Santa Monica's Best Restaurants, From Coast to Downtown

Self-trained wunderkind Fardad Khayami opened Muse before turning 25, transforming a USC apartment pop-up with a 6,000-person waitlist into a polished 35-seat restaurant. His modern French menu changes seasonally, but the laminated brioche with Bordier butter and veal bonbons are signatures. Current dishes include scallop cappelletti, branzino with beurre blanc, and Provençal-style lamb, followed by desserts from his brother Nikdad, including vanilla St. Honoré and tiramisu.

At Michelin-starred Seline, chef Dave Beran turns each season into a 14- to 17-course narrative shaped by Southern California ingredients and his own experiences. The $295 menu moves among vegetables, seafood, and meat, with unexpected presentations that never eclipse the cooking. An open layout encourages interaction between the kitchen and dining room, while wine, nonalcoholic, and hybrid pairings are available to accompany the progression.

Chef Dave Beran’s Pasjoli balances French bistro cooking with playful, less traditional touches. Its $350 pressed-duck dinner, available only by advance reservation, transforms a whole duck into roasted breast, confit legs, salad, and a sauce finished tableside with cognac and red wine. The standard menu is easier to approach, with beef tartare, caviar-topped crêpes, agnolotti, steak frites, and burnt Basque cheesecake. Weekend lunch brings tartines, baked eggs, and burgers.

Under chef Casey Lane, Ghisallo has evolved beyond a neighborhood pizzeria without losing its casual appeal. Its wild-yeasted, Neapolitan-inspired pizzas range from margherita and pepperoni to cacio e pepe and Calabrian sausage with vodka sauce. The dinner menu adds arancini, meatballs, rigatoni, and wood-grilled shrimp or hanger steak. Dine on the leafy back patio, or order a few pies to take home.

Colapasta is a casual neighborhood trattoria where chef Stefano De Lorenzo serves high-quality handmade pastas recognized with a Michelin Bib Gourmand. There’s no fuss or frills, just a compact menu shaped by organic produce from the Santa Monica Farmers Market. Can’t-miss dishes include the fontina-filled agnolotti in truffle butter and casunziei, red beet ravioli with brown butter and poppy seeds.

Chef Shunji Nakao mans the counter at his intimate omakase restaurant in Ocean Park, bringing more than 40 years of experience to the meal. The ever-changing $295 tasting begins with seasonal hot and cold dishes and sashimi before culminating in a selection of precisely prepared nigiri. Nakao works directly in front of just six diners, making the experience unusually personal.

Crudo e Nudo is a love letter to California’s seasonal seafood bounty and biodynamic wine. Chef Brian Bornemann rewrites the chalkboard menu each day according to what arrives from Pacific fisheries stretching from Baja to Monterey. The exact crudos depend on the catch, but the tuna tartare toast with onion confit and shrimp stock remains a signature, while head-on prawns, dry-aged fish, and more unusual finds rotate through the menu.

Taking a Bay Cities sandwich to the beach is a Santa Monica rite of passage, but this longtime Italian deli also doubles as a specialty grocer stocked with imported goods. Its signature Godmother layers prosciutto, ham, capicola, mortadella, Genoa salami, and provolone on a crusty, freshly baked filone roll. The classic “works” preparation adds lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, Italian dressing, mayonnaise, and mustard.

Mélisse, led by chefs Josiah Citrin and Ken Takayama, is Santa Monica’s only two-Michelin-starred restaurant. The intimate, 14-seat dining room offers an 18-serving tasting menu for $399 per person. Expect luxurious ingredients such as caviar, truffles, and Miyazaki wagyu, along with meticulously prepared seafood and signatures like the aged duck rouennaise, whose sauce is made tableside using an antique duck press.

Chef Josiah Citrin’s one-Michelin-starred namesake restaurant offers a more approachable alternative to Mélisse. Though the two share a building, Citrin is less formal, with a lively bar and both à la carte and $166 prix fixe menus. Signatures such as the egg caviar appear alongside seasonal dishes including Santa Barbara spot prawns, lobster Bolognese, and sweet corn agnolotti.

Rustic Canyon has been a Santa Monica staple since 2006, but executive chef Elijah Deleon has given its market-driven cooking a fresh perspective, weaving Mexican influences into the ever-changing menu. California produce and locally sourced proteins remain central, while bar manager Justin Dicken applies the same resourcefulness to cocktails, finding new uses for kitchen trim in housemade infusions, liqueurs, syrups, and shrubs. Pro tip: Whatever variation of oysters is on the menu, order them.

Capo is old-school in the best way, serving chef-owner Bruce Marder’s modern Italian cooking in a candlelit dining room centered on a wood-burning fireplace. Pastas made in-house, seafood, and meats cooked over the fire anchor the menu. The cellar is just as formidable, holding more than 2,500 selections with particular depth across Italy, France, and California.

Chef-owner Sandra Cordero brings the culinary spirit of Galicia and Northern Spain to Santa Monica with Xuntos. The intimate dining room features a striking wall made from thousands of scallop shells, fitting for a menu rich in seasonal seafood. Classic tapas such as gambas al ajillo and Galician-style octopus appear alongside jamón ibérico, rotating pintxos, and larger plates such as a Berkshire pork chop glazed with sherry.

Shirubē traces its roots to the Uno family’s Tokyo izakayas, a tradition dating to 1978. At the Santa Monica restaurant, chef Kodai Uno serves seasonal sashimi, crispy corn ribs glazed with butter shoyu, house-cured mackerel, and mentaiko udon enriched with butter and kimchi. Pair the spread with Sapporo, hot sake, or something from the extensive shochu list.

Cobi Marsh’s maximalist dining room features antique details, floral accents, and a vintage green-and-pink palette, but chef Lance Mueller’s Southeast Asian cooking commands equal attention. Most dishes are meant to be shared, so start with the curry puffs and pork-and-shiitake dumplings before moving on to the beef rendang, butter chicken, or dry-aged branzino with yellow curry. Whatever you order, add plenty of roti for scooping up the sauces.