Michelin's spring update quietly slipped six Los Angeles restaurants, plus one Montecito newcomer, into the California guide, showcasing everything from Korean Italian pasta to Uzbek and Oaxacan counters. The list reads like a neighborhood crawl, with tasting counters and market stalls sharing the spotlight with full-service seafood and Chinese American spots.
Six New L.A. Spots Crash The California Guide
Corridor 109, Firstborn, Lapaba, Little Fish Melrose Hill, Lugya’h by Poncho’s Tlayudas, and Zira Uzbek Kitchen are the latest Los Angeles additions to the guide, with Little Mountain in Montecito joining from outside the county. Together, they cover a tight seafood tasting counter, a Koreatown pasta bar, a tlayudas counter tucked inside Maydan Market, and an Uzbek kitchen on Fairfax. The new names were first flagged by Eater LA.
From Tiny Tasting Counter To Korean Italian Pasta Bar
Corridor 109 is an intimate, one-seating seafood tasting counter from chef Brian Baik, described as a tightly choreographed 10-seat experience built around precise seafood courses. Coverage of the space and menu emphasizes Baik's fine-dining background and plates that include ikura tartlets and aji toast, as detailed by Resy.
Lapaba, meanwhile, is a Koreatown pasta bar that riffs on Italian formats with Korean ingredients, a deliberate mash-up that reviewers note was shaped with input from Nancy Silverton. The restaurant's hybrid approach and design-forward look are explored in a review by Wallpaper*.
Neighborhood Favorites: Uzbek, Oaxacan, Chinese American, and Little Fish
Firstborn, chef Anthony Wang's Chinese American restaurant in Mandarin Plaza, and Zira Uzbek Kitchen on Fairfax are both spotlighted as neighborhood operations now getting guide recognition. Little Fish's full-service Melrose Hill outpost from Anna Sonenshein and Niki Vahle, which grew out of a pandemic pop-up, also makes the cut and has been praised for its seafood-focused menus. Lugya’h by Poncho’s Tlayudas, an Oaxacan tlayuda counter inside Maydan Market, adds another market-based concept to Michelin's radar. These local contexts are laid out in reporting by Eater LA, the Los Angeles Times, and LAist.
What The Timing Really Signals
All of these spots are currently tagged as additions to the California guide, which means they are on Michelin's radar but are not automatically getting stars. The spring update usually lands ahead of the bigger ceremony where the MICHELIN Guide hands out stars in the months that follow, and the organization has used similar interim lists in past years as a lead-up to its June announcements. For details on the guide's calendar and event plans, see The MICHELIN Guide.
Why Angelenos Should Care
These picks line up with a broader Michelin shift toward recognizing neighborhood cooking and market-based concepts alongside classic tasting menus, a pattern that has shown up in past California updates where small regional operations land on the same list as big-ticket dining rooms. That mix tends to tighten reservation windows and boost attention, and often demand, for previously under-the-radar counters and cafes. Earlier guide updates and the run of "New" designations are broken down by Eater SF.
For now, Michelin's latest additions are a reminder that L.A.'s dining identity keeps stretching, from tightly scripted tasting counters to market stalls, and that the city's next big moment will come when inspectors reveal this year's star decisions later in the spring. Expect suddenly busier phone lines and for a few neighborhood favorites to feel a lot less secret.
