This new spot from the Melisse and Charcoal chef has taken the place of Commissary at The Line hotel in Koreatown. Openaire is a relatively casual greenhouse-like space that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner where you can expect pasta, some Asian-ish dishes, and a big steak on the menu.

Mon Li is a tasting menu bar open only Thursday through Saturday, where you pay $150 up front for 12 omakase cocktails and about five courses of food. Needless to say, you probably won’t be rolling up here in flip-flops after a day on the beach. The drinks seem exciting with seaweed infusions and parmesan rinds, and garnishes like hard-boiled quail egg and peacock feathers.

This spot in Westwood is the newest restaurant and brewery from the people that run Tony’s Darts Away, Mohawk Bend, and almost every craft beer bar in LA you can think of. The food is mostly classic Southern stuff (baby back ribs, shrimp and grits, a fried chicken sandwich) and there are also plenty of vegan-friendly options. There’s a full bar with a long tap list, and they’ll be brewing their own beer here soon too.

Here & Now is a new cocktail bar in the Arts District with classic cocktails and bar food in a space that appears to look like the set of Murder On The Orient Express. Fortunately, there’s a much smaller chance you’ll be interrogated by an eccentric detective here than on the actual train.

Rye Fox is a new Southern restaurant and whiskey bar on Beverly about a block from the Grove. The cocktails here seem pretty serious and involve a lot of rye and logo-stamped ice - and the menu includes rotisserie chicken, octopus, and pork belly.

One of the San Gabriel Valley’s most well-known restaurants, Sichuan Impression, has opened a second location in West LA. Like the SGV spot, there’s a huge menu of southwestern Chinese classics, like steamed chicken with chilis, cold noodles, bamboo shoots, and tea-smoked ribs.

Alta is a new restaurant in West Adams from a big deal San Francisco chef. The menu will have a bunch of California-style comfort food like pig’s foot salad, shrimp and grits, and barbecue cauliflower. There’s a chef’s counter in the dining room, along with a bar and a big patio. The same people are also running a daytime spot next door called Adams Coffee Shop, where they’re serving typical coffee and lunchtime things like salads, bowls, and sandwiches.

One of Infatuation NYC’s favorite ice cream places has opened in LA. It’s in one of those bungalows in Los Feliz that you imagine Jenny Slate lives in, except instead of a comedian inside there’s ice cream with flavors like butter cake, and chocolate milk and cookies.

This huge restaurant/bar/brewery inside Union Station is from the same people as The Normandie Club and Arts District Brewing. It’s a good place to come if you like activities - they have chess boards, pool, and shuffleboard tables so you can compete with your friends (or strangers) while you drink. The food is mostly bar-type stuff, like chowder, ribs, and po’boys, along with dollar oysters during Happy Hour. There’s also a smaller, more upscale cocktail bar attached called Streamliner, if you want a quieter spot than the big beer hall.

Wally’s, a serious wine store with a massive selection in Beverly Hills, has opened another location in Santa Monica, close to the beach on Wilshire. In addition to being a place for agents to buy expensive wine bottles for other agents, there’s also a restaurant that serves pizza, charcuterie, and other things that go well with wine.

Another new Chinese option for Westsiders is Ms. Chi in Culver City. It’s open all day and specializes in dumplings, like wontons with peas and carrots, or Sichuan pork and shrimp. There are also larger plates available, like mapo tofu and zhajiang mian with pork.

Gold Line is a bar in Highland Park that only plays vinyl, and the only vinyl they play is from the owner’s personal collection. The owner also happens to have his own music label, so you probably won’t be stuck listening to Barry Manilow all night. Just like also-new Arts District spot In Sheep’s Clothing, the emphasis here is on the music, so you can expect different DJs all the time. As far as drinks, they have natural wines, craft beer, as well as big whiskey and mezcal collections.

Konbi is a Japanese-inspired coffee and sandwich spot in Echo Park. The menu is small, and focuses on katsu sandwiches, vegetable plates, and daily pastries. The katsu options are pork or eggplant, which is sliced thin, fried, and served on bread with cabbage and sauce. Konbi is open for breakfast and lunch, and you can sit at the counter, or take your sandwiches to go.

We checked out Konbi, read our first thoughts here.

Silverlake Ramen is already a kind-of mini Eastside empire, with locations in Silver Lake, Highland Park, and Echo Park. And now they’re expanding west - to the Third Street Promenade of all places. These guys are known for their excellent tonkotsu pork broth, and seeing as wait times at the original Sunset spot are still pretty long, we can only expect heightened insanity when the tourists get involved too.

Baby Blues is a Venice barbecue staple, and they’re opening another location in Echo Park. The menu is the same, with smoked meats like brisket, ribs, and pulled pork on platters or in sandwiches. There really aren’t many Southern barbecue spots on the Eastside, so if you’re on this side of town and want something covered in BBQ sauce, you know where to go.

Roberta’s is a Brooklyn institution that happens to make our fourth favorite pizza in NYC, and they just opened their first West Coast location. It’s at Platform in Culver City, and you’ll find a menu full of wood-fired pizzas, like the legendary soppressata and spicy honey Bee Sting. If the lines at their pop-ups were any indication, expect a crowd.

We checked out Roberta’s and put it on our Hit List.

We’ve heard there are already long lines at the first non-East Coast location of Milk Bar, a NYC dessert spot. Their desserts include cereal milk-flavored soft serve, potato chip-filled compost cookies, pricy cakes with many layers, and pies. The new Milk Bar also has some savory, LA-specific options, like bagel bombs with Langer’s pastrami inside.

We checked out Milk Bar, read our first thoughts here.

There are a few Bacaris, but our favorite is the one in Playa Del Rey. It’s a wine bar by the beach that’s always good for a party, and now they’ve opened another location on West 3rd in Beverly Grove. They serve an Italian-ish dinner every night and brunch on the weekends. The big patio in the back looks nice, so you should probably try to sit out there.

Superba Food and Bread is a great all-day hangout in Venice, and the same people have opened a cafe in Pasadena. This Superba is daytime only, with coffee and a smaller breakfast and lunch menu where everything is under $11.

Go Get Em Tiger has opened their third location in Highland Park, in the same building as Triple Beam and Hippo. Like the Larchmont and Los Feliz cafes, they serve coffee and brunch food, and have a nice enclosed patio.

Palisades Village is an outdoor mall developed by the same guy behind The Grove. There are some shops and plenty of places to eat, including new locations of McConnell’s (ice cream), Blue Ribbon Sushi (chain from NYC), and Tocaya Organica (Mexican mini-chain). There’s also some stuff that’s new, like The Draycott, an all-day cafe with a big patio, and Sweet Laurel, a gluten and dairy-free bakery that bakes pretty cakes you might recognize from Erewhon.

Judging by the menu alone, Simone looks like what you’d find if there was a dictionary for food and you looked up “California cuisine.” The menu has dishes like burrata with plum confit and a toast that comes topped with abalone and avocado, and the big art deco space has chef’s counter where you’ll be able to try a tasting menu soon.

We checked out Simone and put it on our Hit List.

This high-end cocktail bar in Downtown LA seems to take making fancy drinks very seriously. They make all of their liqueurs, bitters, and vermouths in-house, and have a big chunk of ice sitting on the bar, ready to be chipped into smaller chunks of ice that will be stirred into your drink. The space looks appropriately fancy, with stained glass windows, lots of mahogany, and a smaller, even more serious, cocktail bar upstairs opening later this year. There’s a small bar food menu too, that includes a charcuterie plate and an open-faced beef Wellington.

We checked out The Wolves and put it on our Bar Hit List.

Not to be confused with Hail Mary Pizza in Atwater Village, Hail Mary Bistro is a semi-permanent pop-up inside of Garçons de Café in Downtown LA. They’re open from 11am - 3pm Wednesday through Friday, serving French small plates that are meant to go well with the all-French wine list. They don’t have a kitchen, so the menu is pretty small and involves dishes like sourdough with brie, beef tartare, and hand-pulled mascarpone.

We checked out Hail Mary Bistro and put it on our Hit List.

This sushi and wine bar in Sherman Oaks opened a couple of months ago, and they serve both traditional sushi as well as things like a crispy rice tuna biscotti and gravlax sushi. But what makes Sushi Note different from every other sushi place on Ventura is the serious wine list full of interesting bottles, and the option to add a $25 wine pairing to any of the set menus.

We checked out Sushi Note and put it on our Hit List.

The Larchmont was one of our favorite spots in Larchmont Village, so we were bummed when they closed a while back. But the owners are back with a new, all-day French place with a big bar on Melrose. They have the requisite Croque Monsieur on both the morning and afternoon menus, along with a bunch of other sandwiches, eggs, and bowls.

This tsukemen place in Chinatown serves dip ramen with noodles made from scratch in-house. Pick between pork ribs, pork belly, or tofu for your protein toppings, and if you’re not in the mood for cold noodles dipped in hot broth, they have a couple of other kinds of ramen as well. One day it might get cold in LA again, at which point this could be a new place to go warm up.

We checked out Okiboru, read our first thoughts here.

This whiskey bar in Beverly Hills is from the people behind Saddle Peak Lodge in Malibu. There’s a heavy hunting lodge theme, plenty of taxidermied deer heads, barrel-aged cocktails, and a small, meat-heavy food menu.

Sherman Oaks has a new option for drinks, snacks, and live music. Rita on Ventura specializes in margaritas and mules, plus a handful of Mexican small plates. Order a spicy peach mule and check out whatever DJ or band is playing.

LA has plenty of wine bars and more than a few vegan restaurants, but not many vegan wine bars. Pura Vita is just that - a spot with plant-based Italian food and vegan wines in West Hollywood. Expect dishes like nut-cheese lasagna, antipasti, and tiramisu, plus vegan wines (turns out not all wine is vegan).

Khong Ten on Pico in West LA is a new place where you can eat modern Vietnamese food while drinking cocktails. They’re open late (until 1am), serving dishes like Vietnamese charcuterie, mussels with curry, and black pepper chicken.

We checked out Khong Ten, read our first thoughts here.

This might surprise you, but there’s another new pizza place in LA. Ronan is a restaurant on Melrose, with a big patio and a dining room with long, communal wooden tables and a few booths. It’s from some people that worked at Sotto and Alimento, and they serve traditional wood-fired pies with toppings like guanciale, clams, and squash blossoms, along with non-pizza dishes like whole snapper, pork chops, and vegetable plates.

We checked out Ronan and put it on our Hit List.

There’s a new Thai place on West 3rd St. near The Grove that serves Thai classics like curries, soups, and stir-fried noodles, which you order at the counter. There are never enough great Thai takeout places, so if you’re looking for a new option in Beverly Grove, this could be worth checking out.

We checked out The Thai Thing, read our first thoughts here.

Open Face serves Danish-style open-faced sandwiches out of a window in West Adams. There are some outdoor bar seats where you can hang out while you eat slices of bread topped with pickled herring and curried egg or gravlax. They also have a couple of non-open-faced options, like a meatball hero and a tofu banh mi.

After a few different pop-ups around town over the past couple of years, Porridge and Puffs has opened a permanent restaurant in Historic Filipinotown. They’re serving both rice porridge and rice flour dumpling-like “puffs,” which means you can expect an Asian-influenced menu of dishes like mushroom and poultry porridge and Japanese multi-grain pancakes.

We checked out Porridge and Puffs and put it on our Hit List.

Hi Tops, a gay sports bar from San Francisco has just opened an LA location with a massive front patio on Santa Monica Blvd. Cocktails like The Magic Hour are named after LA athletes, and the menu involves ballpark-style food like nachos, burgers, and things cooked on sticks.

This new wine bar on Melrose does things a little differently. The wine list is organized by terroir rather than variety, the cocktails are all made with sherry and vermouth, and they also serve a bunch of big punch bowls. They’ve got a small menu of shared plates and fondue, and they’ll also saber any champagne for you, if you need some excitement in your Tuesday and want to watch someone cut open a glass bottle with a sword.

This new restaurant in Studio City is an American/California-ish spot with plenty of space (because it’s the Valley) in both the dining room and at the lounge-y couches around the bar. The menu has interesting-sounding things like shrimp bolognese and Puerto Rican fried pork, along with the usuals like a burger, steak, and salads. You’ll probably end up here for Happy Hour sometime soon if you work in the area.

This kosher Israeli spot in Beverly Grove is pretty tiny, but has a front patio that gets pretty crowded. They serve a bunch of classic Middle Eastern dishes like falafel, hummus, and kabobs, as well as bigger options like a $60 rib eye and a whole grilled branzino.

We checked out Charcoal Grill, read our first thoughts here.

The people behind Factory Kitchen, one of the OG Italian restaurants in the Arts District, have opened a new spot around the corner called Sixth + Mill. It looks more casual than Factory Kitchen, but also specializes in pizza and pasta.

We checked out Charcoal Grill, read our first thoughts here.

Inspired by jazz bars in Japan, In Sheep’s Clothing is a cafe and bar behind an unmarked door inside of also-new spot, Lupetti Pizzeria. You can count on spinning vinyl as the star of the show whether you’re here for coffee and pastries during the day or whiskey cocktails at night. Maybe your friend who went to Tokyo once and won’t stop talking about a “vinyl sanctuary” he visited there will finally get his fill here.

We checked out In Sheep’s Clothing and put it on our Bar Hit List.

Journeymen in Atwater Village was open for about a year, and never really figured out what they wanted to be. After a short closure, the same people have re-opened the space as Hail Mary Pizza, serving salads, a few appetizers, and brick-oven pizzas.

We checked out Hail Mary Pizza and put it on our Hit List.

The Gables is an all-day, order-at-the-counter option in downtown Santa Monica that involves a great patio and a chef who worked at the original Superba in Venice. In the daytime, you can get pancakes, chilaquiles, sandwiches, and salads. And for dinner, there’s pasta, chicken, and salmon.

APL is a throwdown steakhouse in Hollywood, and they’ve just opened a take-out lunch window next door. This is the place to go if you’re in the mood for a dry-aged beef chili dog, or can somehow spend $50 on a to-go sandwich with a pound of shaved NY strip steak on it.

We checked out Charcoal Grill, read our first thoughts here.

Humphry Slocombe is Infatuation San Francisco’s favorite spot for ice cream, and they’ve just opened a store on Abbot Kinney. While there’s no shortage of ice cream spots on this street, here you’ll find a flavor called Secret Breakfast that involves corn flakes and bourbon, plus other less common options like red wine and Coke.

There have been a lot of popular restaurants from Japan opening locations in LA recently. The newest one is Karayama, a big-deal fried chicken place in Little Tokyo. You can get your karaage a few different ways here, like in a sandwich or over rice with an egg and onions.

This very big restaurant on 4th St. in downtown Santa Monica serves everything from tagines, steak frites, and rillettes, to Spanish tortillas and housemade pasta. There’s a patio and a full bar, and they’re open from breakfast until 2am, which could be useful for tourists as well as the Santa Monica bar crowd.

We checked out Massilia, read our first thoughts [here](https://www.theinfatuation.com/los-angeles/reviews/massilia.

The Fields is a big food hall next to the new LAFC stadium in Exposition Park. Instead of bad hot dogs, they have a full bar, a pizza place from someone who used to be a chef at Chi Spacca, dumplings, tacos, as well as stalls from Coni’seafood and Burritos La Palma. No need to pretend you like soccer to get involved - you can eat here whether or not you have tickets to the game.

Hilltop is a new daytime cafe on Slauson in View Park-Windsor Hills. It’s a big space with lots of tables, and might be a good place to hang out for a while with your laptop and eat your way through their menu of sandwiches, bowls, and beignets.

We checked out Hilltop and put it on our Hit List.

This new casual cocktail bar in Little Tokyo has tropical drinks and boozy snow cones, plus bar snacks like shrimp rolls, chicken wings, and tater tot poutine. They’re open until 2am every night, and have a martini called Drink Your Vegetables made with celery bitters and pickle brine to make you feel better about being out way too late on a work night.

We checked out The Mermaid and put it on our Bar Hit List.

Tom Tom, the newest spot from the people behind Bravo reality TV spots Pump and Sur, has both a regular bar and a shots-only bar. They also serve expensive cocktails and some food, but you’ll probably just come here to play Vanderpump Rules cast member bingo on the patio. They’ve been talking this place up on the show for 18 months, so be ready for crowds now that it’s finally open.

We checked out Tom Tom, read our first thoughts here.

Lately is a to-go window in Chinatown that’s doing weekday breakfast and early lunch (they close at 1pm) to warm up for a full restaurant opening later this year. You’ll find typical breakfast things like an egg sandwich, but they’re also serving more interesting-sounding options like a country fried steak sandwich with pickled peaches, and a waffle with miso honey butter.

We checked out Lately, read our first thoughts here.

This all-day coffee shop in East Hollywood serves açai bowls and avocado toast on Fountain. It looks to be pretty small, so seems more like a place to grab breakfast and coffee to-go than a second office.

We checked out Mestizo, read our first thoughts here.

Highland Park’s Otoño is a modern Spanish restaurant with a lot of seafood, tapas, and natural wines from Spain. If you’ve resolved to sample every jamon iberico in town “for scientific purposes,” there’s a new place to add to your list.

We checked out Otoño and put it on our Hit List.

LA Wine is a new wine bar in Chinatown with a big cellar of exclusively California wines. Maybe they’ll have that pinot noir from Paso Robles you had three years ago and haven’t been able to find since.

This high-end kaiseki Japanese spot at The Row in DTLA has a lot going on. At lunch, they do $46 take-out bento boxes (that you have to pre-order) for the next time you want to celebrate something while sitting at your desk. Dinner is a single seating where you’ll get around 10 courses of hot, cold, and raw seafood-focused dishes for $200.

Everything at Monty’s, a new burger window in Koreatown, is plant-based. They don’t call their burger a Double-Double, but having read the menu, this sounds like a vegan Double-Double. They have “shakes” too.

We checked out Monty’s, read our first thoughts here.

You won’t see the Guerrilla Tacos truck around anymore, but no need to panic. There’s no truck because they’ve just opened a full restaurant in the Arts District across from ERB. As well as some of your old favorites like the sweet potato and the cauliflower, the menu has new tacos, plus quesadillas, tostadas, salads, and a full bar. The line is already out the door at dinnertime, so plan accordingly (and check the website - hours are changing as they figure things out).

We checked out Guerrilla Tacos and put it on our Hit List.

There’s no danger of Downtown LA becoming Manhattan anytime soon, but Lupetti is the second New York-style pizza-by-the-slice spot to open there in the last week. They’re open until midnight on weekends, so this could be your carbs-and-cheese pitstop in the middle of your Saturday night Arts District brewery crawl.

We checked out Lupetti and put it on our Hit List.

Kebbros is a new doner kebab spot with spit-roasted chicken, beef, and seitan options in Hollywood, between a bunch of chain restaurants and strip clubs. There’s plenty of indoor seating and a patio, and could be a good option in Hollywood if you always go for the same reliable places here and want to switch it up.

The most recent addition to the food court at Westfield Century City / Los Angeles fried chicken takeover is The Crack Shack, a San Diego fried chicken spot that’s always busy. At this new location, you can get your chicken either on its own or in a bunch of sandwiches, and sit in a huge space with a patio and full bar.

We checked out The Crack Shack, read our first thoughts here.

This tiny takeout-only pizza spot in Downtown LA’s Fashion District is from the same people behind two of our favorite Italian restaurants - Rossoblu and Sotto. Their thin-crust pizzas come by the slice or whole pie.

We checked out Superfine and put it on our Hit List.

Menya Musashi in Sawtelle Japantown is the first American location of a popular Tokyo noodle spot famous for tsukemen-style pork belly ramen. It’s open for lunch and dinner daily, with vegan ramen and donburi served alongside the dip ramen. If you’re looking for a spot on Sawtelle with less of a wait than Tsujita up the street, this could be a place to start.

We checked out Menya Musashi and put it on our Hit List.

A daytime cafe near the Grove, Yarrow is open for breakfast, lunch, and coffee every day. The menu is mostly vegan, and very affordable - nothing is over $10.

We checked out Yarrow, read our first thoughts here.

The teams behind some of the best pizzas and burgers in the city have opened an Italian restaurant in Highland Park. Hippo is a big, upscale space in the same building as Triple Beam (the aforementioned great pizza) with a full bar and plenty of pasta.

We checked out Hippo and put it on our Hit List.

From the same people as Scopa Italian Roots, Dama is a new Latin restaurant in Downtown LA serving dishes like chorizo and clams, oxtail tacos, and pork shank. There’s a big, open-air dining room that looks like it’s at the beach, except instead of an ocean view, you’ll be staring at a bunch of Arts District warehouses.

We checked out Dama and put it on our Hit List.

Bar Garcia has been serving Mediterranean-ish food in the Tuck Hotel downtown for a while now, but it was previously only available to hotel guests. Now, it’s open to the public for dinner and Sunday brunch, and they’ve got an affordable wine list, mozzarella plates, hummus, and paella.

The original location of this Larchmont cafe closed last summer, but the Larchmont Bungalow is back - this time in Echo Park. It’s on Sunset behind Cosa Buona and it has a big patio where they’re serving pretty straightforward breakfast and lunch food.

Lucky’s is a new bar in Culver City from the same people behind Backstage, one of our favorite dive bars on the Westside. They’re open daily from 11am to 2am, and have some bar bites and burgers along with cocktails and beer. We hope they carry over the same free-quesadillas-at-midnight tradition as Backstage, but only time will tell.

This is a new restaurant and craft beer bar in Mid-Wilshire. The dining room is a huge space where you can have dumplings, short ribs, and Korean fried chicken, along with beer they brew themselves.

We checked out 6th & La Brea, read our first thoughts here.

This new Japanese restaurant at the Chateau Marmont is hidden inside of one of the hotel’s bungalows and serves a small menu with lots of different kinds of fish, and a six-course kaiseki option that costs $115.

We checked out Chateau Hanare and put it on our Hit List.

The owners of Ostrich Farm in Echo Park opened a Mexican restaurant/bar in a complex across the street. The drinks focus heavily on mezcal and the all-day food menu has snacky things like caesar elotes, quesadillas, and lots of different salsas. Seat yourself inside or out on the patio and have some chilaquiles for breakfast or spot prawns for dinner.

We checked out Bar Calo and put it on our Hit List and our Bar Hit List.

Trap just opened and only has five things on the menu. People are excited about the softball-sized chicken sliders, which come two-per-order for $12. It’s open until midnight, which might as well be 6am for a restaurant in Glendale.

For the amount of beach in Santa Monica, not many restaurants have actual views of the water. This new Italian-ish rooftop restaurant does. At Elephante, you’ll find an indoor dining room and a huge outdoor patio, so there are plenty of space to eat or drink with the beach in sight.

We checked out Elephante, read our first thoughts here.

This is a barbecue and cocktail spot in a strip mall in the NoHo Arts District. It’s a small dining room, and they serve Kansas City-style meats and sandwiches, whole smoked chickens, and typical BBQ sides.

Hasiba is a new hummusiya (a casual restaurant full of hummus) in Pico-Robertson from the same people behind Lodge Bread Co. There are some old Lodge favorites on the menu like shakshuka and pita sandwiches, but the focus here is definitely on chickpeas. As in, you can get four different types of hummus served with housemade pita here.

We checked out Hasiba and put it on our Hit List.

This new casual Italian spot in El Segundo serves salads, lots of housemade pastas, and sandwiches in a tiny location. They’re only open for lunch right now, but will start doing dinner later this summer. Corkage here is only $15, so next time you have a no-obligation afternoon, you know what to do.

We checked out Workshop and put it on our Hit List.

Gramercy is now open every day from brunch until late on a stretch of Wilshire without many places to drink. They have lots of cocktails, bottomless mimosas on weekends, and a food menu with things you’d expect at a bar. There’s a loose New York City theme here, with drinks named after NYC neighborhoods, and a name taken from a famous restaurant in Flatiron.

We checked out Gramercy, read our first thoughts here.

Tesse is a new French restaurant from the same guy that opened some of LA’s best places to eat, including Bestia, Republique, and Broken Spanish. The big space on Sunset is filled with leather booths and the menu runs from a big housemade charcuterie selection, to pasta, to very large t-bone steaks.

We checked out Tesse, read our first thoughts here.

This spot right in the middle of Hollywood is a true all-day cafe: they’re open from 6:30am until 11pm, serving pancakes and eggs in the morning, and flatbreads and salads for lunch and dinner, in a big space with a huge patio.

We checked out Spoonfed, read our first thoughts here.

South Bay-based The Dudes’ Brewing Company has opened a brewery and full restaurant in Santa Monica Place, otherwise known as the mall at the end of the Third Street Promenade. They’re serving pizza and appetizers along with their own beer, and have a projector for sports-watching and outdoor picnic tables for tourist-watching.

We checked out The Dudes’, read our first thoughts here.

There aren’t a whole lot of non-chain Westwood lunch options, but this new spot is both not a chain, and has a big enough menu that the salad-eaters, the sandwich-eaters, and the vegan-gluten-free-eaters of the office will all have something to choose from.

We checked out Fellow, read our first thoughts here.

In the basement of the Black Rabbit Rose and Dirty Laundry building - and from the same owners - is this new carnival-themed bar. They’ve gone all in with sideshow games, tarot readings, and people dressed as clowns, and they’re open until 2am every night.

We checked out Madame Siam, read our first thoughts here.

Rice Bar is one of our favorite casual lunch places in DTLA, and the people behind it have just opened this full, sit-down Filipino restaurant in Silver Lake. They’re just doing dinner to start, and the menu has some familiar-sounding options from Rice Bar, like the longganisa sausage, plus some new dishes like lumpia with uni, curry lobster, and adobo wings too.

We checked out Ma’am Sir and put it on our Hit List.

Clayton’s is a new pub in Downtown LA in the Spring St. Arcade with a big space, 32 beer taps, and a Victorian theme. Along with the usual pub food and beer, there are also some unusual dishes, like hummus with deviled ham, and many cocktails.

We checked out Clayton’s Public House, read our first thoughts here.

Jinpachi in Weho is already pretty casual, but they just opened an even-more-affordable place on Melrose. Fish Eight sticks to the classics: spicy tuna crispy rice, nigiri, and rolls, plus sushi tacos and an $18 chef’s choice sushi combo.

We checked out Fish Eight and put it on our Hit List.

Palms has a new Southeast Asian restaurant called Mee and Greet, with a menu that covers Singaporean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Peruvian food. What that means is Hainan chicken, turmeric fried chicken wings, and lomo saltado made with Vietnamese ingredients. Their weekday Happy Hour, with $2 off beer and wine on tap, runs from 4-7pm.

We checked out Mee & Greet, read our first thoughts here.

Roosterfish was a Westside legend - a divey gay bar that was an OG Abbot Kinney spot and one of the best places in Venice for a night out. After closing a couple of years ago, it’s been re-opened in the same spot (by a couple of Venice locals who also own South End). The cheap drinks and pool games are gone, but hopefully the place hasn’t lost the old Roosterfish magic.

One of the better date spots in Weho, Norah has opened a new bar right next door, ready for your next One-Two Punch. La Fête is a French-themed cocktail bar, open late (until midnight during the week and 2am on weekends), and serving all kinds of martinis that come with sidecars.

Far Bar is a great divey bar in Little Tokyo, so we’re interested to see what their new, not-at-all-divey spot Sake Dojo will be like. It’s an izakaya with a small menu Japanese pub classics, (robata, tempura, karaage), a bunch of sushi options, and lots of Japanese craft beer options. And, if you’re into sake, this will probably be your place - they’ve got a big list and multiple different flights on offer.

We checked out Sake Dojo, read our first thoughts here.

This new bar in Hollywood is owned by a guy who starred in Dallas and features a lot of wood and leather, but sadly no cowboy hats. It’s on a stretch of Santa Monica with plenty of indie theaters, but not enough places to drink in. Now you’ll have somewhere to have a beer while you brainstorm feedback that sounds like a compliment after watching your friend’s too-long one-man show.

When Tacos Punta Cabras closed last year, we lost some of the best tacos on the Westside. Now the same people are back with a full-blown restaurant. The main space is open for dinner and has a menu that involves both a pig’s head and albacore al pastor tacos, plus there’s a full bar and a chef’s table inside the kitchen, so it’s a big change from the tiny taco shop days. But if you’re feeling nostalgic, Punta Cabras hasn’t forgotten their roots - there’s an all-day casual taqueria attached too.

We checked out Punta Cabras and put it on our Hit List.

It’s starting to feel like we’ll never have to leave the two-block stretch of Fairfax that’s home to some of LA’s best restaurants (see: Jon & Vinny’s, Canter’s, Cofax) and now, the second location of Badmaash too. Like the DTLA original, the space is simple and the menu is a mix of traditional Indian dishes like lamb vindaloo and modern versions like chicken tikka poutine. They’re only open for dinner at the moment, but will start serving during the day in July.

We checked out Badmaash, read our first thoughts here.

There’s another new cafe to hang out in while working on your next pilot, this time in West Adams. Highly Likely is on Jefferson, and has an interesting-sounding menu that involves a grilled halloumi sandwich, a Japanese breakfast bowl, a burger, and plenty of salads.

We checked out Highly Likely and put it on our Hit List.

A new coffee shop in Historic Filipinotown, Doubting Thomas looks interesting for a couple reasons. The owner is a pastry chef, so the pastries are always changing, and possibly most importantly, they serve a breakfast quesadilla that involves pork shoulder, and a $5 breakfast sandwich.

We checked out Doubting Thomas and put it on our Hit List.

APL is a steakhouse on Hollywood & Vine, but that doesn’t mean you should stop reading this. The space is big and modern (with no red carpeting in sight) and the guy behind it is in something called the Barbecue Hall of Fame. The menu involves almost every steakhouse classic you can think of, and all the steaks are aged in-house in a basement under the restaurant.

We checked out APL and put it on our Hit List.

No More Heroes has taken over the old Now Boarding space in Weho and swapped out the old airplane theme in favor of just being a regular bar. They have a Happy Hour that runs from 7-8pm (so you might actually be able to get there after work), plus frozen (and non-frozen) cocktails alongside beer and a few wine options.

We checked out No More Heroes, read our first thoughts here.

Until now, Downtown LA hasn’t had a serious oyster bar, but Rappahannock is here to change that. In the still-not-quite-finished Row development on Alameda, they’re serving oysters from their own farms in Virginia, in addition to sandwiches you’d find at a Maine seafood shack - like lobster rolls and tuna melts.

We checked out Rappahannock and put it on our Hit List.

After a couple of months as a brunch pop-up, Little Prince is now a permanent spot on Main St. in Santa Monica. They’re still serving their interesting weekend brunch (there’s a green pea pancake on the menu) along with dinner things like a steak sandwich and octopus with potatoes and garlic.

We checked out Little Prince, read our first thoughts here.

Hock and Hoof is a new spot serving French-Asian food in Downtown LA. There’s unexpected stuff, like pig head, beef heart tartare, and tripe and tendon with fry bread, and if offal isn’t really your thing, there are also more traditional dishes like a big, $120 steak with mashed potatoes.

We checked out Hock + Hoof, read our first thoughts here.

This new spot on Beverly is from the same people as Luv2Eat in Hollywood, one of our favorite places to eat Thai food in LA. The menu is pretty similar to the original, with some larger additions like lamb chop curry and grilled salmon. The prices are a bit higher, but if the jade noodle dish is the same as the one in Hollywood, we’ll pay the extra couple dollars to eat them further west.

We checked out Noree Thai and put it on our Hit List.

The inside of this new French place in Weho looks like a set from Moulin Rouge, and serves food you might expect to find in a French bistro, like radishes with butter, mussels, endive and beet salad, and steak frites. We’re not sure if French bistros also make their own absinthe, but Barbette does that too.

We checked out Barbette, read our first thoughts here.

This excellent Australian coffee shop on Fairfax now has a new location in Downtown LA, in the same development as Rappahannock. They’re serving a daytime menu in a big, bright dining room, where you can watch them roasting beans as you drink your flat white.

We checked out Paramount Coffee Project DTLA and put it on our Hit List.

Good news for Valley residents: you now have a Petit Trois you don’t have to drive over the hill for. Because this is Sherman Oaks rather than a Hollywood strip mall, the new space is much bigger and there are more options on the French bistro menu. Plus, they’ll be open all day - we’ll be needing to try the croissants very soon.

We checked out Petit Trois and put it on our Hit List.

Originally a Greek place in Manhattan where finance people do deals over lunch, Avra now has a new location in Beverly Hills where entertainment people will probably do deals over lunch. The menu is very seafood-heavy, with raw options, a big selection of grilled whole fish, and a handful of non-seafood options for that one person you work with who still won’t eat salmon.

We checked out Avra, read our first thoughts here.

There are lots of bars on top of hotels in Downtown LA, and the one at The NoMad is another to add to your list. You’ll need a reservation just to get up there, even if you’re only drinking, but there’s a full food menu too. The dishes are a little more hotel-y than what you get downstairs at The Mezzanine. But when you’re hanging out next to a giant sculpture spitting water into a hotel pool, a Cobb salad might be exactly what you want.

We checked out the rooftop bar at the Nomad and put it on our Bar Hit List.

Veranda is another rooftop spot - this one’s on top of Hotel Figueroa and has a very big outdoor dining space with a pool and a fireplace. They serve mostly Italian food from a wood-burning oven, including a potato and leek flatbread, branzino, and a whole roast chicken.

The people behind the eternally-slammed Bestia are doing something different for their second Arts District restaurant - Middle Eastern food. They’re serving dishes like duck ’nduja hummus, foie gras halva, lamb neck shawarma, and more, in a big converted warehouse a couple of blocks away from the mothership. Get in to check it out now, before the rest of the city descends and you have to be cool with eating after midnight on a Wednesday in three months’ time.

We checked out Bavel and put it on our Hit List.

Classic Italian sandwiches are weirdly hard to come by in LA, so this place has us interested. It’s a small spot on a busy part of Melrose, serving panini with all the options you’d expect - meatballs, chicken parm, sausage & peppers - plus one called The Godfather that we’ll have to try to see if it measures up to The Godmother at Bay Cities.

We checked out Pirolo’s Panino, read our first thoughts here.

Employees Only was one of the first famous speakeasy cocktail bars in NYC, and 14 years into its existence, it’s expanding to LA. Like the original location, the West Hollywood spot (in the old Baby Blues BBQ space) will serve expensive cocktails and share plates, and have a psychic stationed at the entrance to tell you if your trainer is actually into you or if he looks at all his clients that way.

We checked out Employees Only and put it on our Bar Hit List.

There aren’t many omusubi (rice balls filled with things like fish or meat) spots in LA, but one just arrived in the Arts District. If you work in DLTA, it could be a good option for a grab-and-go lunch.

This new izakaya in Downtown LA serves bento boxes for lunch and a larger Japanese pub-style menu at night with things like sashimi, some fancy tofu dishes, and a lot of yakitori options.

We checked out Hatch, read our first thoughts here.

You might have thought you’d seen all you could possibly have seen at bars on Cahuenga, but Tramp Stamp Granny’s is actually offering something new. As well as the usual Cahuenga bar things like cocktails and a rowdy crowd, it’s a piano bar, which means there’s a man at a piano encouraging you to sing along to ’90s pop song and Broadway hits. We’re already warming up.

We checked out Tramp Stamp Granny’s and put it on our Bar Hit List.

In a big dining room near the ocean in Redondo Beach, Gabi James is serving a mix of Spanish dishes like squid paella and fancy jamon alongside French dishes like steak au poivre. It looks like it could be just the right level of upscale for the South Bay - nice enough for a date, but also fine for a post-beach dinner.

We checked out Gabi James and put it on our Hit List.

Yardbird is a classic fried chicken spot in Miami that, in recent years, has started to expand to places around the world like Singapore. Now they’re in LA, with a big space in the Beverly Center and a menu with Miami Beach prices. We’re expecting a bit of scene, but still, it seems worth checking out.

We checked out Yardbird, read our first thoughts here.

Silver Lake isn’t exactly overrun with good places to watch a game, so we’re interested in Trophy Wife, which looks like it takes all things sports pretty seriously, with plenty of large TVs, craft beer, and wings on the menu.

We checked out Trophy Wife, read our first thoughts here.

Kasih is a modern Indonesian restaurant in Little Tokyo serving things like roast pork belly, satays, and rendang (slow-cooked spicy beef). It’s on the bottom floor of a fancy-looking apartment building, but with nothing on the menu over $15, seems like a place to keep in mind for an affordable dinner.

We checked out Kasih and put it on our Hit List.

Bluebird is a restaurant that brews beer in Sherman Oaks, and it looks like the inside of a monastery, complete with massive chandeliers and brick archways. Their menu is Belgian-ish (including moules frites), all the beers on tap are Belgian-inspired, and they also serve their own beer made on site.

We checked out Bluebird, read our first thoughts here.

This is a new, high-end seafood spot in Sherman Oaks serving a lot of lobster, fish, and pork. The big selection of fresh seafood - like a whole crispy striped bass - is what could make this worth a trip to the Valley.

Read Piencone’s name correctly and you’ll find out what they do here - (pizza) pies and (ice cream) cones. They have a big space in Eagle Rock, some topping combinations worth investigating (like salami with fermented honey), and interesting ice cream flavors like brown butter lavender and sesame caramel.

The second location of a Hawaiian-Cajun spot originally from Waikiki, Crackin Kitchen is a new spot in Pasadena with a giant seafood menu. You might also want to investigate the malasadas, Hawaiian/Portuguese-style donuts coated in sugar.

The dumpling restaurant you’ve at some point waited too long for has opened its first Westside location at Westfield Century City. It looks to be the exact same setup as their many other locations: spend a lot of time in line, order a lot of soup dumplings, and save room for the off-menu chocolate xiao long bao.

Croft Alley can feel like a calm oasis in the designer label chaos that is Melrose Place, and hopefully their second location inside The Standard can manage the same trick with the Sunset Strip. They’re open 24 hours a day, and are serving all the breakfast and lunch things from the original spot, plus more dinner-appropriate dishes like chicken schnitzel, glazed duck breast, and prime rib.

We checked out Croft Alley, read our first thoughts here.

The burger at the Larchmont was one of our favorites in LA, and we’ve been driving past the empty restaurant looking longingly inside for a little while now. So we’ll be interested to check out the new residents - Fin, the second location of a Japanese spot doing small plates and cocktails.

On a stretch of Robertson that doesn’t have a whole lot of places to eat there’s now all-day operation The Henry. It should come in handy for people who work nearby looking for a spot where they grab a coffee and breakfast before heading into the office or drinks and a snack at the end of the day.

We checked out The Henry, read our first thoughts here.

What used to be Soppresata in Silver Lake (and before that was Black Hogg), is now Black Hogg. Again. While they’re serving most of the sandwiches they had before, there are also new things like pork belly tacos, a headcheese and pate banh mi, and whatever popcorn bacon is.

Named for the jersey number that owner and former Italian soccer player Alessandro Del Piero wore, No. 10 is a fancy Italian restaurant on 3rd Street with a huge menu that actually looks pretty solid. Still awaiting word if David Beckham is the sommelier.

We checked out N. 10, read our first thoughts here.

The second location of the super popular, fantastic Tex-Mex spot in Los Feliz is now open in Highland Park. The menu is exactly the same as the original, but perhaps most importantly, the space is much bigger, with a side patio as well. Hopefully, that means much shorter waits in line for tacos.

The best taco truck in Los Angeles just opened up a brick-and-mortar in Pomona, meaning if you live in the Inland Empire and don’t make it to East LA very often, you’re in luck. Right now, the menu is exactly the same as the truck, but they plan to add new items.

There’s now a second location of this popular craft brewery in Chinatown. The space is double the size of their first spot inside The Hermosillo in Highland Park, with a whole outside area as well. Sounds like a perfect excuse to drink some of the best craft beer in LA.

It’s been slow-going for new restaurants openings on the Westside this year, but we finally got one in Tumbi, and this upscale Indian restaurant in Santa Monica looks worth trying. The menu is stacked with familiar dishes like butter chicken and palak paneer, but there are also more unique-looking things like Pakistani fish and rice fries and a Patagonian sea bass marsala.

We checked out Tumbi and put it on our Hit List.

This is the second location of the Grand Central Market food stall that’s one of our favorite Thai spots in the city. Unlike the original, this place is a full sit-down restaurant with an expanded menu. And that includes their beef panang, which is still one of our favorite curries in the city.

We checked out Sticky Rice, read our first thoughts here.