Merois

Merois ranks first in the list of best rooftop restaurants in Los Angeles. Merois—pronounced "mehr-wha"—is located on the roof of the Pendry West Hollywood, alongside the hotel's pool and the Britely, a local members-only social club. You'll notice the indoor-outdoor eatery's glittering cityscape views, colorful, patterned furniture, and luxurious, drape-lined chandelier lighting as soon as you exit the elevator. Other WeHo hotel restaurants may have a similar winning combination of ritzy, ultra-chic interior design and breathtaking urban vistas (plus the glitzy patrons to match), but only Wolfgang Puck's newest L.A. fine-dining venture strives to do more than just coast on its looks. Merois demonstrates that later works in a longtime celebrity chef's oeuvre, even one as expansive and commercialized as Puck's, can still delight and outright impress seasoned diners by combining aesthetics with actual substance.

Almost four decades after Spago first opened in 1982, one might expect Puck's now-famous approach—seasonal California cuisine with French techniques and pan-Asian influences—to be stale and out of date, but that is not the case at Merois. With newer dishes like a crispy rice crab salad and stir-fried flat noodles with short rib, head chef Matt Dahlkemper and chef de cuisine Nicole Abisror, a longtime Spago and CUT kitchen veteran, keep the well-executed menu fresh and relevant. A beautifully plated hamachi tartare served with squid ink-black rice crisp may no longer be considered cutting-edge cuisine, but goddamn is it good.

While Merois serves vegan-friendly vegetable sushi, excellent wok-seared broccolini, and a few other plant-centric small plates, the majority of its menu focuses on seafood, game, and carefully sourced (and thus expensive) red meat. Skip the Snake River Farms filet, a single three-ounce skewer with a completely unacceptable price-to-satiety ratio, from the sushi, raw bar, and bincho grilled skewer sections. Larger ticket items like Shanghai lobster, grilled Mongolian lamb chops, and a shareable Peking duck with black plum chutney may fit the bill for a big-ticket dinner, but Puck's more affordable take on Japanese omurice is just as delicious.

Location: 8430 Sunset BlvdWest Hollywood90069
Contact: 323-918-3410
Rating: 5.0/5.0

Website: pendry.com