The 10 Best Restaurants in East Hollywood, Thai Town & Virgil Village
A quietly thrilling food neighborhood with wild range, quiet excellence, and chili heat to spare.
There are no grand entrances in East Hollywood. Instead, there are tiled storefronts behind bus stops. Strip malls without signage. Corner cafés with no PR campaign. And yet, this little stretch of Los Angeles—spanning Thai Town, Virgil Village, and the edges of Melrose Hill—has become one of the city’s most vital, irreverent, and eclectic food corridors.
This isn’t a list about trend cycles or buzzy dining rooms. It’s a portrait of a neighborhood that feeds its people with fiery khao soi, wood-fired kebabs, and bagels that feel like small, edible portals. Here are 10 restaurants that quietly define the pulse of East Hollywood right now: a little glamorous, a little DIY, and completely unforgettable.
1. Jitlada (Thai Town – Southern Thai Mastery)
Why Go: Because you haven’t really eaten in LA until you’ve sweat through your shirt at Jitlada. This institution, helmed by Jazz Singsanong, is one of the great Southern Thai restaurants in the country. The menu reads like a fever dream—dozens of pages long, fire-stacked with turmeric, lemongrass, and chiles that sneak up on you. If you know, you order the crispy catfish salad, jungle curry, and the not-so-secret Jazz Burger. Then you sit back, sip your Thai iced tea, and let the endorphins kick in.
2. Northern Thai Food Club (Thai Town – Spice-Laden Neighborhood Jewel)
Why Go: This 12-seater looks like a snack bar and cooks like a temple. Everything is made with a fierce sense of place—fermented, herbal, nose-to-tail northern Thai cooking that doesn’t shy from heat. The khao soi has that perfect tension between richness and bite. Gaeng hang lay hums with five-spice. There are dips, sausages, and pork belly curries. Most of the menu is under $20, and nearly all of it is unforgettable.
3. Kismet (East Hollywood – Modern Middle Eastern, Beautifully Casual)
Why Go: If Jitlada is maximalist, Kismet is minimalist—with a deep, elegant hum. The vegetable-forward cooking here is vibrant and quietly smart: tahdig crowned with jammy yolks, labneh with fermented turnips, roasted carrots in harissa oil. This is dinner with a good friend on a weekday night, served on handmade ceramics under soft lighting. You leave feeling a little nourished, a little stylish, and a little more in love with LA.
4. Saffy’s (East Hollywood – Grilled Meats with Star Power)
Why Go: This is the cousin who always shows up overdressed and still makes everyone feel comfortable. From the team behind Bestia and Bavel, Saffy’s serves charred kebabs, grilled lobster, and swoon-worthy eggplant purees in a peach-toned dining room. But it’s not just a vibe play—the food delivers. The flatbread is blistered, the pickles are tart, and everything feels like a celebration.
5. Found Oyster (East Hollywood – Tiny Raw Bar, Big Heart)
Why Go: You’re eating scallop tostadas, steak frites, and New England oysters in a place the size of a two-car garage. And it works. Found Oyster is personal, precise, and always kind of fun. The staff is the kind of staff that remembers your wine order. The seafood is pristine. And the whole place feels like it came from another coast and decided to be better here.
6. Maison Matho (Melrose Hill – French-Californian, Under-the-Radar Gem)
Why Go: Some restaurants whisper instead of shout. This café does a few things very well—flaky croissant sandwiches, chicken liver toast that eats like a Parisian memory, fennel salads that feel like skincare—and it doesn’t need to do more. Maison Matho is calm, curated, and quietly poetic, like a favorite bookshop that also makes perfect jam tarts.
7. Courage Bagels (Virgil Village – Montreal Meets California, and Wins)
Why Go: Not just a bagel shop—an argument. About crust, density, and how heirloom tomatoes taste at 8 a.m. Courage’s “burnt” bagels come topped with labneh, Persian cucumbers, dill, and roe. They’re small, crisp, and shaped like devotion. There’s usually a line. It’s worth it.
8. Kuya Lord (Melrose Hill – Filipino Flavor Bombs)
Why Go: Chef Lord Maynard Llera’s brick-and-mortar is built on rice bowls and pancit that deliver deep, ancestral pleasure. The longsilog, tocino, tapa—every element is bold, fragrant, and balanced. This is food from a Filipino kitchen filtered through a SoCal lens, and it tastes like nothing else on the block. Or really, in the city.
9. Ggiata Delicatessen (Melrose Hill – Italian-American Sandwich Nostalgia)
Why Go: East Coast soul in a West Coast zip code. Ggiata makes meatball subs (hoagies), chicken cutlets with vodka sauce, and thick focaccia sandwiches that feel like after-school snacks if you grew up in Jersey. It’s not fussy. It’s satisfying. And it delivers the exact thing you want in a sandwich: structure, flavor, and a reason to come back tomorrow.
10. Lolo Wine Bar (East Hollywood – Small Plates & Funky Pours)
Why Go: You’re not sure if you came for the scallops with brown butter or the bottle of pét-nat, but you stay for both. Lolo is cozy and a little flirty, with candlelight, tiled patios, and a menu that changes often but always has at least one perfect dish. Bring someone you want to impress—or someone you want to talk to for three hours.
East Hollywood: A City Within the City
This stretch of LA doesn’t clamor for your attention—but it earns your devotion. You come for the khao soi, the kebabs, the croissant sandwiches that feel like secrets. And if you’re paying attention, you leave with a deeper understanding of what LA dining really looks like: layered, local, and built on the kind of excellence that doesn’t need to shout.
