Where To Take New Yorkers Who "Hate LA" Even Though They've Never Been

It doesn’t take much to irritate a New Yorker, but explaining that LA is a better Jewish deli town than NYC will really set them off. For one, Langer’s pastrami is better than Katz’s. Second, there's the best all-around delicatessen in the city: Brent’s. This 1960s institution is suburban San Fernando Valley old guard, populated by crowds of families, hungover college kids, weekly book clubs, and regulars who haven’t opened the menu in decades. Speaking of the menu, it’s encyclopedic. Set your guests up with the latke and blintz sampler, stuffed cabbage, and the elite black pastrami reuben (swap out the steak fries for curly).

This Santa Monica spot is the perfect place to point out that outdoor restaurants in LA aren’t boarded up boxes for half the year. Even in the dead of winter, Le Great Outdoor’s patio fills with families passing around platters of goat cheese tartines and blistered vegetables while big cuts of meat are cooked in fire right in front of them at the outdoor kitchen. When you book a table at LGO, you’re basically signing up for a backyard barbecue—only this one doesn’t require renting a car and driving to somebody’s cousin's house in Jersey. 

There are enough great taquerias in LA to fill a week-long taco crawl. But you’ve got a full itinerary, so head to Los Cinco Puntos first, a Boyle Heights landmark that checks two boxes at once: old-school LA charm and outstanding tacos. The correct order at this historic market includes carnitas and crispy chicharron, both wrapped in thick corn tortillas. Hit the loaded salsa bar, too. The pickled nopales are a counterpunch to the fatty meats, and the chunky guacamole is a shade of vibrant green that New Yorkers have only seen at the Gowanus Canal.

Talk to anyone with a Bushwick address for five minutes and you’d think the concept of a cool wine bar with food was invented there. Don’t even fight them, LA has better versions anyway, like Sam’s Place. With wood-panel walls and flannel curtains, the low-lit room looks like a 1970s basement where hot dads practice percussion. The wine list is small and natural. $32 gets you a bavette steak. It's the kind of come-as-you-are hangout that pisses Brooklynites off because we aren’t supposed to have them. Wait until they see the rest of Highland Park.

Have you heard that New York has better Chinese food than LA? It’s a myth—started by New Yorkers. Proclaim that to your visitors and then take them to Bistro Na’s. This lavish SGV restaurant looks plucked from a Qing Dynasty drama with a grand red dining room, expert service, and ornate dishes. Even the simplest dishes are mini spectacles, but for one-off visitors, hit them with the showstoppers: stir-fried steak with green peppercorns, braised cod smothered in chili oil, and a glistening peking duck that requires 48 hours advance notice to order. 

Your East Coast friend will likely be familiar with eating seafood on a kitschy wharf. Show them our version. Quality Seafood is a two-story outdoor restaurant in Redondo Beach that serves the kind of “you buy, we fry” meal we fully endorse. Stroll up to the counter, point at the fish you want, tell the monger fried and grilled, then pick out a table overlooking the marina. You’ll soon be elbows deep in trays of grilled yellowtail, fried calamari, and buttery shell-on shrimp.

New Yorkers love posting about weekends upstate and what a luxury it is to have mountains so close to the city. That’s adorable. Our mountains shape our daily commutes. Show off our topographical superiority at The Old Place. Eating at this century-old general store-turned-saloon and steakhouse feels like you drove to Western Montana, not 20 minutes off the 101. Come for the rickety booths, wooden bar with regulars in cowboy hats, and old-timey comfort food: chicken pot pie, fruit cobblers, and oak-grilled ribeyes the size of your head.

Thanks to Bravo, your New York friends think you party at Weho clubstaurants with bottle service and sparklers. Show them the other side of nightlife in LA’s after-hours epicenter: Koreatown. Start at this semi-subterranean pub where groups of friends go to tear into seafood pancakes and split beer towers to a K-pop soundtrack, and the neon-lit outdoor courtyard pops off like a back alley in Seoul most nights. DGM is also centrally located to kick off a neighborhood bar crawl, so bring your friends here for food and drinks before heading into the real mess.

Your New York friend knows about our incredible tacos, sushi, and produce. Are they aware we also have the best Thai food? If not, take them to Luv2Eat and drive home the unseriousness of their favorite pad thai spot in Murray Hill. You could close your eyes, spin the menu, and land on something delicious at this Hollywood strip mall spot just west of Thai Town, but Luv2Eat’s greatness lies in their “chef’s special” section: pungent crab curry, savory jade noodles, and moo ping, marinated pork skewers that could be rebranded as pig candy on a stick.

A night at The Baked Potato is about live jazz, but also about showing TikTok-addicted New Yorkers a side of LA that doesn’t revolve around influencers. At this grungy one-room music club in Studio City, videos and photos aren’t allowed. Burly regulars squeeze in next to rocker chicks with mohawks and Gen X dates who heard Andy Garcia was performing. The martinis are cups of gin. As to why it’s called The Baked Potato? It’s the only dish they serve—24 varieties from teriyaki to maple ham. You’ll need one to soak up the martini.  

Finding great sushi in New York is easy, they say. But finding great (non-omakase) sushi that doesn't max out credit cards and make people move back to Long Island isn't. That’s why we love Sushi Fumi, a casual spot on La Cienega that exemplifies LA's knack for having delicious fish at every price level. Here you can have a first-rate sushi experience under $100. Pick whatever sounds good on the daily specials board (the amberjack and king salmon are musts), and for anybody still coming around to the concept of nigiri, the Moon Roll is very good, too.

There’s a decent chance your guest walked off the plane asking, “Can we go to that Gjusta place before I leave?” Cross it off your list early and head straight there from LAX. This Venice cafe and bakery exemplifies so much of what New Yorkers secretly covet about LA: first-rate produce, a sunny patio of art directors draped in linen, and potentially seeing Margot Robbie with a loaf of spelt sourdough. The deli-case salads, sandwiches, and even the rotisserie chicken are excellent, and since you’re here, throw in a bag of pastries for the flight home, too.