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Where to Eat in the Valley During Dine LA Restaurant Week, August 14 to 28

  • 4 days ago
  • 5 min read


Dine LA Restaurant Week runs August 14 to 28, 2026, and the Valley is pulling more weight this year than it usually gets credit for. Roughly fifty restaurants between Toluca Lake and Westlake Village are running prix fixe menus, and the spread is wide: a $25 ramen dinner in Canoga Park, a Michelin starred pasta counter in Encino, and two hilltop dining rooms with views the Westside cannot buy.


Below is the Valley lineup as it stands on the official Dine LA participating restaurant list, sorted by what you actually pay, with a link to every restaurant. No tickets, no passes, no wristbands. You book a table and ask for the Dine LA menu. Our full citywide overview of the event is here.


How Dine LA works


Dine LA Restaurant Week is produced by the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board and runs fifteen days. Participating restaurants serve prix fixe lunch and dinner menus at set price points starting at $15, and those prices exclude beverages, tax, and gratuity. Reservations are strongly encouraged and walk ins are not guaranteed. Menus can also shift with ingredient availability, so call the restaurant directly if you are going for one specific dish. The official Dine LA FAQ covers the rest of the fine print.



The Valley lineup, sorted by price

Lunch at $25 or less



The $35 to $45 middle



$55 and above



What We Have Our Eyes On


Pasta|Bar in Encino is the headline for anyone who has been trying to talk their way into that counter. It holds a Michelin star and runs a tasting format built around handmade pasta, and it is participating at the $65 and above dinner tier. We spent an evening there earlier this year and wrote it up in full. Book the second the calendar opens.

ALTO in Studio City is the other one worth moving on. The Argentinian open fire program landed it in the Michelin Guide, and Dine LA is a comparatively gentle way into a menu that usually is not. Our coverage of the opening is here.


Firefly in Studio City is the restaurant dineLA put on its own Valley promo, and the back patio is the reason. Ivy walls, a see through fireplace, and a New American menu that has been the default Valley date night for two decades.


For a completely different register, the Smoke House in Burbank has been across the street from Warner Bros. since 1946, and the garlic cheese bread is a genuine Los Angeles artifact. At $35 lunch and $45 dinner it is one of the better value plays on the list.


If the point of the night is the view, Castaway in Burbank and Odyssey in Granada Hills both sit on hilltops looking back over the Valley floor, and both are running lunch and dinner menus.


Sushi Note in Sherman Oaks is quietly one of the best rooms on the list. Chef Kiminobu Saito's counter is Michelin Guide listed and the wine program is the real differentiator, which is not something you can usually say about a sushi bar.


And if you want the cheapest seat in the Valley, JINYA at Topanga Social is running $25 at both lunch and dinner, the only $25 dinner north of the hill.


A Sherman Oaks footnote


Three of the Sherman Oaks entries on this list belong to the same operator. BLVD Steak, Taisho, and Casita are all Christian Corben's, and all three sit within a few blocks of each other on Ventura Boulevard's Restaurant Row. If you are building a two week plan, that is a steakhouse, a robata bar, and a modern Mexican room you can walk between.


One scheduling note


Dine LA's opening weekend collides with 626 Night Market's August run at Santa Anita Park, August 14 to 16. That makes the first weekend of the event the single densest food weekend of the LA summer. If you are trying to do both, put the prix fixe dinner on Friday and save Saturday for the market, and skip lunch either way.


Before you book


Menus are posted per restaurant on the dineLA site and a handful of Valley spots are lunch only or dinner only, so check the listing before you plan around it. Prices shown are per person and do not include drinks, tax, or tip, which is the line most people forget when they compare a $45 prix fixe against the regular menu.


For everything else opening around town this month, our running list of new restaurants in Los Angeles refreshes on the first.

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