10 New Places to Eat in Los Angeles + San Francisco Pride Food Guide

California Eating is one step beyond!

Jun 06, 2025

Carole Dixon hand-models a sausage and peppers pizza at Beethoven Market in Palms. (All photos by TP except for SF Pride Guide shot)

After a long time away, I just spent two and a half weeks in LA, and I tried to make up for lost time and a half! I’ll be sharing extended stories from this trip (and some of the places I’m about to mention) for some time to come, and the visit will inform some of the larger projects I’ve been working on for more than a minute. For now, here’s a tl;dr with some new places I visited that I think are worth your time when in these respective areas:

Beethoven Market

This pizza and pasta party called Beethoven Market (12904 Palms Boulevard, Palms) opened in March and is very popular. I got to join my talented writer/editor friend Carole Dixon when she was invited for dinner last week. The focus is on a festive outdoor dining area with D-Train and other house and disco artists on the stereo, and we had fun talking and laughing with all of our neighbors. A good social spot, but you may be waiting a while, even with a reservation.

Cento Raw Bar

Cold uni pasta topped with crab and photobombed by a caviar slider at Cento Raw Bar in Los Angeles

Carole also shared her media dinner invite to the Dalí-esque Cento Raw Bar (4919 West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles), which just opened on May 12. There are no reservations, so people line up before it opens in order to get a shot at sitting at the bar, but we were lucky to have reserved bar seats. Otherwise, there are a few couches and some standing tables. The menu and decor are a welcome departure from New England style seafood spots in California (even though I love those!). It’s a dream sequence. I hope I can devour those giant lobster claws, cold uni pasta and the Jello-forward mosaic cheesecake again one day, if a kind seafood sponsor might come forward to take care of the bill?

Baekjeong

Prime boneless short ribs at Baekjeong in Los Angeles

The mighty Baekjeong Korean Barbecue has a new flagship in Koreatown (3429 W. 8th Street, Los Angeles) that just opened on May 7. My friend Richard Henderson and I are obsessed; the new space is beautiful, service is super attentive, the food is still straight fire and improved ventilation means you don’t leave smelling like smoky meat.

Nikó Sando

Nikó Sando is currently soft open next door to MALOU Coffee (912 S. Barrington Avenue in Brentwood). MALOU’s date cardamom latte made a really good companion to the delicious egg salad sando. The menu is limited at the moment, with more hot and cold options coming. There were a few fried dessert sandwiches, which would normally tempt me, but I kept my order pretty calm when I tried it last week.

Palms ‘n Patties

Grilled smashburger at Palms ‘n Patties in Santa Monica

My friend Mouse took me to Palms ‘n Patties (3032 Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica) to see what it would be like to eat burgers in her old cubicle area (the space was once a bank). The name makes it sound like it’s in Palms, but it’s actually in Santa Monica. It is currently soft open and seems to be fiddling with portion size and prices. This grass-fed smashburger was $7.79 a couple weeks ago, but may be bigger and a little more expensive now. If they can keep it around $10, I think it’s worth trying. And there’s the awesome Paderia Bakeshop around the corner in the building; go there for fun drinks, Portuguese egg tarts and fat cookies.

Orla

The Lemon at Orla in Santa Monica

Michael Mina opened Orla in the Regent Hotel (1700 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica) last October. I’m often invited to check out Mina’s Bay Area restaurants, but I did this one on my own dime, opting for the $39 Power Lunch Prix Fixe, because I knew it would be classy. The outdoor dining area gave me Hawaii vibes (and a vibe shift for myself and my friend, lol), which isn’t easy to do in Santa Monica, and the add-ons like the $7 pasta course and the $8 dessert supplements (making it a $54 power lunch in reality) are hard to resist.

Tempura Tendon Carlos Jr.

Premium tempura bowl at Tempura Tendon Carlos Jr. in Pasadena

I’d been wanting to try the Peruvian chef-founded Tempura Tendon Carlos Jr. in Torrance for years, and luckily a more convenient to my travels location opened last July (694 E. Colorado, Pasadena), making it the oldest entry on this list. While we had to wait about an hour on a recent Saturday afternoon because this is a slow food situation, I’m really glad we didn’t give up. I didn’t know until sitting down that there are a lot of fun sushi and sashimi dishes on the menu as well as the big tempura rice bowls (though I’d skip the krab California roll).

Marathon Burger

The vegan burger at Marathon Burger in Hollywood and Venice Beach

A second location of Blacc Sam’s Marathon Burger grand opened in Venice Beach on May 31 (1827 Ocean Front Walk, Venice Beach). Read last week’s CALIFORNIA EATING newsletter to learn about my connection to the late Nipsey Hussle and to see what I think of the menu (spoiler: I love both the regular and vegan burgers!). I talk about what to order, and what I think you might want to skip.

Evil Cooks

Rock lobster and McSatan tacos at Evil Cooks in El Sereno

And ICMYI a few weeks ago, I wrote about how much I loved visiting Evil Cooks (3333 N. Eastern Avenue, El Sereno) for dinner and how much they could use some love after people keep stealing their stuff! Opened in November after years of vending at Smorgasburg, the restaurant has huge vegetarian and carnivorous menus, aptly called Heaven and Hell, and the dishes have a lot of imagination, love and technique happening.

TuCha

Dubai Matcha Dream Cake at TuCha in Los Angeles

When TuCha (W. 7th Street, Los Angeles) opened in March in partnership with Australian celebrity pastry chef Catherine Zhang, I immediately started seeing her plated fruit-like desserts and other creations on Instagram and made a note to check it out. I loved the lemon, peach and Dubai Matcha “Dream Cake” as well as a camellia milk tea with jasmine tea jelly that they call silk.

The hard to park nature of the area makes me worry a bit, but Southwestern Law School is across the street and maybe the students will support it as much as they seemed to on my visit last week?

Good Taste: SF Pride Food Guide

Rainbow scarpinocc by Flour + Water in San Francisco. (Photo by Mac Malone)

This week’s GOOD TASTE column at 48 Hills has to be the best SF Pride food guide I’ve done in all the years I’ve been covering food — most of my recommendations have charitable components and some also have interesting history lessons behind them.

Until next time, find more thought for food in the California Eating blog!