Best Restaurant in Los Angeles: Providence

Providence

5955 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038

(323) 460-4170

Michael Cimarusti's seafood palace on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood earlier this summer celebrated its seventh birthday, a suitably biblical number for a fish restaurant with an excellent pastry kitchen. In those seven years, Providence has neither plateaued nor reversed direction: It has gotten better, kind of a stunning achievement for a restaurant that was worth 2 Michelin stars back when they gave them out in this town. Cimarusti and his crew manage something rare: a combination of technical mastery and playfulness, and a willingness to change things up instead of resting on their considerable laurels. The menu transforms as frequently as the fish swim in and out of their seasonal waters, the staff forages for local greenery, and the plates emerge from the kitchen like small epiphanies. Maybe you can credit it all to the fact that the chef and the general manager like to go fishing out of San Pedro on their few days off. 5955 Melrose Ave., Hlywd. (323) 460-4170, providencela.com. —Amy Scattergood

Source: LA Weekly