The Westside Hit List: Best New Restaurants On The Westside

A Cal-Italian spot with tuna carpaccio, cacio e pepe, and product managers drinking orange wine on a patio. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. This Mar Vista restaurant follows a familiar formula, but it also makes a damn good case for it. Nothing on the menu is over $30 (not a typo), and every dish is simple and well-done. Green bean and celery salad springs to life with lemony vinaigrette, and the charred pork collar tastes like it was lip-locked with the grill seconds prior. The buzzy candlelit space—a converted corner market flanked by citrus trees—feels lived-in, and that’s because it is. Half of the neighborhood has moved in already, and we can't imagine them leaving anytime soon.

This broadly Italian-ish restaurant from the chef behind Alimento might not have a kids’ menu, but it’s undeniably family-friendly. The plant-filled patio has crayons at the ready, toddlers in booster seats, and the occasional escapee darting between chairs. The best dishes tend to be the ones your inner—or actual—five-year-old would be excited to order: bubbly thin-crust pizzas with fun pizza-parlor topping combinations, gooey smoked mozzarella sticks, and buffalo wings that will wreck a few napkins. The more grown-up dishes—like a chile crisp and burrata “dumpling salad” and a “bloomin’ radicchio” salad—seem still in beta testing. But the well-executed basics make Cosetta a crowd-pleaser for families who want good pizza from someplace with a bit more pedigree than Pitfire.

Sushi Masuyoshi is the aspirational version of the dinner party you tried to throw in your first apartment, only with much better fish. This five-seat counter is run by a chef who used to host sushi dinners in people’s homes, and is clearly adept at bringing energy to tight quarters. He slices, plates, and sometimes torches each dish, taking occasional breaks for sake shots or selfies with guests. His 18-course $165 omakase is a generous deal: salmon so silky it dissolves like a breath strip, a three-part tuna progression that builds in fattiness, plus excellent non-nigiri moments like baby squid over seaweed and shrimp head miso soup. Like any good dinner party, your night will hinge on who you’re with—so enlist your most fun friend.

Din Tai Fung needs no introduction, but the dumpling chain’s newest location on the third floor of Santa Monica Place offers something special—the opportunity to eat xiao long bao with an ocean view. That alone is enough reason to visit after hitting the mall, but the food is reliably great, too: expertly pleated soup dumplings, garlicky string beans, and spicy wontons with chili oil that you’ll want to put on everything. The spacious turf-lined patio, bamboo steamer-shaped booths, and see-through dumpling window into the kitchen? Added bonuses. There’s even a giant abacus by the front, in case you want to calculate the tip the old-fashioned way.

No one was asking Santa Monica for another seafood restaurant, but it makes sense that this Bay Area chain opened its first LA location near Ocean Avenue. With a huge wave mural, pineapple-print booths, and tiki cocktails, it feels mandatory that this outpost is within walking distance of the water. The prices are reasonable considering the location, and the crowd-pleasing concept works well for a casual meal or a Happy Hour stop when you need a break from shopping and/or beach strolling. The menu covers everything from lobster rolls to fish tacos to sashimi bowls, but prioritize fun appetizers like their coconut shrimp and poke guacamole first.

Fitoor has the look of a place fit for an over-the-top banquet, but works well for walk-in dinner and drinks, too. Originally from San Jose, this upscale Indian restaurant in Santa Monica is decorated with gold accents, glowing globe lights, and floor-to-ceiling drapes—and, apparently, the occasional fire dancer on weekends. The menu is a broad mix of traditional curries like tender lamb shank rogan josh scooped up with naan, snacky street foods, and creative small plates like sweet chili broccoli (these tend to be our favorites). The bar is the sparkly centerpiece of the restaurant though, so it’s worth a stop for just a nightcap—we love the Pluto, a dessert-like gin cocktail with white chocolate and lemon.

Not No Bar is proof that when you mix good cocktails, good pizza, and good music, people will show up in droves. Walk into this crowded pizzeria-cocktail bar in Santa Monica (located in the former Isla space on Main Street) and you’ll find dates smooshed up against the bar and groups of friends lounging on two-tops and booths like the Feast of Dionysus. Throwback Euro disco thumps over the hi-fi system. It’s loud, a little messy, and a lot of fun. The place is arguably a bar first, but almost every table is eating bubbly-crusted Neopolitan-ish pizzas, too. Get the spicy, soppressata-topped Bang Bang and pair it with a tropical-leaning cocktail like the Curry Killer, made with rum, coconut, and fragrant green curry.

Even if your brain can’t retain the detailed descriptions accompanying each dish (because the internet fried it), a night at Seline is unforgettable. This midnight-black fine dining restaurant in Santa Monica from the Pasjoli chef—who also used to cook at Alinea—likes to get cerebral with seasonal ingredients presented in out-there ways, like geoduck liver crackers served on metallic orbs, banana puree with roasted leeks, and crumbly chestnut ice cream as a mid-dinner palate cleanser. It’s the type of precise highbrow cooking you’d expect from a $295 tasting menu, but just as important, it's plain delicious. Add in bubbly servers who make you feel like houseguests, a dining room with enchanted garden views, and a playlist that slips in the occasional house track, and you’ve got the making of a special occasion spot you’ll be thinking about days after.

LA has the market cornered on high-end sushi in strip malls—see Sushi Sonagi, Go’s Mart—but even by those standards, Kusano is a diamond in the parking lot rough. Run by a sushi chef with a long resume, the eight-seat counter (reservations required) occupies an unmarked unit in a generic shopping plaza. It also offers a fantastic deal. The 18-course omakase costs $150, which isn’t cheap, but could probably cost twice as much at comparable spots. Step inside and see why: the room is storage-unit sparse, and it’s basically just you, the chef, and some light jazz from a bluetooth speaker. Expect pristine, straightforward nigiri with occasional flourishes, like sweet shrimp with electric blue roe, sea bream with cured egg yolk shavings, and uni draped with a translucent sheet of squid.

Downtown Culver has been waiting for a spot like Laurel Grill since the The Wizard of Oz cast was hanging out at The Culver Hotel. With its warm glow and polished wood decor, this splashy “neighborhood grill” from the Laurel Hardware people looks like a high-end spa, though we can’t name many spas with a grand piano in the dining room, an open kitchen with roaring wood hearth, and a $22 wagyu hot dog on the menu. The crowd-pleasing food draws heavily from the Houston’s playbook, and that’s no slight, especially for picky studio execs who demand a good caesar salad and fries. Start with the gooey mozzarella cheese bread, refreshing mango-salmon ceviche, and grilled ribeye seasoned by someone who knows what they're doing, then finish with a nightcap on the fire pit patio.

Orla is a hotel restaurant, a flashy Middle Eastern spot with 24k gold baklava sundaes, and (our preferred description) a pleasant place to snack on mezze near the ocean. Located inside the Regent Santa Monica, this beachfront spot has five-star service and beautifully plated mezze that you should enjoy on their breezy outdoor patio. The lighter-than-air hummus comes dusted with pistachios, and a classic Greek salad is drenched in high-quality olive oil. We like the sharable grilled entrees, too, including the juicy lamb chops with bessara, which tastes like hummus and green goddess dressing had a love child. Just make sure dinner takes place in the outdoor area—Orla’s main dining space is in the ground-floor lobby, so otherwise you’ll trade ocean views for a close-up of the elevators.

RVR is a reboot of the dearly departed MTN, and as both restaurants’ aversion to vowels suggests, not much has changed at this izakaya from the former Gjelina chef. The dim, brooding room is packed with dates drinking highballs and Venice dads who show up on an electric motorcycle. It’s the liveliest we’ve seen Abbot Kinney since the Birkenstock store’s end-of-summer sale. Booking a table takes some effort, but it's worth it for delicious, pared-down Japanese small plates that lean traditional while also swerving totally Californian. That means smoked shoyu in the little gem salad, crispy pork belly gyoza you’ll want to order by the dozen, and assertively grilled vegetables that might not be in season next week. Don’t underestimate the simple clam ramen—the noodles are rolled fresh and the shellfish broth is sweet and oceanic.

A USC undergrad launches a fine dining pop-up in 2022. Two years later, his first restaurant opens next to Giorgio Baldi. We’d tell you what we’d done by 24, but it wasn’t that. Muse’s backstory is impressive, but it’s the polished confidence of this upscale French spot that surprised us. The chic Art Deco space is sexy and intimate. The smooth, boozy cocktails with vermouth and amaro are elite. Then there’s the food: ambitious dishes that, while not perfect, are fresh and interesting, like braided brioche that crackles like a croissant, juicy veal bonbons in a pesto-y sauce, and an herb-crusted rack of lamb we’d put against any in town. Who’s behind it? You’ll probably meet him. The young chef touches every table with the confidence of a floor manager at Le Bernardin.