23 of L.A.’s best hidden gem restaurants

Since 1948, this family-owned market and deli in the San Gabriel Valley has imported a dizzying variety of preserved meats, cheeses, sweets, crackers and seemingly any other kind of Italian or Italian American foodstuffs you could ever possibly want or need. On our visit, we spied a human-sized piece of provolone cheese hanging off a rack, lemon-flavored digestive fizzies and pickled lupini beans—a party snack common across the Mediterranean. The made-to-order deli sandwiches are delicious as well. Locations in Arcadia and San Gabriel are closest to L.A. proper, but Claro’s extends its reach out to San Bernardino and Orange County with outposts in Upland and Tustin.

Although Northridge’s Baja Subs and Deli might look like another strip mall deli and mini-mart in the Valley, owners Premil and Koshalie Jayasinghe have served a dual takeout menu of casual Mexican food and some of the best Sri Lankan cuisine in L.A. since 2016. On weekends, Baja Subs serves larger dishes, including a Sri Lankan-style biryani, which comes topped with caramelized onions, hard-boiled egg, cashews and pineapple chutney, and lamprais—a portable banana leaf packet of rice, meat, sambal and curried vegetables, though its exact components change on a weekly basis.

This strip mall restaurant in East Hollywood serves mouthwatering plates of Guatemalan barbecue, also known as churrasco, among other Central American offerings. Each plate comes with tender ranchera steak (grilled and hammered thin), refried black beans, yellow rice and guacamole, plus wilted green onions and peppers. Churrasco Chapin also sells shucos, the Guatemalan take on hot dogs, which involves a toasted rectangular bun, guacamole, peppers, onions and pickled cabbage. According to Eater, owner and chef Monica Ramos’s version of the handheld snack has drawn Guatemalans from as far as Lancaster.

Who knew fruit could pair so well with fried chicken? At Gol Tong Chicken, Kil Chae Jeong offers the quirkiest fried chicken in Koreatown. An erstwhile South Korean film director and Seoul-based fried chicken shop operator, Jeong is the shop’s only employee. His bushy eyebrows and mustachioed visage can be seen all over the screen-filled strip mall restaurant, which blasts a combination of K-pop and Korean TV shows. Dine-in customers can slip on disposable gloves to chow down on Jeong’s saucy fried chicken, which comes in original, soy garlic and sweet chili. Each made-to-order plate comes topped with sesame seeds and a rainbow of fresh fruit.

Thanks to an in-house extruder dating back to 1985, the traditionally North Korean naengmyeon at Ham Hung is some of the freshest you’ll find in Koreatown. Here, you can order it dressed in red chili paste, the style of its namesake city (the second largest in North Korea) or a mellow Pyongyang-style beef broth. The noodles, which are made almost entirely of potato and sweet potato starch, are thin, chewy and light, and the rest of the menu includes other affordable homestyle dishes like seafood green onion pancakes and gamja tang, a pork neck broth soup that’s perfect in the wintertime.

In most parts of Los Angeles, Syrian food is difficult to find, which is what makes this casual no-frills eatery in Van Nuys such a great hidden gem. Owner and chef Waha Ghreir serves a broad array of Syrian cuisine, including kobees—juicy deep-fried patties of beef, bulgur wheat, pine nuts and spices. Also known as kibbeh, Kobee Factory also offers them grilled and baked. Other popular items include the filet kabob and the majdara—a mixture of bulgur, lentils and stir-fried onions served with salad and pickled vegetables.

Most Saturday evenings, you can find bubbling, crackling traditional Swiss raclette on the quaintly decorated, well-heated patio behind this Westside wine and cheese shop, which will carefully slice the melted cheese onto a fully loaded plate of bread, salami, cold cuts, gherkins, new potatoes and seasonal vegetables. (They also offer a vegetarian plate as well.) Since Kustaa’s Swiss raclette nights tend to get busy, it’s best to call ahead of time for a reservation. Planning note for those who wish to imbibe: The shop only offers wine by the bottle, not the glass.

At this unassuming West Hollywood sushi spot, the most popular order is the choose-your-own-adventure chirashi bowl, which comes topped with three to five different items including spicy scallop, yellowtail, avocado and—for a premium—fresh uni. The sashimi cuts are particularly good when doused in Murakami’s garlic soy sauce, and each homestyle rice bowl includes ginger, cucumber, daikon radish and a healthy dose of seaweed for a casual, ultra-delicious Japanese meal.

Armbay, Dotee and Danny Zakaria's backyard dining pop-up in Solano Canyon now has a new venue: Echo Park's La Fe, where the trio pop up for dinner service every Saturday and Sunday, 5–10pm. Though Nawal’s menu changes regularly, the Zakarias have been known to serve fatteh, a mix of yogurt and hummus topped with pita chips and chickpeas; wraps filled with soujouk, or Middle Eastern spiced beef sausage; and bowls of ful medames, a savory bean-based breakfast salad. Follow along on Instagram for specials and Nawal’s most up-to-date schedule.

This tiny Japanese neighborhood spot dating back to 1956 serves as one of the few reminders that this Eastside neighborhood was once home to one of the largest enclaves of Japanese Americans in Southern California. Today, Otomisan serves up affordable Japanese comfort food, including teriyaki plates, pork tonkatsu and warm, wakame-laced bowls of tempura-topped udon, all inside a no-frills, homey restaurant that happens to be a working piece of Los Angeles history.

Thai Town is already home to plenty of excellent late night restaurants, but this family-run sidewalk operation outside Silom Supermarket is changing the game with budget-friendly rice and noodle dishes served fresh off the wok until midnight. Now also available at Smorgasburg on Sundays, Radna Silom specializes in radna, a flat rice noodle dish covered in a mild pork gravy—but the pad thai with crispy shrimp, peanuts and fresh bean sprouts is a must-order as well. On weekend evenings, the plastic chairs and red-and-white tablecloths fill up early in the evening with diners chowing down on the modestly sized menu items, transforming this already popular stretch of Hollywood Boulevard into a scene straight out of a Bangkok night market.

For fresh sashimi-grade fish at everyday prices, head to Yama Seafood, a tiny family-run Japanese market and sushi counter in the San Gabriel Valley that's served the neighborhood since 1984. Here, you’ll find Mr. Yama’s affordable maki roll platters for a crowd; simple cuts of tuna, salmon, yellowtail and mackerel sashimi in takeout-friendly packaging; plus classic inari pouches sweetened with mirin and rice vinegar. A larger array of Japanese sake and snacks is also available for anyone hoping to augment their meal. More recently, the Yama family has opened up Yama Sushi Sake & Attitude in Mar Vista—putting affordable sushi and maki within driving distance of much of the Westside.

Outside of Fairfax, Ethiopian food restaurants are few and far in between in L.A., but this casual, family-run restaurant more than fills the gap in South L.A. with its menu full of traditional favorites like kitfo (a steak tartare seasoned with herbed butter, cardamom, bird’s eye chili and cloves) and an injera platter topped with whole fried fish and a dazzling array of vegetables and stews. Stopping in with a group? Opt for the coffee jebena, served family-style out of an clay Ethiopian coffee pot.

This modern-looking Glendale eatery specializes in its namesake, an oiled Armenian flatbread filled with over a dozen different herbs that’s a regional specialty in Artsakh, a politically contested Armenia-Azerbaijan border region also known as Nagorno-Karabakh. Without butter, the dish is entirely vegan. With or without, however, the zhengyalov hatz are light and delicious; each bite tastes like spring. The shop’s minimalist menu also offers one other item: paxlava, a regional iteration of baklava. Drinks-wise, among other beverages, you can also order Armenian coffee, glass teapots filled with spiced and herbal tea and their housemade okrosha, a tangy yogurt drink packed to the brim with dill and cucumber.