What makes a restaurant the highest rated in LA? You could dine at this family-run Thai spot in Sherman Oaks a hundred times and have a completely different—and incredible—experience each time. Come on Tuesdays for dry-aged fish tacos and collaborations with guest chefs, farmers, and foragers. Show up on just about any other night to drink wine that’s been sourced from a Slovenian commune and eat Southern Thai fried chicken you will be thinking about for the rest of your life.

Holbox is our second highest-rated restaurant in the city, and for good reason: this colorful stall at Mercado La Palma in South LA serves Mexican seafood that’s simply sublime, always fresh, and so innovative, it’ll make you question all other seafood in the world. Scallop aguachiles arrive in a tongue-searing green sauce that you can smell a mile away, thanks to the cilantro, jalapeno, and lime. Tacos are topped with tempura rockfish, diver scallops, and our favorite, jet-black pulpo.

Everything about Luv2Eat looks and feels like any other LA strip mall restaurant, but the ultra spicy regional specialties and the warm service make it an extreme challenge to drive by without popping in. You’ll find many of the highlights in the Chef’s Special section of the menu, a mixed bag of dishes that showcases the two chefs’ family recipes from Phuket. The Phuket-style crab curry, for instance, takes sweet, salty, and sour to euphoric levels.

The omakase at Go’s Mart is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a meal you’ll be dreaming about for months, whether you’re a sushi novice or seasoned pro. There’s no menu here, per se. For about $200, you’ll receive a whirlwind meal of over 15 courses, including nigiri, cold appetizers, and grilled seafood dishes. Ahi is seared, salted, and served in more ways than we thought possible; blue crab hand rolls are laced with truffle and taste completely decadent.

Plain and simple, this Thai Town spot serves the kind of lip-searing and soul-curing food that other Thai restaurants around town still try to emulate. With over 400 items, the menu is objectively overwhelming, so our tip is to steer clear of the dishes you can find at any other Thai restaurant, and go all-in on the ones that make Jitlada the gold standard for LA: the crispy catfish salad, full Dungeness crab with garlic, taepo curry, and the secret off-menu Jazz Burger.

When it comes to classic late-night restaurants, well, there’s none better than Sun Nong Dan. Although hours at the original Koreatown location have been reduced (closing time is now 1:30am), you’ll still find lines of people, all waiting to be seated in front of big, bubbling cauldrons of galbi-jjim. There are about a million versions of this braised short rib dish across town—and Sun Nong Dan’s is not only unique, but by far, LA’s best.

To get to the heart of LA’s pastrami culture, go to Langer’s and order the pièce de résistance— the #19. This massive pastrami sandwich comes stacked with swiss cheese and coleslaw, all smashed between two pieces of tangy rye bread slathered in Russian dressing. But even if you just came to this Jewish deli on the outskirts of Downtown for a cup of coffee (OK, and maybe some cheese blintzes), you’ll leave with the sense that everything will be alright.

You can come to this tiny convenience store in Northridge and find all the things you’d expect at a local corner store. But what makes Baja Subs different is the secret menu of exceptional Sri Lankan food. You’ll find dishes like biryani topped with caramelized onion relish, garlicky Sri Lankan noodles, and kottu roti, a popular Sri Lankan street food made with flaky roti sautéed with vegetables, eggs, and spices.

Despite its upscale energy and $400 omakase option, Morihiro is a sushi restaurant for everyone. Set menus vary between six-piece sets and extravagant, hours-long adventures at the bar. And no matter what you order, everything is made with the same care and attention to detail you’d expect from a pageant mom choosing veneers for her daughter. Silky tofu cubes are draped in a house-made soy sauce. And beneath every fish slice lies a scoop of wasabi, Morihiro’s freshly grated secret weapon.

Established in the early 1970s, Little Bangladesh takes up only four blocks, right in the middle of Koreatown. This tiny stretch is where you’ll find Biryani Kebab House: home to some of the best Pakistani and Bangladeshi food in Southern California. You’ll want the hyderbadi lamb biryani, an aromatic plate of basmati rice laced with spices that comes with lamb shank the size of a football. Curries, filled with cardamom, turmeric, and ginger arrive with pillow-like, house-baked naan.