Where to have New Year’s Eve dinner in Los Angeles

Menu: This upscale Mexican restaurant in the Arts District—and one of our favorite ways to spend $300 on dinner for two—is offering two seatings for New Year's: An early menu for $120 per person and a later seating for $160. 

Price: $120–160 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via Resy.

Menu: Celebrate the year's end at Cobi’s, a cozy, grandma-chic Southeast Asian eatery in Santa Monica. The restaurant’s lush, heated patio and antique-decorated interiors are the perfect setting for a chic, more laidback NYE dinner. Expect a one night-only multi-course seafood tasting menu with a vegetarian option. Highlights include curry puffs, grilled oysters and  Singapore-style soft shell crab curry.

Price: $95 per person plus beverages, tax and gratuity.

Reservations: Book online via Resy.

Menu: Bryant Ng's Southeast Asian-inspired farm-to-table restaurant will serve a New Orleans-inspired, prix-fixe, family-style menu highlighting the Southeast Asian and French influences in modern day Cajun and Creole cuisine. Highlights include “Muffuletta” turnip cake, spicy crawfish and scallop étouffée and spicy lamb frites with cumin shoestring fries, Sichuan chili and scallion yogurt. French wines and Big Easy-inspired cocktails will also be avaiable.

Price: $110 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via Resy.

Menu: Katianna and John Hong's Arts District eatery will offer a family-style spread for New Year's Eve. For a large group of friends, or even just a pair, the industrial dining room and patio would make for a laidback holiday dinner without much fuss and plenty of Korean American flavor: think wood-grilled sea bream, a shima aji tostada with creme fraiche and charred cucumbers and rice cake "tteok" with kimchi cream and Parmesan cheese. Champagne, caviar, black truffles and steak supplements will also be available.

Price: $125 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via OpenTable.

Menu: For the first time ever, Koreatown's Here's Looking at You will serve a special ten-course dinner on New Year's Eve. Both the early (6pm) and late (8:30pm) seatings don't run until midnight; the late seating, however, does include a "midnight" champagne toast at 10:30pm. Chef Jonathan Whitener plans to roll out new dishes, including roasted abalone with lion's mane mushrooms, parsley and tare sauce; kraut bao with cabbage and horseradish; and champagne Jell-O with persimmon, pomegranate and creme fraiche. Modifications are politely declined.

Price: $110 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via OpenTable.

Menu: For New Year's, this vegetarian-friendly all-day restaurant in Silver Lake is throwing a "Feast of the Seven Vegetables," a tongue-in-cheek twist on the Italian Christmas Eve feast. Highlights include beets with horseradish and salted plum, celeriac lasgana and a carrot tarte tatin. A vegan menu is also available with advance notice.

Price: $115 per person plus tax and gratuity.

Reservations: Book online via Resy.

Menu: Tal Ronnen's award-winning vegan fine-dining concept will offer a plant-based New Year's Eve dinner menu at both its Melrose and Calabasas locations. The six-course meal will include a celebratory kelp caviar-topped potato rosti and your choice of eggplant short rib or porcini mushroom tortelli. For dessert, there's a brownie sundae, banana pudding or a chocolate hazelut torte.

Price: $95 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via Sevenrooms (Calabasas) or Yelp (Melrose).

Menu: For a seafood-focused New Year's Eve dinner, head to this New England-style seafood restaurant on the Sunset Strip. The four-course tasting menu will include a few surprise bites and mignardises from culinary director Kyle McClelland and pastry chef Ben Sidell, and an abbreviated regular menu will be available as well.

Price: $150 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book via Resy.

Menu: If you're looking for a laidback New Year's Eve dinner, this mostly-outdoor Arts District wine bar is serving a vegan-friendly seven course tasting menu with a champagne toast to finish. Highlights include Dungenesse crab royale, camembert with black truffles and chestnut porcini ravioli. The charming patio looks more like a dinner party in someone’s backyard—so come in, order a glass and toast to the end of 2023.

Price: $100 per person for the vegan menu, $125 for regular. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book via Resy.

Menu: With elegant Bollywood-inspired cocktails and an elevated approach to South Asian cooking, this New York City import showcases a newer, more modern side of subcontinental cuisine in an airy Downtown dining room. For New Year's, Baar Baar is offering a three-course early seating (tables start between 5 and 7:30pm) for $65 per head, plus a later $125 five-course seating (tables start between 8 and 10pm) that includes dessert and a champagne toast at midnight. Expect Bollywood beats and party favors passed out.

Price: $65–125 per person.

Reservations: Book via OpenTable.

Menu: Avner Lavi's sleek pasta bar in West Adams will offer 9:30 and 10pm seatings of a New Year's Eve dinner featuring four signature courses. (We're all but sure the crowd-favorite beet spaghetti will make an appearance.) Dine up close and personal with Lavi's team at the chef's counter, or take your pasta party outside on the restaurant's charming string-lit heated patio.

Price: $125 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via OpenTable.

Menu: For a romantic, rather than no-holds-barred, New Year's Eve, look no further than this longtime hidden oasis hidden along West 3rd Street. To ring in 2024, head chef Jonathan Portela is serving a three-course Mediterranean-inspired menu, including accommodations for vegans and vegetarians. Seatings run from 6 to 11pm—so if you'd rather have an early dinner and spend midnight in bed, this restaurant is here for it.

Price: $125 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book via Tock.

Menu: This consistently excellent Fairfax Italian restaurant by chef Gino Angelini will also be offering a dizzying choose-your-own-adventure prix-fixe meal this New Year’s—each appetizer and main course section includes upwards of 10 options. Chef Angelini starts everyone off on the same foot, however, with a traditional Umbrian pork sausage and lentil dish for good luck in the year to come. For those looking to drink wine with their meal, there will be half-bottles of King Grand Cuvee for $90 and a $55 three-glass pairing option.

Price: $125 per person plus tax and gratuity.

Reservations: Book online via OpenTable.

Menu: For a whopping $450 per person, chef Michael Cimarusti's two Michelin-starred Hollywood restaurant will be offering a multi-course tasting experience on New Year's Eve. Though exact dishes vary on a seasonal basis, diners can expect whimsical hors d'oeuvres, plus plenty of gourmet meat and seafood—all at one of the city's most celebrated fine-dining institutions. As of writing, seatings have sold out, but you can always call to be added to the waitlist in case of cancellations.

Price: $595 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via OpenTable.

Menu: Head to this Michelin-starred Arts District bistro for a prix-fixe four-course menu that includes mackerel crudo, duck "en farcie" and complimentary champagne to start the meal. The vegetarian-friendly meal will also include a midnight toast, plus add-on options like truffle and cavair.

Price: $275 per person plus beverages, tax and gratuity.

Reservations: Book online via Resy.

Menu: Walter and Margarita Manzke's traditional French bistro will offer a four-course New year's Eve menu highlighting seasonal ingredients and signature favorites from Bicyclette's regular menu, with options for vegetarians and pescatarians. Note that there is a two and a half hour table limit for parties of two, or a two and three-quarters of an hour table limit for parties of three or more.

Price: $225 per person plus beverage, tax and a 20% service fee.

Reservations: Pre-pay and book online via OpenTable.

Menu: Leaving any meal in the capable hands of celebrity chef Curtis Stone is a good idea, but that's especially true for this New Year's Eve, where his newly Michelin-starred steakhouse, Gwen, will offer an eight-course tasting menu for both early and late seating. Each guest will receive caviar-topped oysters, dry-aged beef tartare, a winter citrus salad, a blue corn tamale and josper roasted scallops with butter beans, smoked trout roe and leeks. Finish off with grilled duck, Wagyu ribeye before ending with refreshing grape pearls and almond milk sorbet and a festive baked Alaska. Note that the early, cheaper seating offers a slightly abbreviated menu with a less fancy rib eye cut subbed in.

Price: Early: $180 per person; Late: $280. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via Resy.

Menu: For those in the mood to splurge, the Manzkes are also offering an extravagant New Year's Eve tasting menu at Bicyclette's Michelin-starred upstairs counterpart, Manzke. Normally, the restaurant's seasonal Asian- and French-inflected tasting is already opulent, so expect oodles of Rodolphe Le Meunier butter, plenty of freshly caught California seafood and Margarita Manzke's award-winning pastries.

Price: $495 per person plus beverage, tax and a 20% service fee 

Reservations: Pre-pay and book online via Tock.

Menu: This traditional French eatery in Santa Monica will offer a special prix-fixe menu for both early and late seatings, with the latter including a midnight champagne toast and extra foie gras brioche. This New Year’s, head chef Dave Beran is offering a caviar amuse-bouche, bread and butter, salad classique,  gnocchi parisienne and prime rib au jus. The slightly pricier late seating also throws in Pasjoli's signature foie de poulet and a cheese plate. If you'd like a more casual New Year's meal, there will also be a bar menu ($95 for early and $125 for late) that features "kitchen snacks" like French onion éclair, chicken cordon bleu bites and deviled eggs.

Price: Early: $225 per person; Late: $275 plus person. Tax and gratuity not included. 

Reservations: Book online via OpenTable.

Menu: With its beautiful atmosphere and even better cuisine, Neal Fraser's Downtown restaurant might fit the bill for an elegant New Year's Eve out on the town. This year, co-owner Amy Fraser is presiding over a three-course prix-fixe dinner for New Year's with a supplemental $95 wine pairing. Choose from artichoke soup, iced oysters with green apple granita, hamachi sashimi, a potato churro with smoked eel or chicken liver mousse to start, then move onto a pumpkin curry, lobster ravioli, John Dory meuniere, Liberty Farms duck or beef tenderloin s a main. To finish, there's a milk chocolate cream puff or pineapple upside down cake for dessert.

Price: $195 per person. Tax and gratuity not included. 

Reservations: Book via OpenTable.

Menu:  Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama's West Adams izakaya will serve a seven-course tasting menu including raw seafood and a zensai course insipired by traditional Japanese osechi—an extravagant bento-style array traditionally consumed on New Year's. Highlights include a toro and caviar tartare, grilled American Wagyu and shiitake with ponzu oroshi and red bean panna cotta. Note that this New Year's Even dinner will not be able to accomodate vegetarians, vegans or soy-free dietary restrictions.

Price: $165 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via Resy.

Menu: Walter and Margarita Manzke's original critically acclaimed Californian French eatery is offering a multi-course tasting menu on New Year's Eve. Though the exact menu is yet to be determined, expect lots of seasonal produce, high-quality meat and seafood and maybe, if you're lucky, some winter truffles. (Note that vegans can't be accommodated at République at the moment.)

Price: $160 per person. Drinks, tax and gratuity not included.

Reservations: Book online via OpenTable.

Menu: Chef Josiah Citrin's two Michelin-starred Santa Monica fine-dining restaurant will be offering its two and a half hour tasting experience on New Year's Eve for early (5:30pm) and late (8:30pm) seatings. Though exact dishes vary on a seasonal basis, diners can expect whimsical hors d'oeuvres, plus plenty of gourmet meat and seafood.

Price: $475 per person plus tax and gratuity.

Reservations: Book online via Tock.

Menu: Situated high atop the US Bank Tower, Downtown's 71Above offers a stunning city views and modern American fare. The restaurant's $250 New Year's Eve menu ups the ante with a black tie dress code ("elegant attire requested"), supplemental caviar and wine pairings and, of course, a champagne toast at midnight.

Price: $250 per person

Reservations: Book via OpenTable.