12 LA Restaurants To Order From On Caviar For New Year’s Eve
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Plans change, but that doesn’t mean your New Year’s Eve has to be a bummer. Get the best part of going out (incredible food) even if you’re bringing the party in, by ordering from one of our favorite spots on Caviar. A disco ball strung from the roof is optional, but recommended.
Jon & Vinny’s serves some of the best Italian food in town, but good luck getting a dinner reservation before 2022 is actually here. There’s no waitlist for ordering delivery though, so we’d argue it’s the perfect way to celebrate the big night. They don’t have a disappointing thing on its menu, but the pizza and pastas are the obvious stars here. And you’ll want to ring in the new year with their meatballs.
A seafood feast is just the kind of thing to make your night feel appropriately celebratory, and Manhattan Beach’s Fishing With Dynamite has options for whatever direction your night goes. That might be a casual outdoor meal of fried fish sandwiches with your roommates or a candlelit date involving koshihikari rice. Either way, don’t forget to order the incredible key lime pie.
Night + Market is one of LA’s best party restaurants, that also happens to have some of our favorite Thai food in town. Yes you can get all kinds of classics, like pad see ew, papaya salad, and pad thai, but don’t skip the fun stuff like the crispy rice salad and party wings—all of it goes perfectly with their impressive list of natural wines.
The famous SGV spot easily makes some of the best Sichuan food in the city. They serve all the hits, including tender tea-smoked pork ribs and boiled fish filet with rattan pepper (the version with pickled vegetables is a strong contender for those who prefer less spice). The food is better than what you’d get at any celebratory NYE party, especially when you don’t have to wait hours in line for it.
Holbox is a family-run food stall inside the Mercado La Paloma that serves fresh, inventive seafood that’ll have you questioning all the other seafood you’ve ever eaten. Think ceviche tostadas, chile rellenos stuffed with yellowtail, and raw oysters by the dozen. And don’t even think about ordering from it without adding the scallop tacos to your cart—each one comes with four perfectly-seared scallops wrapped in a thick house-made corn tortilla before being topped with fennel, caramelized onions, and spicy chile sauce.
This is the perfect night to order the chile en nogada, a pomegranate-flecked, stuffed pepper specialty that’s festive and hard to find at many restaurants out-of-season. Luckily, this Bell standby has it, along with four different moles and nine kinds of enchiladas. Kick off the meal out with the Azteca fondue, made of four Mexican cheeses filled with poblano chile slices, cactus, mushrooms and herbs, and add a round of tamarind margaritas.
You know what you’re getting with the city’s most famous Taiwanese chain, and that’s a good thing. Obviously, you’re getting the pork xiao long bao, but for the end of the year, you should try the versions with crab or truffle too. Add a few wontons, some pork buns, and cucumber salad for “balance,” and you’ve got a New Year’s Eve feast worth boasting about.
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If you’ve got a crowd coming over, make things easy and order a spread from this beachside modern Spanish spot. Get a few orders of paella and some potato croquettes, plus the tortilla espagnola and pomegranate lamb chops.
Hippo delivers all the things we love but are too lazy to make. From shaved brussels sprouts to duck ragu and sweet corn capellacci, pretty much everything is great, but it’s the sides that you’ll be thinking about in 2022, including wax beans with serranos and hazelnuts, the house rolls with honey butter, and the expertly-crafted cocktails with Japanese gin and mezcal.
Maestro in Pasadena is an excellent option for an upscale Mexican dinner. There are plenty of interesting options, like tacos ahogados and a mole confit, but we can’t eat here without getting the lamb shank, covered in a chili sauce we regularly bring up in conversation. And while you might skip past the tres leches carrot cake thinking it can’t possibly work, turns out those two things absolutely go together.
The Mediterranean vegetarian dishes from Mazal make for the ideal mix-and-match dinner—think vegan labneh, ricotta and goat cheese flatbread, pita with za’atar, Moroccan carrots, Beyond Meat bourekas, and Israeli salad. Pay attention to the wine list too, with a slew of unique options from places like Morocco and Slovenia. And, for New Year’s Eve, they’re offering a vegan take on Hamin, a Middle Eastern stew of wheat, beans, potatoes, and more.