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Time Out
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The summer edition of Dine LA is finally back—and here are our favorite deals
Beginning tomorrow, Dine LA is back. Now in its 17th year, L.A.'s biggest restaurant week offers prix-fixe menus starting from $15 per person, though many places now opt to offer menus in the priciest, wide-ranging category: $65 and above. For the next two weeks, Angelenos can score a handful of small discounts at restaurants across the city, including a few of what I consider the city's best restaurants. For those who were going to splurge anyway, you can even score a two-Michelin-star meal at a $75 discount over at Mélisse in Santa Monica. For all of those hunting for an actual bargain, I've found 17 different places across Los Angeles that I'd consider a good deal, in one way or another. My personal favorites include the pair of $25 and $35 meal deals from Koreatown's Soban, home to L.A.'s best soy-marinated crab and one of the best banchan selections in the city. (Any genuine lover of Korean cuisine knows that the complimentary side dishes provided with your meal are one of the best representations of a given restaurant's true culinary capabilities.) Did I mention Soban is also one of the city's best restaurants? Another truly great option is the $65 prix-fixe menu from the Girl & the Goat in the Arts District, which includes five family-style dishes and a matcha tres leches with rhubarb-strawberry sorbet for dessert. While Top Chef alum Stephanie Izard's globally inspired small plates restaurant often gets overlooked with all the other amazing options in the destination restaurant-heavy neighborhood, the Dine LA menu might just remind you why this brick-lined, plant-filled restaurant is a great option to keep in your back pocket for your next night out in greater Downtown L.A. Until Somni reopened last November and upstaged all other restaurants in West Hollywood (it also recently got three Michelin stars!), Ardor was my top dining pick in the city-neighborhood, and it's also participating in Dine LA. The swanky hotel restaurant inside the West Hollywood EDITION offers a vegetable-forward menu within its cinematic dining room and verdant outdoor patio. The $65 prix-fixe menu nets you the eatery's signature tomato-topped milk bread, plus your choice of Spanish octopus or tandoor carrots as an appetizer. For mains, choose between skirt steak, king crab tagliatelle or Ardor's standout sweet potato curry. While I've yet to personally try the chocolate espresso torte on Ardor's Dine LA menu, I've loved every dessert I've tried at the restaurant, so it's likely a safe bet as well. Finally, I'd like to recommend bookmarking two restaurants that have yet to release their Dine LA menus: Mr. T in Hollywood and Sushi Kisen in Arcadia. Both restaurants will be offering menus in the $65 and over category. Mr. T offers République alum Alisa Vannah's rendition of modern Parisian cuisine. Co-owned by music mogul Jay-Z (whose offices are located upstairs), it's one of the best French restaurants in the city, with a gorgeous patio full of string lights and a fire pit. As for Sushi Kisen, the San Gabriel Valley sushi restaurant is one of my favorite places for sushi in L.A. County. Even on a regular day, the omakase at the counter is a relative bargain. Despite the fact it takes over an hour for me to drive there in normal traffic, I spent my birthday weekend shlepping to Arcadia for the restaurant's second anniversary kaisendon, which came topped with blue crab, ikura, sea urchin and shrimp. The set also came with a side of marinated sashimi. While Sushi Kisen has yet to publish its Dine LA menu, you can rest assured that whatever they're offering will be a steal in terms of fish quality and overall value. While it's true that the vast majority of Dine LA prix-fixe menus aren't really deals anymore, these handful of options will be more than enough to keep you happy during the summer edition. Bon appétit!
Time Out
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The 17 best deals for Dine LA restaurant week, summer 2025
The deal: A $25 lunch menu and $35 per head all-day dinner menu, minimum party size of two Why we recommend it: Soban is the best Korean restaurant in L.A., with some of the most delicious, unique banchan (side dishes) in Los Angeles. It's also one of the best restaurants in L.A. overall—and for the first time ever, it's participating in Dine LA. Here, Koreatown essentials like bibimbap and doenjang jigae (bean paste stew) are executed at the highest level; both dishes are available on the $25 Dine LA menu. The $35 all-day dinner menu, designed for sharing, also includes two of Soban's signature dishes: braised black cod and galbi jjim. For $11 more, a party of two can also go to town on their famous soy-marinated raw crab, which I think is the best of its kind in Los Angeles.
