By Tracy Tutor
Beverly Hills packs more celebrated kitchens into a few blocks than almost anywhere in the country outside Manhattan. Walk from Canon Drive to Beverly Drive and you'll pass a Michelin-starred pasta room, a steakhouse with a Richard Meier-designed dining room, and a deli that's been feeding movie stars since 1945 — often within the same three-block radius. The twelve restaurants below are the ones I keep coming back to, and the ones I send clients to when they ask where to eat in their new neighborhood.
Restaurant | Cuisine | Best For | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
California / Global | The classic Beverly Hills night out | $$$$ | |
Handmade Italian pasta | Theater and craft in one room | $$$$ | |
Steakhouse | Power dinners, private dining | $$$$ | |
Japanese-Peruvian | Where Nobu's menu began | $$$$ | |
Chinese | Tableside theater, celebrity spotting | $$$ | |
Steakhouse | Rooftop drinks, big-occasion dinners | $$$$ | |
Greek seafood | Social, energetic group dinners | $$$ | |
New American + wine | Wine lovers, easy elegance | $$$ | |
American | Business lunches since 1984 | $$$ | |
Italian trattoria | Lively lunch, patio dining | $$$ | |
Italian | Old Hollywood history | $$$ | |
Jewish deli | A true Beverly Hills institution | $$ |
Wolfgang Puck's flagship has been defining Beverly Hills dining since 1982, and it hasn't coasted on nostalgia to stay there. The seasonal California menu still folds in global influences — Austrian schnitzel next to Spanish octopus next to a raw bar that would hold its own anywhere in the city — with a precision that keeps it in the conversation for best restaurants in Beverly Hills more than four decades in. The à la carte menu keeps the experience accessible without dumbing down the kitchen's ambition, and the wine list and service program match the cooking beat for beat.
Order this: The Austrian crepes and the Maine lobster.
Evan Funke's glass-encased pasta workshop near Canon Drive earned its first Michelin star, and it remains the most ambitious expression of his city-spanning pasta empire. Watching the pasta team work through the glass is genuine theater, but the kitchen backs it up: the pesto trofie, carciofi alla giudea, and the seasonal dessert program from the pastry team close meals with real finesse. It's the consistency, not the spectacle, that keeps regulars treating it as a routine rather than a once-a-year splurge.
Order this: Any hand-formed pasta on the tasting menu — it changes, and that's the point.
Wolfgang Puck's Michelin-recognized steakhouse inside the Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, has held its place for years by doing what a great steakhouse is supposed to do, only better. The Wagyu preparations draw particular praise, the bone marrow flan has become a dish regulars order without opening the menu, and Richard Meier's sleek, skylit dining room gives the meal an architectural gravity most steakhouses don't bother with. If you want a lighter, earlier-evening version of the experience, ask about "The First CUT," a shorter seating the restaurant recently introduced.
Order this: Bone marrow flan, then the Japanese A5 Wagyu.
Before there was a global Nobu empire, there was Matsuhisa — Nobu Matsuhisa's original Los Angeles restaurant, open since 1987 on La Cienega Boulevard. This is where the black cod with miso and the yellowtail with jalapeño were invented, and eating them here, in the unassuming room where it all started, is a different experience than eating them anywhere else in the world. It's a favorite of longtime Angelenos precisely because it doesn't try to be flashy — the food does the talking.
Order this: Black cod with miso, new-style sashimi, rock shrimp tempura.
Mr Chow has been feeding Beverly Hills since 1974, and the room still runs on the same formula: hand-pulled Beijing noodles made tableside, the iconic green prawns (inspired by a Keith Haring painting that still hangs in the dining room), and a client list that's been photographed at these tables since the Nixon era. It's Chinese fine dining as genuine spectacle, and it has aged better than almost any other "scene" restaurant in the city.
Order this: Mr Chow noodles, green prawns, chicken satay.
Mastro's on Canon Drive is the steakhouse Beverly Hills goes to when the occasion calls for volume — towering seafood platters, a 48-ounce porterhouse, and a two-story dining room that spills onto a rooftop patio built for after-dinner drinks. The lobster mashed potatoes and Alaskan king crab black truffle gnocchi are the sides everyone fights over, but the restaurant's real signature is dessert.
Order this: The warm butter cake. Non-negotiable.
The West Coast outpost of the celebrated New York Greek seafood house occupies an 11,000-square-foot space built to feel like an open-air Mediterranean villa, complete with lemon trees and a fresh fish display where you choose your catch before it's grilled simply with olive oil and lemon. The branzino, grilled octopus, and whole fish preparations are consistently excellent, and the room's social energy makes it feel like a genuinely good night out rather than a transaction. The weekday three-course lunch is one of the better values in the neighborhood.
Order this: Whole grilled lavraki and the lobster pasta.
Part restaurant, part 2,500-bottle wine shop, Wally's on Canon Drive is where Beverly Hills goes when the wine list matters as much as the menu. Communal marble tables sit surrounded floor-to-ceiling by wine racks, including a case of first-growth Bordeaux most diners only read about. The New American menu is built to not compete with the bottle you just pulled off the shelf, and the $39 weekday prix fixe is a smart way to try the room before committing to a splurge night.
Order this: Whatever the sommelier is excited about that week, paired accordingly.
Open since 1984, The Grill on the Alley has never needed to chase trends because it decided long ago exactly what it was going to be. The kitchen executes its American menu — prime beef, prime seafood, classic sides — with the confidence of a room that knows its own identity, and the atmosphere is as carefully maintained as the cooking. For a business lunch that needs to feel substantial without being showy, this is still the address.
Order this: The Dover sole or the prime steak, off the daily specials board.
Il Pastaio has held one of the most recognizable corners in Beverly Hills since 1994, and its energy rarely lets up from lunch through dinner. The Drago family's handmade pastas are the draw, but the outdoor patio — full of regulars who've been ordering the same dish for a decade — is just as much the point. It's the rare Beverly Hills restaurant that feels equally right for a quick solo lunch or a long dinner with the whole family.
Order this: Spaghetti di farro with fresh ricotta and lemon zest, or the seafood risotto.
La Scala has been serving old Hollywood glamour since 1956, and its chopped salad has quietly become one of the most influential dishes in American restaurant history — invented, according to restaurant lore, because Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor wanted something they could eat gracefully in evening wear. It's still chopped tableside, still served in the same low-key room on Little Santa Monica Boulevard, and still worth the trip on the strength of that one dish alone.
Order this: The chopped salad. Everyone orders the chopped salad.
No list of Beverly Hills dining is honest without a deli on it, and Nate 'n Al — open since 1945 on Beverly Drive — is the one that matters. This is where Larry King held court for decades, where the Kardashian-Jenner family still shows up for breakfast, and where a corned beef sandwich carries as much neighborhood cachet as a tasting menu three blocks away. It's proof that Beverly Hills dining isn't only about white tablecloths.
Order this: Corned beef on rye, matzo ball soup, and a black-and-white cookie on the way out.
CUT and Spago are the right choices when the occasion calls for a room with real presence and a service program built to make a table feel looked after without being fussed over. Funke is the pick for a milestone that deserves genuine culinary intention rather than sheer scale.
The Grill on the Alley has been the definitive business lunch address in Beverly Hills since 1984. CUT is the power dinner equivalent, with private dining rooms and a service culture built around handling significant tables with discretion. Avra Beverly Hills and Mastro's Steakhouse are strong alternatives for business entertaining that benefits from a livelier, more social atmosphere.
Spago is the restaurant locals return to and out-of-town guests specifically seek out, which is a rare combination most celebrated restaurants can't sustain. Mr Chow and La Scala deliver the old-Hollywood glamour that visitors are hoping to find, and Nate 'n Al is the essential stop for anyone who wants to understand the neighborhood beyond its tasting menus.
Mr Chow, Mastro's Steakhouse, and Il Pastaio have the longest track records here, though a genuine Beverly Hills insider will tell you it can happen anywhere on this list — the whole neighborhood is built that way.
The best restaurants in Beverly Hills are part of what makes living in this neighborhood genuinely extraordinary. The cooking here competes with the finest dining anywhere in the world, and the rooms where these meals happen are as thoughtfully considered as the kitchens behind them.
Reach out to me at Tracy Tutor and let's talk about finding the right home in Beverly Hills.
