Kismet has been on the Los Angeles Times list of the city's hundred best restaurants every year since it opened in 2017, which is a harder thing to do than appearing on it once. Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson run it in Los Feliz in partnership with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, and the cooking is Middle Eastern by way of California with vegetables at the centre rather than at the edge.
Los Feliz fills up early and the best window here is narrower than the opening hours suggest. Ask Karpo whether there is a table tonight and what the wait looks like right now.
Vegetables first, genuinely
Plenty of restaurants claim a vegetable focus and then build the menu around three meat dishes. Kramer and Hymanson actually mean it, to the point that their cookbook is subtitled with the phrase vegetable-loving recipes, and the menu reflects a kitchen where the produce decides what gets cooked.
The cucumbers with rosewater labneh are the clearest demonstration. It is a dish made of two cheap ingredients, and it works because the rosewater is measured precisely enough to read as floral rather than as perfume, and because the labneh is thick enough to hold. Getting that balance right is harder than grilling a steak.
The oyster mushroom skewers do similar work from the other direction — a vegetable treated with the technique you would normally apply to meat, cooked over heat until the edges crisp and the middle stays dense. It is the dish that converts sceptics.
The rest of what to order
Persian crispy rice is the table's anchor: a disc of rice cooked until the base forms a solid golden crust, cracked open at the table. It is the most satisfying carbohydrate on any menu in Los Feliz and a group of four will finish it before anything else arrives.
The chicken and pine nut pies wrapped in flaky phyllo are the savoury pastry order, and they are the dish that most clearly connects the kitchen to the Levantine tradition it draws on. The rabbit — served with pickles, greens, flatbread and sauces — is the signature main and the one dish that is genuinely a centrepiece.
The mezze section is the right place to build a meal from. Five or six small plates plus the crispy rice will feed four people better than two mains and a side, and it is how the menu is designed to be read.
A note on how the menu moves: the vegetable dishes change with what is available and the structural dishes do not, so the crispy rice and the rabbit will be there and the cucumber dish may not. Asking what is new rather than ordering from memory is the correct approach at a kitchen that actually follows the season.
The credentials, briefly
A James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant nationally, a Michelin Bib Gourmand, nine consecutive years on the LA Times 101, and a 2026 James Beard semifinalist nod for Best Chef: California shared between Hymanson and Kramer. That is a sustained record rather than a single good year, which is the hardest kind to build.
The Bib Gourmand in particular is the award that matters most for how you should use the restaurant. Bib Gourmand means good cooking at a reasonable price, and it places Kismet in the category of restaurant you can eat at on a Tuesday rather than one you save for an anniversary.
Los Feliz and the rotisserie
Los Feliz is one of the more pleasant neighbourhoods in Los Angeles to eat in, with a walkable commercial stretch, actual pedestrians, and Griffith Park at the top of the hill. That combination makes a meal here easy to attach to something else, which is not true of most Los Angeles restaurants.
There is also Kismet Rotisserie, the team's more casual spin-off, which does chicken and sides at counter prices. Knowing it exists is useful: it is the answer when you want this kitchen's cooking without a reservation, a table or an hour, and the two operations are complementary rather than competing.
Parking in Los Feliz is metered on the main strip and permit-restricted behind it, which is the standard arrangement and the standard frustration. The stretch is compact enough that parking once and walking is the right approach rather than circling for a closer space.
The other thing Los Feliz gives you is a sensible sequence for the evening. Dinner here and a walk up toward the observatory road afterwards is one of the few genuinely pleasant post-meal walks available in a city built for driving, and it costs nothing.
How to time a visit
Bright and busy is the default register, and the room is at its best in the earlier half of service when the light is still coming in and the pace has not compressed. Later in the evening it gets loud in the way a popular restaurant with hard surfaces always does.
Brunch is the underrated slot. The same kitchen applies its vegetable-forward approach to morning food, the room is calmer, and the competition for tables is lower than at dinner. If you have only one visit available and you like eating in daylight, take the morning.
Book ahead for dinner, especially at weekends. A restaurant that has been on a best-of list for nine consecutive years does not have spare capacity on a Saturday, and the Rotisserie is the fallback rather than the queue.
Practical notes
Kismet is in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, opened in 2017 by Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, serving vegetable-forward Middle Eastern and Californian food. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, a James Beard Best New Restaurant nomination, a place on the LA Times 101 every year since opening and a 2026 Beard semifinalist nod for the chefs. Order the cucumbers with rosewater labneh, the oyster mushroom skewers, the Persian crispy rice, the chicken and pine nut pies, and the rabbit. Build from the mezze section, book ahead for dinner, and consider brunch instead. Kismet Rotisserie is the no-reservation alternative.
Tags: #LosAngeles #Kismet #LosFeliz #MediterraneanFoodNearMe #NeighborhoodGuides #MiddleEasternFood #VegetableForward #CrispyRice #BibGourmand #LAEats #LARestaurants #GriffithPark #LAFoodGuide #Mezze
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know whether there is a table, whether brunch is the better call and what to order for a group? Ask Karpo before you head up to Los Feliz.
