Petit Trois Le Valley Review: Chef Ludo Lefebvre's Sherman Oaks Brasserie Is the Real Paris on Ventura Blvd

Some restaurants feed you. A few transport you. Petit Trois Le Valley on Ventura Boulevard belongs firmly in the second group, and it announces itself the moment the first plate lands. This is classic French cooking made with total conviction, the kind of food that makes you put your phone down and pay attention, served in a room that feels like it was lifted whole out of Paris and set down in Sherman Oaks.

The story starts in 2014, when Chef Ludo Lefebvre opened the original Petit Trois in a quiet Hollywood strip mall with 21 seats, a marble counter, and an open kitchen you could practically reach into. It was intimate by design and it became one of the most beloved restaurants in Los Angeles almost immediately, proof that great cooking does not need a grand address to find its audience. In April 2018 Chef Ludo brought that spirit over the hill to the Valley, and Le Valley is what happens when a great idea is finally given the room it deserves.

At Le Petit Trois Le Valley you will find a full brasserie dining room, a marble bar worth sitting at on its own, a chef's counter looking straight into the kitchen, and a patio for the kind of long Valley evenings this city is built for. It is generous, warm, and genuinely fun, and it is one of the best arguments going that the San Fernando Valley deserves a seat at every conversation about where to eat in Los Angeles.

The Room

Sit at the marble bar with a glass of Chablis, take a banquette for a long dinner, or claim a seat at the chef's counter and watch the pass work. The second dining room can be closed off for larger parties and private events, and the patio runs alongside indoor service every day.

What makes the space work is its range. On our visit the bar had a couple splitting escargot next to a table of four working through steak frites, and neither felt out of place. You can come in a blazer for an anniversary or in a t-shirt for a burger at four in the afternoon, and Le Valley makes room for both.

Meeting Chef Ludo

We sat down with Chef Ludo during our visit, and the thing that comes through immediately is how deep the roots go. He was born in Auxerre, in Burgundy, and started in professional kitchens at 14 at L'Esperance in Vezelay. He trained for twelve years in France under Alain Passard, Marc Meneau, Pierre Gagnaire and Guy Martin before coming to Los Angeles, where he earned Mobil Five Star awards at L'Orangerie in 1999 and 2000 and again at Bastide in 2006. From 2007 to 2012 his LudoBites pop-up run essentially invented the modern pop-up restaurant as a viable business. France named him a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in December 2015.

That resume could easily produce a restaurant that lectures you. Petit Trois does the opposite. The cooking here is opulent without ever being overstated, which is a far harder trick than it sounds, and it is the through line in everything that came out of the kitchen.

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What We Ate

Omelette Petit Trois:

The dish that made the reputation, and it earns every bit of it. Black pepper Boursin folded into a pale, barely set French omelette with no color on the exterior, served alongside a small pile of dressed Boston lettuce. It arrives looking almost modest and then collapses into something molten the second a fork goes in. The seasoning is precise, the cheese does the heavy lifting, and the lettuce is there to cut it. If you order one thing at Le Valley, make it this.

French Onion Soup:

Built on veal broth rather than beef, which gives it a rounder, cleaner depth. Gruyere and Emmental together under the broiler, croutons underneath holding their structure long enough to matter. The cheese cap pulls in long ropes off the spoon and the onions have been cooked down far enough to go jammy without tipping into sweetness. It is a benchmark version of a dish that deserves this much care.

Big Mec:

A Westholme Wagyu double cheeseburger that was voted best burger in America back in 2016, and nearly a decade later it still holds the title in our book. What sets it apart is the bordelaise, which brings genuine red wine and marrow depth underneath the special sauce instead of competing with it. Two thin patties, a proper cheese pull, a bun engineered to survive the sauce, and frites alongside crisp enough to save for last. It is a French dish wearing an American costume, and it is a joy.

Filet aux Poivres:

Eight ounces of Creekstone Farms filet with a cognac and Sarawak black pepper sauce, plus frites. The Sarawak peppercorn is the detail worth noticing, more floral and less blunt than standard black pepper, so the sauce reads as aromatic rather than simply hot. The cognac is cooked down far enough to leave sweetness and no burn. The filet came out exactly to temperature with a real crust on it, and the sauce is generous enough that you will use the frites to chase what is left on the plate.

Napoleon:

From pastry chef Carlo Dominguez, and the best kind of classic. Puff pastry shattered into distinct layers, creme diplomat between them, salted caramel running through. The pastry is the whole test on a Napoleon and this one passes beautifully, brittle and laminated rather than soft. The salted caramel keeps the creme from reading as too sweet. A restrained, perfectly judged finish to a meal that is otherwise gloriously generous.

The Drinks

Both Petit Trois locations run award-winning wine lists, and Le Valley's by-the-glass program is unusually good for a neighborhood restaurant. It leans French and it leans producer-driven: a Vieilles Vignes Chablis from Florence et Francois Bachelier, a Bourgogne Rouge from Jean Chauvenet, Marcel Lapierre's Raisins Gaulois out of Beaujolais, Gerard Millet Sancerre. Half glass pours are available, which is a small kindness that lets you drink across a whole meal instead of committing to one bottle.

The cocktail list is built on French spirits and aperitifs rather than the usual suspects. The Petit Trois Martini with Lillet Blanc and quince is the house signature. There is a Negroni au Poivre built on Martinique rhum and black peppercorn, a Sidecar du Soleil with Dijon honey and apricot, and a proper aperitif section with Suze, Byrrh, Ricard and both Chartreuses. If you want to bring your own, corkage runs $50 per 750ml bottle and $80 per 1000ml bottle, with a two bottle maximum.

The Recognition

Petit Trois has been collecting accolades since the year it opened. It was nominated for Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in 2015. It appeared on the late Jonathan Gold's 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles list from 2015 through 2017, and again in 2019 on the list written by Bill Addison and Patricia Escarcega. Both locations landed on the LA Times 2018 "101 Restaurants We Love." And when the Michelin Guide returned to Los Angeles in 2019, Petit Trois (the Los Angeles Location) earned a Bib Gourmand, the designation reserved for restaurants delivering serious cooking at real value. It remains in the California Bib Gourmand selection today.

In December 2025 the restaurant opened its first location outside Los Angeles, inside the Mollie hotel in Aspen. The Valley got there first.

Know Before You Go

Address: 13705 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA

Phone: (818) 989-2600

Email: levalley@petittrois.com

Hours: Daily 12pm to 10pm. Weekend brunch 8am to 3pm.

Corkage: $50 per 750ml bottle, $80 per 1000ml bottle, two bottle maximum.

Takeout and delivery: Available Monday through Friday until 4pm, not available on holidays. Order via DoorDash or call the restaurant for pickup.

Large parties and private events: Parties of 8 or more should email events@petittrois.com or submit an inquiry through the restaurant's private events page.

Reservations: Book through petittrois.com.

Go to Petit Trois and let me know how much you love it!!

I Hope your hungry!!!

Matthew Tropp | FJM

See It For Yourself

We shot the full meal. All of the food video and stills from this visit are up on Instagram and TikTok at @foodjournalmagazine.

If you are working your way through Sherman Oaks, our coverage of Bacari Sherman Oaks is a few blocks east on the same boulevard, and Petit Trois is worth keeping in mind for Valley restaurant week planning. More of our citywide coverage lives in the best food in Los Angeles guide.