Restaurants in Burbank

Not much has changed at Jake's of Pasadena since 1947, the year the diner first opened its doors along historic Route 66 in Old Town Pasadena. The eatery recalls Southern California's golden era of surf music, hot rods, and drive-ins through its nostalgic decor and classic diner grub. Feel free to build your own burger ($5.99+) or outsource the decision-making to the cooks by ordering one of Jake's signature menu items, such as the BBQ cheeseburger ($7.99). You can complement any sandwich with chili fries or onion rings or sip a shake while you gossip about which mailman is stealing the football team's letterman jackets. There's also a billiards room downstairs that is open nightly.

Lola’s bartenders are happy to whip together any one of their more than 50 different martinis, but they smile a bit bigger when they’re asked to make the concoction they invented: the apple martini. Their pride has caught the attention of various press outlets—including LA Weekly and _Vogue_— and spills over onto the menu, where martini-pairing suggestions accompany each plate of pasta, seafood, and signature mac ‘n’ cheese. Once encore chants finally subside, eaters can settle on the kitchen’s cocoa-centric desserts, such as flourless chocolate cake and chocolate bread pudding.

The Slaw Dogs owner, Ray Byrne, probably didn't realize at the time that the Thai coleslaw he brought to a barbecue would become the inspiration for a business featured on ABC and mentioned in Travel + Leisure. According to a Food Network spot on The Slaw Dogs, Byrne tossed some of his extra slaw onto a hot dog and realized that he'd made a tongue-shattering discovery. With that slaw dog as his guide, he opened a hot-dog joint where his original discovery stars on the menu, jazzed up with accents of satay dressing and sesame aioli. But unlike Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone and then pretty much sat around eating Cheetos and playing scratch-off lotto tickets, Byrne isn't satisfied with a single invention. In fact, LAist praised Byrne for his ability to "take seemingly clashing flavors and make them work together," as evidenced in the Green Monster dog with garlic salsa verde or the gigantic TNT Super dog, a tortilla-wrapped spread of bacon pastrami, beer chili, and fries.

The Slaw Dogs also lets patrons build their own dream dogs out of 11 different franks, 10 sauces, and more than 50 toppings, such as kimchi, goat cheese, or truffle oil. The possibilities are almost endless; a group of Caltech students recruited by the Food Network calculated a whopping 35 quintillion total combinations.

In 1947, owners Mel Weiss and Harold Dobbs assembled a staff of 14 carhops to serve passing motorists at the first Mel's Drive-In. For the next two decades, customers partial to automobile dining flocked to the chain’s 11 California locations, eager to wash down half-pound burgers with thick milk shakes. As fast-food outlets outpaced the drive-in's once-speedy service, its popularity declined, and it was eventually scheduled for demolition. The building got a temporary reprieve, however, when filmmaker George Lucas decided to use the drive-in's original location on Lombard Street as the colorful backdrop for his film American Graffiti. As bulldozers destroyed the last remnants of the historic drive-in, American Graffiti opened in theaters.

A decade later, though, Mel's son Steven reopened Mel's Drive-In in an attempt to carry on his father's dream. Steven restored the drive-in's multiple locations to mirror their original motif by stocking each with midcentury must-haves such as illuminated marquees, jukeboxes, and Elvis-themed WiFi passwords. The drive-in’s menu, meanwhile, balances period-appropriate fare, such as hot dogs and burgers, with healthy options, such as the Haven’s Famous vegetarian sandwich, two slices of nine-grain bread topped with avocado, sprouts, and tomatoes.

Chef Nadav Bashan's carefully constructed New American cuisine has earned accolades from the Los Angeles Times and a rating of "extraordinary to perfection" from Zagat. But diners won't have to traipse to a ritzy downtown restaurant to get it. That's because the chef opted to practice his elegant art in out-of-the-way Glendale, at a self-named eatery whose 40-seat dining room is overseen by Romy, his wife. There, the couple strives to give the fine-dining experience a mom-and-pop feel: "We treat everyone that walks through our door as if they are a guest at our house," Romy says on their website.

This commitment to pleasant service lets customers keep the focus where it should be: on the food. Though they constantly rotate, Nadav's previous menus of seasonally inspired cuisine have included wild mediterranean sea bass, sword-tip squid, and other dishes that highlight what Los Angeles magazine calls his "finesse with seafood." He also draws on his experience in high-profile kitchens at The Lobster, Michael's, and Providence to gather fresh ingredients from local markets for each dish. Such continuing attention to detail helped earned Bashan Restaurant a spot on Zagat's list of LA's best New American restaurants in 2012.

The Bashans' business "really is a labor of love," as Nadav told the Glendale News-Press, and they leave no aspect of it untouched. The restaurant's decor incorporates driftwood and grass wall accents that complement the naturalness of the cuisine. At the bar, custom walnut wine racks hold bottles from Australia, Chile, and Italy next to taps that can dispense craft brews or refreshing, locally sourced breezes.

Red isn't the only color on Reds Restaurant's wine list, which presents bottles that speak multiple languages and come and go as they please. While sipping vinos from California, South America, and Italy, guests can peer past the black-hole-black bar straight into the open kitchen. There, the chefs will summon smoked-salmon farfalle, spam-fried rice, and duck confit into existence, and bring life to desserts such as The Brownie and pineapple upside-down cake. Dinner is the main feature at this wine-and-tapas shop, but a lunch menu attracts a midday crowd to the Encino Place Shopping Center's second floor from Tuesday to Friday every week.