The Best Restaurant Openings in Los Angeles – August 2026

After nearly 40 years on Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks institution Mistral has a new owner and a new chapter. Restaurateur Jonah Freedman, behind Freedman’s and Greekman’s, has taken over the French bistro with business partner and culinary director Josh Migdal, keeping much of its old-school spirit intact while sharpening up the food and room. The menu sticks to the classics, gussied up with a few fun flourishes. Take escargot in Pernod butter, goat cheese “cigars” with honey and vadouvan, or French onion soup with Comté grilled-cheese croutons. There’s also a whole section devoted to steak frites. Sommelier Julia Djaoui curates the wine list, while the bar turns out cold martinis and a yuzu-spiked Mistral 75. The red booths are new, but the original Guy Buffet paintings remain, as do charmingly retro house accounts. Night Owls who arrive between 9 and 9:30 p.m. on weeknights or 9:30 and 10 p.m. on weekends receive 25 percent off the bill, with no reservation required.

With Palisades Village coming back to life following the 2025 fires, one of its biggest new arrivals is Alphabet Bar & Grill, a collaboration between the h.wood Group and former Otium chef Timothy Hollingsworth. Named for the neighborhood’s Alphabet Streets, the restaurant marks a more grown-up, neighborhood-minded turn for the group behind Delilah and The Nice Guy. Hollingsworth builds his menu on the kind of American classics you find yourself craving once a week. Think rotisserie chicken with jus, baby back ribs, a Wagyu cheeseburger, or grilled cheese with tomato soup. There are martinis and Old Fashioneds at the bar, while desserts run nostalgic with strawberry shortcake, lemon olive oil cake, and a caramel sundae. The room follows suit, with green marble, brass accents, and olive-toned booths giving the whole thing the polish of a proper old-school grill.

One late-July opening worth catching up on is Walter Soto and Julia Silva’s beloved El Ruso, which has finally put down roots on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. The pair have spent a decade building a following for their Sonoran-style tacos, with Silva’s flour tortillas still made fresh to order and Soto handling the meat. Rib-eye, carne asada, and costilla are cooked over mesquite, while longtime staples including birria and chile colorado round out the menu. The move into a permanent kitchen also means a more expansive menu and, for the first time, a full liquor license. Micheladas, beer, and margaritas are now available alongside the tacos, making the new location feel less like a replacement for the truck than a permanent home for what Soto and Silva have already built.

Lucky’s has officially landed in Los Angeles proper with a new outpost on Mateo Street in the Arts District. The Montecito-born steakhouse has been around since 2000, later expanding to Malibu and New York, but its arrival downtown puts the restaurant in decidedly different territory. The menu, however, doesn’t stray far from what made Lucky’s popular in the first place. There are hefty cuts of filet mignon, New York strip, and porterhouse alongside lobster, shrimp cocktail, wedge salads, and sides of creamed spinach and onion rings. Daily specials lean even further into nostalgia, with chicken Parmesan on Tuesdays and prime rib on Saturdays. Drinks follow a similarly unfussy line, with the house dirty martini shaken tableside and a substantial wine list.

Just behind Debbie Lee’s Highland Park pocha Yi Cha, the chef has teamed up with Be Bright Coffee’s Frank and Michelle La for Mokja, a Korean café and market designed for casual drop-ins. The big draw is a DIY instant ramen bar, where noodles can be bolstered with everything from a jammy egg to pork belly. Lee’s menu includes a mayak egg salad sandwich on milk bread, Spam or tofu musubi, and a PBL & T layered with pork belly, lettuce, tomato muchim, and kimchi mayo. Pastry chef Dara Yu adds black sesame chocolate pie and yuja icebox pie to the mix. Drinks come courtesy of 2024 U.S. Barista Champion Frank La, who works Korean ingredients into coffee and matcha with combinations like sweet corn and espresso or banana and Korean matcha. Refrigerators filled with banchan and kimchi and shelves of Korean snacks make a strong argument for leaving with more than lunch.

Chef Nan Yimcharoen has traded Virgil Village for the South Bay, opening Kinkan Market in Hermosa Beach while a new iteration of Kinkan takes shape in West LA. The small takeaway operation puts bento at the forefront, with bara chirashi featuring a rotating selection of Japanese seafood and kani meshi centered on Hokkaido snow crab. Hokkaido uni and dashi-marinated ikura are available for those after an upgrade. Yimcharoen first made a name for herself selling elaborate bento during the pandemic before turning Kinkan into a full-fledged restaurant, so the format isn’t exactly new territory. It’s a fitting interim chapter while Yimcharoen works toward Kinkan’s next iteration, a 15-seat Thai-influenced kaiseki counter.

The Hollywood Roosevelt’s former Shirley Brasserie has taken on new life as Gable, a restaurant named for former hotel resident Clark Gable. Culinary director Chris Flint, whose résumé includes Maude and Eleven Madison Park, and chef de cuisine Will Kelly are behind a menu that takes plenty of liberties with what California cooking can mean. There’s a pizza topped with bulgogi, kimchi, and mozzarella, a pork chop glazed with anticucho, and a whole branzino served bossam-style with lettuce, herbs, and a pair of scissors for tackling it at the table. Elsewhere, smoked tomato agnolotti sits alongside a dry-aged cheeseburger and a seafood platter that moves from oysters with dashi mignonette to tuna crudo with guacachile. Cocktails are similarly inventive. Think a koji vodka and aquavit take on the dirty martini or a mezcal and Oaxacan rhum tipple with charred corn and chiles.