Due Fiori in Long Beach. | Brian Addison Due Fiori debuts March 26 in the former Restauration space The team behind award-winning bar Baby Gee is opening a new restaurant on a much-loved stretch of Long Beach. The group’s collective experience includes management at Bestia and Broad Street Oyster Company, as well as opening the Los Angeles outpost of the famed New York hotel bar the NoMad. Owners Daniel Flores, Gianna Johns, and chef Waldo Stout are set to open the new neighborhood restaurant, Due Fiori, on March 26. Due Fiori will take over the former home of Restauration on Fourth Street’s p ..read more

Dining room at Laurel Grill. Swanky banquettes, modern art, sleek wood paneling, and well-done basics at Laurel Grill in Culver City Dean McKillen, the restaurateur behind celebrity favorite restaurants Laurel Hardware and Ysabel, is trying something new with his latest restaurant, Laurel Grill — a low-key neighborhood spot that emanates a very particular kind of early-aughts normcore. Set on the top floor of the Culver Steps, an upscale shopping center that also houses an Erewhon and CorePower yoga studio, the restaurant looks like it would be at home in the lobby of a Ritz-Carlton or upscale ..read more

Vay Su and Shawn Lickliter. Plus, a Bib Gourmand from Seoul comes to LA for a pop-up, and more A pair of Manzke group alums are opening a new neighborhood cocktail bar in Los Feliz with the team behind Los Angeles hotspots Donna’s, Lowboy, Bar Flores, and Wolf & Crane. Located in the former Nossa space, the bar will come from Michael Francesconi and Matthew Glaser of Park Hospitality, along with Shawn Lickliter, the former director of bar operations at the Manzke group, and Republique’s former lead bartender, Vay Su. Lickliter and Su have previously partnered on their pop-up, Double Dragon ..read more

Starbucks logo. | Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images The coffee chain will appeal the verdict, calling the amount “excessive” On March 14, a jury awarded $50 million in damages to a Los Angeles delivery driver who was badly burned after hot tea spilled onto his lap in February 2020, reports the Los Angeles Times. The incident occurred at the West Adams Starbucks location at the corner of Western Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard. The Los Angeles Times reviewed Los Angeles County Superior Court records detailing that a Starbucks employee handed two hot teas to a delivery driver named Michael Garci ..read more

Toripaitan ramen. | San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Mensho Tokyo will bring its signature toripaitan to Los Angeles for the first time One of Japan’s most popular ramen bars, Mensho Tokyo, is expanding to Los Angeles with a location in Culver City. Founded in 2005 by ramen master Tomoharu Shono, Mensho Tokyo has grown to over 20 locations across Japan, Thailand, and, China over the last two decades. The ramen bar’s first U.S. outpost opened in San Francisco in 2016, and had two-hour-plus lines on opening weekend; the location has since been included in the California Michelin Guide. T ..read more

Wood-fired pizzas at Pizza City Festival | Bailey Holiver/L.A. LIVE/Bernstein Associates, Inc. Plus, a four-star review of Vin Folk in Hermosa Beach, a big new expansion of Toca Madera, and more The annual Pizza City Fest will host its third consecutive event in Downtown Los Angeles on April 26 and 27 at L.A. Live’s Event Deck with 40 pizzaiolos and restaurants from across the country cooking various styles of pizza. Hosted by food reporter Steve Dolinsky, the festival has drawn thousands of pizza fans looking for New York, Detroit, deep dish, Sicilian, Neapolitan, Roman, and even Armenian lah ..read more

Butter chicken, dal mahkaani, and roti with lime and onions at Punjabi Dhaba. Punjabi Dhaba, featured in the New York Times and PBS Food, has opened a full-time restaurant in a medical office plaza in the Central Valley city There’s a new chapter for Bakersfield’s acclaimed Indian eatery Punjabi Dhaba, which opened a new brick-and-mortar restaurant in late January 2025. The former food truck/roadside stand serves northern Indian food, such as vegetable curries, stuffed flatbreads, and street food snack items intended as quick comfort for truck drivers, road trippers, and Bakersfield locals. Or ..read more

The Deep Dive by Hi.Dozo. | Matthew Kang Follow Eater editors as they share their favorite dishes they ate in LA The editors at Eater LA dine out several times a week, if not per day, which means we’re always encountering standout dishes that deserve time in the limelight. Here’s the very best of everything the team has eaten this week. Mona Holmes Beef stew at Lola’s Peruvian. Beef stew at Lola’s Peruvian Restaurant in Glendale You’re not imagining it, the temperature in Los Angeles is particularly cold this month. On Friday, Downtown LA recorded a high of 50 degrees. When a winter weather ad ..read more

Plastered shamrocks and 89 years of history at Tom Bergin’s Irish pub in Mid-Wilshire On a warm afternoon in Mid-Wilshire, the Kelly green door to Tom Bergin’s, one of the oldest bars in Los Angeles, is propped open, laughter and muddled conversation emanating from within. On a sun-drenched bench outside, Massi, a soft, blonde dachshund mix with soulful eyes, perks up as her owner, Janna Bryan, bookmarks her novel. Like many of Tom Bergin’s patrons, Bryan has been a regular for 30 years and can trace large swaths of her life back to this small bar. “What we wanted to focus on was, you can’t e ..read more

El Mar Azul truck in Highland Park. | Matthew Kang Highland Park’s El Mar Azul closed in February after more than four decades serving its signature tostadas In a February 24 Facebook post, the family behind El Mar Azul, a beloved mariscos truck that has served Highland Park since 1984, announced its closure, thanking their loyal customers who had been enjoying its seafood tostadas and cocktails for the last 41 years. Founder Felipe Cejudo moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s and married Rosie Cejudo in 1976. The couple, who are now in their 70s, opened El Mar Azul at a time when there weren’t ma ..read more