Why not break out of your dining rut? It’s easy with a host of new restaurants, like DTLA’s Otium, where the food is as envelope-pushing as the art at the adjacent Broad Museum. Or The Rose, the reinvented Venice institution that’s serving comfort food hot from a wood-burning oven. Here, our list of the season’s best openings.
Where Everyone in L.A. Is Eating Right Now: December 2015
Small plates and big flavors are on the menu
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Published Dec 16, 2015
Otium
This soaring new space next to the Broad Museum is drawing crowds for its meals, which are both full of deliciously layered flavors, such as crushed nori sprinkled over fresh hamachi ($15), and artfully plated. We’re not surprised--chef Tim Hollingsworth worked at Napa’s fabled French Laundry for more than a decade.
222 S. Hope St.; 213-935-8500 or otiumla.com
Baroo
The trend of great restaurants in unglamorous strip malls continues at this spot, where the Korean-born chef is upping his native fare with tricks he learned at culinary school--and a lot of his house-fermented veggies. Feast on the kimchi fried rice bowl ($9), which includes a sous-vide poached egg, basmati rice, purple potato chips, roasted seaweed and pineapple-fermented kimchi.
5706 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; 323-819-4344 or baroola.strikingly.com
Trois Familia
This Silver Lake joint is only open daily from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but it’s worth getting your name on the wait list to snag a spot at one of the communal tables for French chef Ludo Lefebvre’s Franco-Mexican mash-ups. Musts include the French bean burrito with garlic brown butter ($12) and the beet tartare tostada with cornichon, lime and avocado milk ($12).
3510 Sunset Blvd.; 323-725-7800 or troisfamilia.com
Market Provisions
We’re digging the international flair of this small plates restaurant in the Fairfax District, where you’ll want to load your table with 16-month-aged prosciutto San Daniele ($10) and boquerones with fennel caponata and Espelette pepper ($6). Toast it all with one of dozens of wines by the glass.
8009 Beverly Blvd.; 323-653-8009 or marketprovisionsla.com
The Rose
This Venice dining institution--it was first opened in 1979--has been reinvented by arguably the West Side’s hippest chef, Jason Neroni (formerly of the Superba Snack Bar). Order his fried chicken, made with a red wine glaze, Parmesan and pickled Fresno chilis ($15).
220 Rose Ave., Venice; 310-399-0711 or rosecafevenice.com
