Bond Street

Considering Los Angeles already does it so well (see Urasawa, Sushi Nozawa, et al), some may decry the need for another sushi joint here, especially one from the East Coast. But Bond Street, located in the Thompson Hotel, with its never-ending style and inventive menu, has enough to offer that scenesters have wasted no time in anointing it a hot spot. The original location in New York, as conceived by restaurateur/hotelier Jonathan Morr, is very well-thought of, with Japanese-fusion food regularly ranked as superlative. The menu here too offers an array of good dishes – broiled Chilean sea bass, spicy crispy shrimp, sesame crusted rolls – and the seaweed salad and chicken dumplings wrapped in soy milk skin are particularly nice. The service can be offish or haughty, as befitting servers who are decked out in the wares of stylist Rachel Zoe, and the overall vibe is very L.A.

TIPS: A bustling bar scene can be found in the second-floor lounge, with potent cocktails and a menu of smaller plates with smaller prices. Be sure to check out the custom-designed communal table in the main dining room – it’s made from a 2,500-year-old tree.