The Best New Los Angeles Restaurants You Should Visit Right Now

Saying that many of the best new Los Angeles restaurants of 2022 color outside the lines is an understatement. The point of these restaurants, their very reason for being, is to make it clear that the lines don’t need to be there at all.

Consider the great Yangban Society, the Arts District destination from husband-and-wife chefs Katianna and John Hong. You could say that this is a modern Korean-American restaurant. But you could also say that this is one of the most purposefully undefinable restaurants ever. This is a Korean restaurant with Jewish-deli influences. It serves comfort food with all kinds of fine-dining ingredients and reference points (which isn’t surprising, given that both of the Hongs had stints as chef de cuisine at three-Michelin-starred The Restaurant at Meadowood). It has an upstairs mini-mart known as the Yangban Super, where guests can buy wine, Vervet canned cocktails, Steep tea and the restaurant’s own custom-made Sawtelle Sake makgeolli. Abalone congee pot pie might sound like chefs playing Mad Libs, but it’s pure luxury layered on top of soul-warming deliciousness. Yangban Society’s matzo ball soup, an update of the soup Katianna’s Jewish grandmother made, is schmaltzy bliss with hand-torn sujebi dumplings for a Korean twist. Biscuits are topped with Korean curry gravy. Go ahead and get an ounce of caviar with your fried potatoes, or just for makgeolli-fueled caviar bumps, if you’re feeling frisky.

At Silver Lake’s Pijja Palace, Avish Naran and a crackerjack staff that includes executive chef Miles Shorey and sous chef Kamran Gill have daily lines out into the parking lot for their Indian-Italian-American sports bar. Pastas like malai rigatoni and tandoori spaghetti are boldly flavored statements of purpose, and so are tavern-style pizzas topped with a peri peri vindaloo sauce. Dosa onion rings, okra fries and wings seasoned with Kashmiri red chili and garam masala are other delicious reminders that this is a restaurant with its own playbook and with no hesitation about running up the score. Naran says he has ideas for many other restaurants he wants to open. LA is clearly ready for him to keep changing the game.

At East Hollywood’s Saffy’s, the latest blockbuster from Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis, one goal is to serve dishes that look like traditional Middle Eastern food while weaving in multicultural flavors and local California ingredients. Another goal is to feel like a raucous dinner party whether you’re dining at 5:30 p.m. or 10:30 p.m. Success all-around. (For more on Saffy’s, here’s an interview with Menashe and Gergis.)

The dish that best sums up the mission of Dear Jane’s, the fancy-pants Marina del Rey seafood spot from the dream team of Patti and Hans Rockenwagner and Josiah Citrin, is the Van de Ken’s bougie fish sticks with caviar. Named after chef Ken Takayama, this fine-dining riff on freezer-aisle food involves making a fish mousse and also a seven-layer-dip with caviar accompaniments. Dear Jane’s is a playful, grand and nautical-themed restaurant that nods to the glorious past of old-school over-the-top dining, so you’ll probably also want a chilled shellfish tower, sand dabs and crab-stuffed prawns.

At Echo Park’s The Lonely Oyster, chef Dom Crisp (who’s run the kitchen at top seafood restaurants all over Los Angeles) is bringing in pristine, sustainably sourced oysters from both coasts and even New Zealand. He’s putting three kinds of mini lobster rolls (Connecticut, Louisiana-style and curry) on a plate and loading up creamy chowder with fresh fish and shellfish. It’s easy to feel bougie here, too, when you start your meal by ordering a martini that comes with a caviar-topped oyster. This place works perfectly as a new-school oyster bar (with a kitchen that stays open late seven nights a week) and also a neighborhood cocktail bar.

At San Marino’s Masamitsu, omakase is a precise progression of the raw and the cooked. There’s expertly cut nigiri like saba, madai, barracuda and seared toro with caviar, prepared at a sushi bar led by executive chef Hajime Koshu (a second-generation sushi chef who went to culinary school in Tokyo). Dishes from Itsuroku Kimura’s kitchen, like chawanmushi adorned with truffle and caviar, are no less impressive and transporting. But dessert (which might be a study in Harry’s Berries strawberries or a Santa Barbara pistachio cake with candied calamansi) powered by local ingredients is a reminder that you’re still very much in California and should be happy about that. General manager Jason Park (who’s worked both in the kitchen and the front-of-the-house for Michelin-starred chefs) rounds out an all-star team.

Ki Kim’s nostalgic and beautifully creative tasting menus at Koreatown’s Kinn have included a pillowy corn dog filled with Dungeness crab and bechamel and elegantly updated versions of humble dishes like naengmyeon and tteokgalbi (Kim’s tteokgalbi is made with chicken instead of the typical short ribs). A supplemental dish of crispy octopus with gochujang aioli has been a showstopper, a perfectly cooked banger that already feels like a greatest hit even though this restaurant is only a year old. In a city where the tasting-menu scene is dominated by enterprising Asian-American superstars like Jon Yao, Brandon Go and Justin Pichetrungsi, Kim is proving that Kinn is already a contender.

Macheen at Distrito Catorce in Boyle Heights is a Mexican breakfast/brunch paradise with horchata French toast, a chorizo breakfast burger topped with white truffle gravy and a wagyu pastrami sandwich. This is the latest crowd-pleasing spot from versatile chef/taquero Jonathan Perez, who’s still serving his best-in-class breakfast burrito nearby at Milpa Grille.

Pizza legend Chris Bianco and head chef Marco Angeles are essentially running two different restaurants at Pizzeria Bianco at Row DTLA, and both are winners. Full-service dinner is about the Phoenix-born pizzas (the pistachio-and-onion-laden Rosa, the soppressata-and-olive-topped Sonny Boy, the three-cheese-plus-arugula Biancoverde and the sausage-and-onion-topped Wiseguy) that made Bianco famous. Counter-service lunch is about big New York-style slices, mortadella sandwiches and specials like thick slabs of Sicilian-style pizza. This hot spot is packed day and night, so don’t be surprised if it actually turns into two different restaurants soon.