Chef Ori Menashe and restaurateur Bill Chait have teamed up to open Bestia, a seasonal Italian restaurant with excellent house-cured salumi and a fancy wood-fired oven which cooks pizzas and more. The space is hip enough without trying to hard in a sort of industrial unfinished way, and as of late has been one of the hottest tickets in town. Reservations are recommended, but there's room for walk-ins at the bar.

Dinner at the French mashup, from all-star team Ludo Lefebvre, Jon Shook, and Vinny Dotolo, is a tough ticket to score (just 26 seats), and meals must be purchased in advance off Trois Mec's website. Including tip but excluding alcohol, the nightly prix fixe amounts to nearly $100 a head.

Connie & Ted's is celebrated Providence chef Michael Cimarusti's contemporary take on a classic seafood "shack." He's serving up tried and true sea-centric constructions made with top quality ingredients and only the best sea animals, plus a few extras like a burger topped with Hook's four-year-aged cheddar.

In the former home to Playa (RIP) comes Petty Cash Taqueria, a colorful and fun new eatery conducive to social dining (many communal picnic-style tables). Chef Walter Manzke collaborated with famed Baja chef Guillermo Campos Moreno of Tacos Kokopelli on Petty Cash's Mexican street food menu. There's deep fried cheesy churros, a bevy of tacos, and even raw pork ceviche.

A sleek new Studio City addition designed to resemble a sunflower, Girasol is a dedicated California eatery through and through. Top Chef alum CJ Jacobson is responsible for the restaurant's refined seasonal California menu, and there's beer and California wines to go alongside.

An unexpected smash hit in Koreatown, this seafood and raw bar does one of the best happy hours in town, with $1 oysters, but consider the other great dishes, from the uni pasta to the whole lobster for a seafood shack that doesn't disappoint.

Heralded for many months, this worldwide high-end Chinese restaurant will surely take a stab at Mr. Chow's business in the Golden Triangle. Superb drinks come via Armando Conway while the arresting interior feels just right in the 90210.

This New York transplant serves predictable but well executed Italian-Amnerican classics in a charming, perfectly sized dining room in a part of Hollywood that might best be described as in the "the middle of nowhere." It's exactly what ownership wanted in terms of location.

The name says it all. A restaurant themed after restrooms, with full-on toilet bowls as seats, and a Taiwanese cafe menu where food is served in mini toilets and urinals.

This newcomer in Venice pairs chef Antonia Lofaso's soulful, Italian cuisine with Steve Livigni and Pablo Moix's straightforward and well-crafted cocktails. The interior isn't just expansive, the semi-industrial space has a warmth that makes it a great place to linger late into the night.

Walter and Margarita Manzke's landmark restaurant in the historic Campanile building sure took a long time to open, but it was worth the wait. The bistro-inspired fare gets more refined by the day while everything from house-made bread and desserts to another level. This is the restaurant L.A. has been waiting for.

Maude is chef Curtis Stone's first restaurant, an intimate dining experience with just 25 seats in Beverly Hills. Here Stone is serving a $75 nine-course seasonal California prix fixe menu centered on one theme ingredient per month. Tip: The best seats in the house are the four rear chairs at a bar that overlooks the open kitchen.

The most recent meat-free effort from those behind Cafe Gratitude, Gracias Madre follows a slightly more formal model in which guests are urged to make reservations for vegan Mexican cuisine served alongside tequila and mezcal-based drinks by Jason Eisner formerly of Drago Centro. Since day one this place has been an early hit with the denizens of West Hollywood.