A constant need for resilience has defined Los Angeles this year as restaurants have transformed into community spaces, donation centers, or just a place to escape for a moment. The year opened with both ends of the city ablaze: more than 100,000 people have been displaced by the Eaton and Pacific Palisades fires. Just months later, in early summer, mass ICE raids tore through the fabric of the Southland, targeting the immigrant communities who make up Los Angeles. But amid the devastation and the ongoing recovery process, the city and its close-knit restaurant community rallied to provide both comfort and support. More than ever, dining out has become about connection — to the chef, to each other, and to Los Angeles.
This year’s winners are a piece of the kaleidoscopic array of restaurants that make up Los Angeles’s distinctive dining scene — born from the diversity that makes the city special. Among our 2025 winners, find a contemporary Korean tasting menu that channels nostalgia in each course, a Mexico City-inspired molino, a modern Highland Park panadería, a rising live-fire restaurant in Altadena, and a seaside bistro that flips fine dining on its head to harmonious results. Here are the 2025 Eater Award winners.
111 S. San Pedro Street, Los Angeles
Chef Ki Kim’s journey from toiling cook to Michelin glory was marked by long hours; mental and physical burnout; and eventual restoration, culminating, for him, in a single moment: opening a restaurant that reflected himself and his worldview. His tasting counter Ki, located in the Kaneyoshi-plex underneath a Little Tokyo office building, serves over a dozen courses that explore Kim’s upbringing in Colorado and South Korea, as well as his experiences at fine dining restaurants in New York and beyond. Fashioned like a Korean kaiseki, three cooks — including Kim — and a server welcome diners to a broad stone counter lit like an Arts District photo studio.
Between pours of bubbly or sake to a laid-back hip-hop soundtrack, the cooks quietly plate thrilling bites of kimchi-seasoned cod milt built like frosting over crisp cylinders of dried Korean seaweed or grilled lobster slices swimming in doenjang butter, then dusted with raspberry powder. In the summer, they adorned a crown of ripe tomato slices around a green quenelle of perilla sorbet; as fall arrived, fragrant songyi (wood pine or matsutake) mushrooms tinted a Dungeness crab noodle soup. Korean flavors act as an undercurrent, like a slap of a bass or a beat of a drum track, but together, dishes harmonize. Kim laid out the framework for his ideal restaurant: sustainable for himself and his colleagues, expressive and personal, aspirational but not shouty. Now that Kim has accomplished so much, the real work of telling his story night after night becomes the ultimate joy for himself and those lucky enough to sit in front of him. — Matthew Kang, correspondent, Eater
Ki Kim at Restaurant Ki. Stan Lee/Eater
Pine mushroom noodle at Restaurant Ki. Stan Lee/Eater
Gimbap. Stan Lee/Eater
Porcini ice cream sandwich. Stan Lee/Eater
Vin Folk: Best Place to Be a Regular
1501 Hermosa Avenue, Hermosa Beach
Vin Folk is a rare find for Los Angeles, let alone a restaurant blocks away from the Pacific Ocean. Chefs Kevin de los Santos and Katya Shastova challenge the five-star dining standard at their intimate Hermosa Beach bistro to stunning effect. Regulars book tables to pore over buttery puff pastry filled with mussels, escabeche, and smoked clam or the saucy Jidori chicken cassoulet. Crudo, a ubiquitous dish throughout Los Angeles, hits differently at Vin Folk, where the rendition feels representative of the chefs’ Southern Russian and Philippine homelands. Slices of bluefin tuna are combined with fried shallot oil, Ukrainian eggplant caviar, and capers.
After working side by side at Somni, the couple seemed determined to rewrite fine-dining experiences at their South Bay restaurant. Every element reads as intentional, including the dining room, which feels like having a meal in someone’s home. There’s experimental recipe development, and an unusual, utilitarian approach to service that might have a sous chef appearing to drop a dish at the table. A stellar wine list by de Los Santos’s sister, Christina Montoya, complements the food. Vin Folk isn’t a standard restaurant by any means. It is the outcome of the chefs’ cultural backgrounds, their vast experience in Los Angeles kitchens, and their dedication to shaping a green space by choosing sustainable wineries and shopping at the Torrance farmers market over the favored one in Santa Monica. The whole experience seems best illustrated in the arresting spin on the classic fish en papillote. Fold back the parchment paper for an impressionist painting-like reveal of the fresh catch of the day layered with seasonal ingredients like summer corn, saffron, kohlrabi, leeks, squash, and edible flowers. — Mona Holmes, editor, Eater Southwest
En papillote with a rotating local catch, summer corn, kohlrabi, cipollinis, calabaza, and saffron. Stan Lee/Eater LA
Head cheese toast. Stan Lee
Mussels tart. Stan Lee
Chile-tinged rice with crab. Stan Lee/Eater LA
Komal: Best Community Restaurant
3655 S. Grand Avenue, C2, Los Angeles
After a year and a half of nixtamalizing corn and making masa in a tight backroom at Michelin-starred Holbox, chef Fátima Juárez and her partner in life and business, Conrado Rivera, moved across South Los Angeles’s bustling Mercado La Paloma to open Komal Molino. At the pocket-sized, tiled stall, Juarez draws on memories from her upbringing in Mexico City and Oaxaca, as well as traditional pre-Hispanic cooking, to serve a menu centered on Indigenous corn sourced directly from farmers in Mexico and then nixtamalized on-site.
An array of antojitos opens the tight menu: golf ball-sized fried plantain molotes filled with cheese nestle in a pool of mole, while oval-shaped tlacoyos, made with a thick pocket of masa, get filled with ayocote beans and topped with cactus, queso fresco, and salsa verde. The Taco Sonia — a deep purple-tinged tortilla filled with seared beef, homemade pork chorizo, and mashed potatoes or cactus — is a nod to Juárez’s favorite taquero from her childhood. Quesadillas come blanketed in a thick layer of Oaxacan cheese and a choice of fillings, including flor de calabaza, oyster mushrooms, mashed potatoes, or pork longganisa. For dessert, a tender slice of pan de calabaza gets topped with a generous dollop of sour cream. In the bustling market hall, alongside stalls whose roots stretch from the Yucatán to Oaxaca, Juarez’s cooking is imbued with the memories and meals that have shaped her. And now, as the corn hits the alkaline solution to nixtamalize, or hands press down on a tortillera, she shares those stories with Los Angeles, which is ready to listen. — Rebecca Roland, deputy editor, Eater Southwest
Spread of dishes including tlacoyos and molotes. Thalía Gochez/Eater
Chef Fátima Juárez and Conrado Rivera. Thalía Gochez/Eater
875 E. Mariposa Street, Altadena
Betsy’s quiet resilience has made it one of the best restaurants in America this year. Owner Tyler Wells, who lost his home when the Eaton Fire consumed more than 9,400 structures in Altadena in January, and lead chef Paul Downer have made the ultimate community dinner hangout rise from the embers of Eaton’s destruction (although Betsy, formerly named Bernee, remained unharmed, it is framed by the vacant, corrugated expanse that used to be Altadena Hardware and a stretch of businesses on Lake Avenue consumed by the flames). The pair use live-fire to share their perspective on food — not to appeal to pathos but to make a point that Altadena restaurants can be irreverent even as they recover.
Find a chicory Caesar bedded with glimmering white anchovy slivers and a small snowfall of Parmesan; the “cheese we are liking” of the day with crackly, sea-salt-pocked focaccia; pillowy ricotta gnocchi doused with lemon butter and freckled with black pepper; and a sprouting cauliflower with charred onion vinaigrette. Table centerpieces such as the heritage pork chop and tomahawk rib-eye take to the flames well; a scorched Basque cheesecake wildly imparts the flavors of fire and caramelization often missing from other renditions in the city. The room maintains its enveloping warmth from attentive service and the center hearth from which all dishes fly: The move is to go with a big enough group to secure the banquette that seats five or six. From that vantage point, you can see the dining scene in Altadena come to life before your eyes every night. — Nicole Fellah, dining editorial manager, Eater Southwest
Live-fire hearth. Tom McGovern/Eater
Caesar salad. Tom McGovern
Spread of dishes at Betsy. Tom McGovern/Eater
Chef Paul Downer. Tom McGovern
5601 N. Figueroa Street, Suite 120, Los Angeles
Celebrating restaurants and bakeries in Los Angeles comes easily when the place truly embodies what it means to be an Angeleno. Pastry chef Ellen Ramos achieves this at Santa Canela, the Highland Park bakery and coffee shop where she is owner and executive chef. Here, find freshly fried doughnuts, cleverly called Long Juans, a nod to Los Angeles’s many mom-and-pop doughnut shops. Ramos draws from her Mexican and Salvadoran background to make them entirely her own with renditions like strawberry with morita chile jam and creamy champurrado glazed. There are sugar-crusted conchas in flavors like orange blossom and burnt vanilla, a refreshing twist on the many panaderías throughout Los Angeles. The most iconic menu item is the piped and fried-to-order “LA” churro, which arrives blistering hot and crusted in spiced cinnamon sugar; it is arguably the most distinct pastry in Los Angeles right now with a nostalgic flavor that matches its playful aesthetic.
Everything pairs well with Santa Canela’s coffee menu, which also leans into Mexican identity with sweet cafe de olla, horchata con espresso, and an aromatic burnt cinnamon latte. The pastries shift seasonally; Ramos is constantly introducing new creations influenced by her El Sereno upbringing. Although the sleek and cool interior of Santa Canela would feel right at home in a trendy Mexico City colonia, Los Angeles is lucky to have it here. — Kat Thompson, audience editor, Eater Southwest
Focaccia sandwich. Santa Canela
An assortment of pastries at Santa Canela in Highland Park. Santa Canela
Ellen Ramos dusting a cardamom bun. Santa Canela
Ellen Ramos, a veteran of Loreto and LA Cha Cha Chá, is making her mark on Highland Park’s pastry scene with her new bakery Santa Canela. The bakery, which is right next door to vinyl bar Gold Line, serves a lineup of Mexico City and LA-inspired treats like concha croissants, pepita-infused financier cakes, and champurrado-flavored maple doughnuts. Odette Olavarri, the baker behind Mexico City’s Odette, also consulted on the menu, bringing her own twists on classic pastries like kouign-amann with cajeta. For those looking for something savory, Santa Canela also serves a potato soyrizo croissant and a cured beef and kale chimichurri focaccia sandwich topped with fried chile güero. The mid-century leaning interior was designed by Studio Lena’s Lena Kohl and features striking marble countertops and rich wood cabinets. Make sure to try the “LA” shaped churro.