With a dazzling family-style mezze spread and other unique Middle Eastern culinary delights, this elegant, destination-worthy Lebanese concept inside the Kimpton La Peer is the best hotel restaurant we’ve visited all year. Run by Top Chef Middle East winner Charbel Hayek, Ladyhawk serves the Beirut native’s winning dish—Spanish ahi tuna crudo—and other California-inspired fare, but the best parts of the concise menu draw from the chef’s heritage cuisine. Highlights include a refreshing, crunchy fattoush (pita salad), a flavorful muhammara (walnut and red pepper spread) and a butterflied dorade with a spicy zhoug (spicy cilantro sauce). Start your meal with the beautifully presented za’atar manoushe, which dresses up the traditional Levantine spiced bread with dots of tomato purée, herb purée and labneh that resemble the Lebanese flag. Outdoor dining available; $20 valet parking and limited street parking.
If you’ve already eaten through L.A.’s best restaurants and sipped cocktails at the hottest bars from the Westside to Downtown, you’re probably the type of person who loves checking out the city’s hottest eateries, but hates spending money on overhyped duds. With our heavily vetted list of newly opened restaurants (yes, we’ve personally checked out every single one), we’re helping you decide where to head next—since there’s nothing worse when it comes to going out than wasting one’s precious, typically limited free time and, of course, money.
Updated on a monthly basis, our best new restaurants list takes into account the quality of cuisine, overall ambience, price and value. We go out of our way to try most major openings, including viral, trendy or notable hot spots, and decide which are actually worthy of inclusion (which is why you won’t find East Hollywood’s Ètra, La Brea’s Zozo or Koreatown’s Origin Korean BBQ on this month’s list). Questions we ask ourselves before including a spot on this guide: Does this new restaurant offer something more interesting, delicious or unique than any of L.A.’s existing restaurants? Is it worth the hype (and money)? If the answer to either is “No,” we don’t include it.
We also give thoughtful ordering tips and let you know exactly what to expect in terms of crowd, vibe and cuisine at fine dining spots, laidback fast-casual joints and everything in between. If necessary, we also make recommendations as to when, and how, to fit these red-hot restaurants into your finite leisure time and budget—whether they’re worth going out of your way for, or perhaps better suited for locals in the neighborhood.
In the interest of price transparency and reader convenience, we also strive to include valet costs and parking availability for every restaurant—further taking the headache out of your next great new meal in Los Angeles. Read on for March’s best new restaurants, ranked.
March 2024: The new year has been fairly quiet in terms of openings, but we’ve got a single great destination-worthy addition to the list: The long-awaited opening of Holy Basil’s Atwater Village location. We’d also like to recognize Level 8 and Joyce, both located in Downtown L.A., and Baroo in the Arts District, all of which are departing the guide after the requisite six months.