some of the best sushi in Los Angeles. The dining room is small and you do not order from a menu. At [...]

Roy Choi, chef of Kogi, the famous Los Angeles Korean barbecue taco truck, has just opened a restaurant in West Los Angeles called Chego. Kogi has a massive following among foodies in L.A. (especially young Asian foodies) and the taco truck (which serves Korean barbecue dishes on tacos) is followed by fanatics via Twitter. [...]

When you arrive at the Farmer’s Daughter, a boutique hotel in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, the first thing you notice is how seemingly out of place it is: a rustic themed former motel in the heart of Jewish-Russian Los Angeles, home of kosher bakeries, temples and Russian mini-marts. Except across the street is [...]

Gjelina is at this moment my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles. Located on Abbott Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach, Gjelina serves truly delicious Mediterranean food in an industrial chic space that has an outdoor patio in the back. When I go to restaurants like Gjelina which serve small plates, pizza, tempting vegetable dishes and salads, [...]

There are few cities in the world that blend urban living, fashion and design, with beaches, mountains and deserts. Los Angeles is one of them. You can ski in the San Bernardino mountains in the morning and be back at the beach in the afternoon driving down Pacific Coast Highway with your convertible top down. [...]

Los Angeles is such a great place for eating out. In April 2008, I posted my list of favorite restaurants in LA, but so much has happened in a year. Here are more places for you to consider, including a very cool Korean BBQ “taco truck” that drives around the city. You need go to [...]

What would you do if confronted with choices such as these on a menu:
(1) Desire: velvety Manjari chocolate mousse with vanilla crème brulee, crunchy feuilletine and French griottine cherries on a chocolate sponge.
(2) Mysterious: passion fruit with hazelnut cream filled with spiced diced pineapple.
Jin Patisserie in Venice Beach has even more tempting delicacies. [...]

Going to a new restaurant is always an adventure. Will it be a disappointment or a pleasant surprise? I went to Fraiche in Culver City (Los Angeles) recently and wondered which one it would be. When I opened the menu and saw that they served finocchiona, a Tuscan salami made with fennel seeds, I [...]

If you are looking for a restaurant in Los Angeles with sweeping views over the Pacific, go to Catch, a seafood and sushi restaurant in the newly renovated Casa del Mar hotel located right on the beach. From one side of the dining room, you can see the Santa Monica pier and its ferris wheel, [...]

Los Angeles is a wonderful place for dining out because of the ethnic diversity of the city and the presence of a lively arts and entertainment community. Here are my favorites (for now). I will update the list over time.

Bastide
8475 Melrose Pl.
West Hollywood
+1 (323) 651 5950
French

Catch
Casa del Mar
1910 Ocean Way
Santa Monica
+1 (310) 581 7714
[...]