Seline is one of the most exciting fine dining restaurants in Los Angeles and, in our opinion, some of the strongest cooking in chef Dave Beran’s career. Tucked away behind black doors in a secret garden in Santa Monica, the Michelin-starred restaurant serves an ingredient-driven tasting menu inspired by Southern California, with more than fifteen courses built around produce from local farmers and unexpected combinations like leek, banana, and eucalyptus, or coffee and caviar.
We first experienced Beran’s cooking at Dialogue in 2019 and have now visited Seline twice. Last year, we called it the best new restaurant in Los Angeles and predicted that a Michelin star was inevitable. It didn’t happen in Seline’s first year, but in 2026 the recognition finally arrived. Within the span of a week, Seline received its first Michelin star and Beran won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: California.
After two meals here, we’re convinced this is the best food of his career. In a city filled with hype, Seline initially flew under the radar. Not anymore.
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Inside Seline in Santa Monica
Seline is tucked away in a secret garden in Santa Monica. The space was formerly Arnold Schwarzenegger’s restaurant, but today chef Beran is serving a tasting menu with more than fifteen courses here. Step through the double black doors and you enter a culinary wonderland.
The menu is ingredient-driven and Southern California-inspired, showcasing produce from local farmers. You’ll encounter unusual combinations like leek, banana, and eucalyptus, or coffee and caviar. You’ll enjoy a mid-meal serving of ice cream, and you might even eat carrots for dessert. But don’t be afraid – this is easily some of the highest-level cooking you’ll find in Los Angeles.
The Tasting Menu at Seline
The Opening Courses
The first dish was inspired by a Nordic breakfast, with smoked sturgeon, egg yolk jam, rye bread, smoked trout roe, and cauliflower snow. We loved the texture contrasts here with crispy rye, creamy cauliflower, and pops of roe.
Next came a bite inspired by a fallen tree branch: a crispy hollow chip filled with a green garlic and eucalyptus purée, served with an artichoke dip.
Another small snack followed: a puffed beef tendon topped with smoked juniper powder. This wasn’t our favorite bite of the night, but it was a nice beefy crunch.
Chef Beran is a master of broths. He served a gently poached black cod in a super rich broth of braised sunchokes and sunflower seeds. The flavors were deep and caramelized, while the fish was incredibly tender. This dish felt like a hug.
The rest of the fish was used next, served on the bones of the cod. At the tip was a crispy chip filled with cod head mousse. This was a fun way to use the leftover fish parts!
Then came a highlight dish. The presentation looked like the tip of a mountain poking through the clouds: a sunflower seed and farro ragout covered with a black trumpet and parmesan blanket and served with a buttery mushroom foam.
Celery Root in Two Parts
Another favorite followed, a dish Beran described as a celery root dish with a garnish of meat. Thin slices of salt-baked celery root covered a few spoonfuls of venison tartare mixed with a savory granola of sunflower seeds and crispy shallots. Before we dug into the tartare, Beran instructed us to eat a bite of preserved cherry and pistachio paste. It tasted nutty and jammy, like a PB&J, coating our mouths and tricking our brains into thinking there was cherry jam in the tartare.
And then came a surprise we never expected: a mid-meal ice cream break. The rest of the celery root was transformed into an ice cream, served tableside from the celery root itself. We never would have guessed this creamy, sweet ice cream was made from a vegetable, and the rich miso fudge on the side made it even better.
A Trip to the Kitchen
The following course was so time-sensitive that we had to go into the kitchen to eat it. A mustard leaf was dipped in passion fruit juice, frozen in liquid nitrogen, and dusted with ginger sugar.
This bite unfolded in three stages: first the frozen, brittle texture, then the bright freshness of the passion fruit, and finally the peppery bite of the mustard leaf. The perfect palate cleanser.
The Main Courses
When we returned to the table, we were comforted with a mushroom broth finished with vanilla, cacao nibs, and seaweed oil.
Then came another hug of a dish: market potatoes served with lightly poached Dungeness crab, seasoned with pine and seaweed salt, and topped with paper-thin shards of crispy potato. We dug all the way through the bowl to get every component and texture. Every bite was buttery, crispy, salty, and incredibly comforting.
The following course featured grilled pheasant breast and confit pheasant leg, served with crumbled pumpernickel and kale, foraged leaves, and a creamy blanquette sauce. This was a delicious meat course!
The final savory course was a braised short rib pot roast, inspired by the kind of crockpot meal chef Beran’s grandma would make. Warm, bubbling comfort food, with crispy bits around the edges. We loved the idea behind this dish, but we found it quite rich on its own. It was best when combined with the incredible bread served alongside it. A brioche dinner roll fried in beef fat resulted in a light and airy doughnut. Soft, fluffy, and oh so buttery, this was the perfect vehicle for the short rib. It’s a meat doughnut! What’s not to love?
Seline’s Non-Alcoholic Pairing
Something we didn’t expect? Seline’s non-alcoholic pairing is the best we’ve ever had. Every drink is made from ingredients from the kitchen, so it really felt like a natural extension of the tasting menu.
We loved the refreshing peachy kombucha that kicked off the pairing, and a complex combo of oolong tea, chamomile, honey, and orange. A carbonated blend of cacao, red wine vinegar, and fennel molasses somehow tasted like chocolate soda. A buttery, sparkling pear beverage replaced Champagne, while a wild tomato seed and Szechuan pepper soda was earthy, funky, and spicy. The pairing finished with an incredible roasted banana milk punch that was rich, round, and packed with depth of flavor.
We would come back to Seline just to drink the non-alcoholic pairing again.
Coffee and Caviar
Seline’s signature dish is a dessert that marries two unlikely ingredients: coffee and caviar. This is the only dish Beran brought with him from Dialogue, and legend has it that the combo came together by accident while he was drinking coffee one day at work and simultaneously testing the quality of a tin of caviar. The rest is history.
Hazelnuts dressed in black tea oil are topped with coffee anglaise and oscietra caviar. It’s an unusual and intense combination, but everything is beautifully balanced. The creamy hazelnut butter and nutty caviar go incredibly well together. It tastes like a milky hazelnut latte with a subtle, grounding coffee note.
Yet somehow, we loved the next dessert even more. Carrots cured in sugar for 24 hours were served with walnut purée, white chocolate, and a graham cracker crumble. Who would’ve guessed that carrots as a dessert could be so delicious?! It tasted a bit like carrot cake – sweet, nutty, and packed with texture. This was one of our favorite dishes and ended the meal on a high.
The final sip was a caramel corn soup: sweet, salty, and buttery, with all the flavors of liquid kettle corn. A fun finish inspired by eating popcorn on the couch in front of the TV at the end of the night.
Is Seline Worth It?
Seline is a restaurant that is doing something different – there’s no other menu quite like this in Los Angeles. Chef Dave Beran is serving creative, unique dishes in a style all his own, and it really feels like a personal artistic expression. So many of these dishes are unexpected flavor combinations – but then you take a bite and your mind is blown. Seline is a place where you can trust the chef, and you’ll be rewarded.
We’ve been following Dave Beran since his Dialogue days, and we loved his food already then, but now, after two visits to Seline, we can confidently say that this is his strongest cooking yet. And we’re so happy to see Michelin and James Beard agree. If you’re planning a food trip to Los Angeles, put Seline at the very top of your list.
Have you been to Seline? Let us know how your experience was in a comment below.