If excellent eating is what you’re after, Los Angeles delivers in spades. The Southern California metropolis lays claim to some of the world’s best year-round farmers markets, and its enclaves of immigrant cuisines—Koreatown, Thai Town, and the San Gabriel Valley for Chinese—are unmatched. But here’s the thing: LA functions more like a patchwork of suburbs, each with its own culture and culinary draws. Stay in Santa Monica and you won’t be dining in the San Fernando Valley, or at least you shouldn’t be. The smarter move is to pick a pocket and dig deep, and in doing so, avoid losing hours of your trip to traffic.
Getting around Los Angeles takes four wheels, even if you stick to a smaller geographic area. Public transit is limited and slow, so plan on renting a car or relying on Uber and Waymo (you’ll see the self-driving cars everywhere). With that in mind, here’s where to stay in Los Angeles if eating is your priority, and where to eat once you’re settled in.
Silver Lake and Los Feliz (and Eastside, et al.)
Silver Lake is a magnet for young creatives and, fittingly, home to one of LA’s most eclectic food scenes. It’s here you’ll find the cult-favorite Courage Bagels—open-faced and topped with California-native ingredients—and Bridgetown Roti, where chef Rashida Holmes serves curry shrimp roti and honey jerk wings. Head slightly east on Sunset for Azizam, the Persian home-cooking phenom and 2024 Bon Appétit Best New Restaurant, and Café Tropical, a neighborhood landmark refreshed last year by new ownership, with dialed-in recipes for pastelitos and Cubanos.
Nearby Melrose Hill has emerged as a dining pocket of its own, with Café Telegrama (don’t miss the Chinese chicken salad), its elegant Italian sibling Ètra, and LA Grocery & Café, a hip grocery with farmers’ market produce and standout prepared foods.
One neighborhood over in East Hollywood, Middle Eastern-inspired Saffy’s is known for dinner but also offers a stellar Arabic breakfast, while across the street is Found Oyster, a cherished New England-style raw bar. In nearby Thai Town, don’t miss sai ua and khao soi at Amphai Northern Thai Food, followed by mango sticky rice at Bhan Kanom Thai.
And then there’s Los Feliz, five minutes northeast, home of Kismet, a bona fide classic for Mediterranean-meets-California cooking, alongside its fast-casual sibling Kismet Rotisserie and the LA outpost of matcha specialist Kettl. A few blocks away on Hillhurst, Maru serves some of the city’s best cappuccinos, while All Time draws crowds for breakfast burritos, salmon bowls, and the occasional celebrity sighting.
Hotel Covell
Courtesy of Hotel Covell
Staying at Hotel Covell is the closest you’ll get to feeling like you’re living in LA when you’re actually just visiting. Perched above the Los Feliz location of local coffee chain Go Get Em Tiger, the boutique property has just nine, luxuriously appointed apartment-style suites. The linens are Parachute, the bath products are Le Labo, and the kitchens come with full-size Smeg refrigerators. Each room has its own personality—one evokes a 1950s New York flat, and another a Parisian atelier. Celebratory bottles of wine can be arranged by the hotel’s downstairs sister bar, Bar Covell, and bespoke bouquets are requestable via Gilly Flowers, Silver Lake’s chicest florist.
