A Snob's Guide to Dining in Beverly Hills
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Of course I’ve eaten in Beverly Hills—just not because I wanted to. I wind up there because it’s where my doctors and agents are, or, most of all, it’s a compromise between the east and west sides of Los Angeles. But I’m never excited about it.
For most of its existence, Beverly Hills’ 5.71 square miles have been some of the coolest in America. But over the years, as Los Angeles has spread east, power players might still live in Beverly Hills, but their meetings have relocated to Craig’s or the San Vincente Bungalows, in West Hollywood, and their dinner reservations entailed journeys to Silver Lake, Los Feliz, or Downtown L.A. The idea of Beverly Hills as a dining destination felt increasingly like the daydream of a Midwesterner who had never been to California.
“Beverly Hills is arguably the most famous zip code on the planet, and it felt overlooked from a culinary perspective,” says Marc Rose, sitting in a corner booth at La Dolce Vita. Last year Rose and Med Abrous took over the Italian joint (once co-owned by Frank Sinatra) and made it cool again—mostly by keeping it the same. Good red sauce dishes; a dark, windowless clubbiness; not really scary branded baseball bats next to the bar (ironically known as just-in-case bats).
Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and Nobu Matsuhisa’s Matsuhisa are still here, and still great, but they have been joined by younger chefs. Evan Funke, who made his name near the beach in Venice, rolls his handmade pasta in a glassed-off lab with 20-foot ceilings at Funke, which is said to have a 1,500-person wait list. In 2022 the Hideaway opened, backed by actors Ryan Phillippe and Evan Ross. The Mexican steakhouse beneath Rodeo Drive has select tables with a “press for tequila” button. (On Friday and Saturday the bar stays open until 2 a.m., previously a time no one in Beverly Hills knew existed.)
Also underground is Sushi Note Omakase, a tiny restaurant serving a two-hour, 20-course menu featuring the best sushi outside Japan. Its co-owner, musician David Gibbs, who has restaurants in the Valley, was as surprised as anyone to be opening in Beverly Hills. But as rents went up all over the city, the neighborhood stopped looking so prohibitive. Still, he was nervous that foodies wouldn’t come. “I was wondering if they were going to want to eat the kind of sushi we serve—and they have,” he says. “It’s not as fuddy-duddy as it used to be.”
Another draw is that Beverly Hills, because it is its own city, has adopted business-friendly rules, reducing the cost and time it takes to open a restaurant. And, oh, the parking: It’s plentiful, and at night much of it is actually free. “Beverly Hills has a more small town feel,” says Jon Shook, who opened an outpost of the always packed Jon & Vinny’s on North Bedford Drive in 2022. Soon it will be joined by a new restaurant from Daniel Boulud and a second location of Marea, the New York Italian power spot.
One chef to take an early chance on Beverly Hills’ resurgence was Curtis Stone, who opened Maude, his prix-fixe fine dining spot, in 2014. “I wanted to be in the neighborhood but not on the street. I didn’t want to be in the line of restaurants,” he says, alluding to some touristy local mainstays. “When you’re going to do something high-end, whether it’s fashion or jewelry or dining, you have to go where there are high-end customers.” And, for the first time in many years, a sense of being cool.
This story appears in the March 2024 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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