If you needed another excuse to splurge on a marathon tasting menu, here it is: four of Los Angeles’s most coveted restaurants have landed on La Liste’s new top 1,000 ranking of the world’s best restaurants for 2026, the algorithm-driven guide that crunches reviews, guidebooks and guest feedback from more than 1,100 sources.
In the latest list, the avant-garde West Hollywood stunner from chef Aitor Zabala Somni leads the local pack with a score of 96.5 out of 100. It’s safe to say that the 20-plus-course experience is now firmly in global power-dining territory. Not far behind is the Hollywood seafood temple Providence, which scored 90. Even after 20 years, Michael Cimarusti’s meticulous approach to sustainable fine dining still resonates with critics and high-rollers alike.
n/naka, Niki Nakayama’s modern kaiseki landmark in Palms, clocks in at 83.5, while Hayato, Brandon Go’s jewel-box counter in ROW DTLA, earns a 75.5 score for its hushed, hyper-seasonal kaiseki.
Globally, La Liste’s 2026 edition crowned nine restaurants in seven countries as joint number ones, from Arnaud Donckele’s La Vague d’Or in Saint-Tropez to Le Bernardin in New York and SingleThread in Northern California, part of a field that now sees the U.S. matching France for the number of establishments in the top 1,000.
The ranking isn’t just a beauty contest, either. La Liste’s algorithm folds in everything from legacy guidebooks to newspaper write-ups and online guest reviews, then layers on environmental and social commitments before spitting out a score on a 100-point scale. The guide has also expanded beyond restaurants to include thousands of top-rated hotels and pastry shops worldwide, plus a mobile app for map-based restaurant hunting on the go.
For Los Angeles, the recognition cements locals’ knowledge that the city’s special-occasion scene can go fork-to-fork with Europe and Asia’s finest. La Liste is essentially saying the same thing your most food-obsessed friend has been insisting on for years: whether you’re looking for molecular theatrics, world-class seafood or precise, seasonal rhythms, you can find it all.
And yes, all these places are worth the schlep, the set alarm for reservations and the sticker shock—at least once.