Los Angeles: Where to Eat: Overview

The fate of L’Orangerie, Los Angeles’s last bastion of French haute cuisine, says a lot about the city’s restaurant arena. After three decades, it shut down and was replaced by L.A.’s third Nobu (903 N. La Cienega Blvd.), inciting sushi warfare on La Cienega. Koi (730 N. La Cienega Blvd.; 310-659-9449; www.koirestaurant.com), the expensive, big-scene Japanese restaurant and bar of the moment, is just down the street. O.K., technically this will be greater L.A.’s second Nobu, after Nobu Malibu (310-317-9140), but it joins chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s 20-year-old original place, Matsuhisa (310-659-9639; www.nobumatsuhisa.com), which is also on La Cienega (at No. 129 N.) You’d think that Los Angeles shared a border with Japan or Italy, not Mexico, given the its profusion of restaurants featuring every variation on the beloved California sushi roll that can be wrapped and the abundance of salumi and crudi in trattorias all over town.

Oddly, despite L.A.’s large Latino population, it’s tough to get exciting Mexican fare here. Old-style Mexican, meaning gloppy beans and rice, can be found at a few veterans, such as El Coyote (7312 Beverly Blvd.; 323-939-2255; www.elcoyote.com) and three branches of El Cholo Cafe, the original being at 1121 South Western Avenue, about halfway along Wilshire. Given the wealth of gorgeous produce grown immediately north and south of the city, contemporary cuisine is at its best here when the local bounty is involved. Still, even top restaurants suffer from a high failure rate. The vaunted Bastide (8475 Melrose Pl.; 323-651-5950)—strictly French and designed by France’s Andrée Putman—went through two chefs, then closed its doors. Serious restaurant-goers are awaiting its return, this summer, with a new chef and a new look.

The Big Night Out designation in this city means expensive rather than formal. Unless they’re celebrating an important occasion or coming straight from work, men rarely put on a suit for dinner, while a woman in a good pantsuit and good shoes and carrying a good handbag fits in at any restaurant discussed below. Dressing any more than that doesn’t pay here. The only restaurant where I ever felt I should have tried harder was Melisse (1104 Wilshire Blvd.; 310-395-0881; www.melisse.com), a pricey and highly regarded French affair in Santa Monica. The other exceptions to the casual mode are hotel restaurants, perhaps because they attract so many nonlocals.

Los Angeles is also experiencing the Las Vegas effect, with a wave of new multimillion-dollar restaurants branded by big-name chefs. Among the top-chef choices are Gordon Ramsay’s pink-banquette affair at the London Hotel (1020 N. San Vicente Blvd., W. Hollywood; 310-358-7799; www.gordonramsay.com) and Tom Colicchio’s Craft (10100 Constellation Blvd., Los Angeles; 310-279-4180; www.craftrestaurants.com), where movie-studio heads and agents powwow at lunch when they need a break from The Grill.