Restaurants in Sherman Oaks

Chef Javier Prado personifies the American dream. In 1972, he traded the familiarity of his Mexican hometown for the bright lights and chatty celebrity wax statues of Los Angeles. He was initially without money, family, or friends, but soon landed a job working in the Beverly Hills Club restaurant. It was there that he met Chef Jon Bernadoux who took Javier under his wing, teaching him his craft until 1989 when Javier swung open the doors to Prado Restaurant.

At Prado, Javier fuses the flavors of his mother's Mexican cooking with classic Caribbean and New Orleans cuisine. The aromas of spicy black pepper sauces and Jamaican spices stretch out onto the quaint sidewalks of Larchmont Village, teasing the palates of frequent visitors and curious passersby alike. Inside, Javier makes good on the promises of those aromas, completing a spicy fusion menu underneath 18th century-style pastel ceilings painted in celestial scenes.

The towering neon sign above Rosalind's Ethiopian Cuisine points down toward the eatery's entrance, where live Ethiopian music and aromas of Ethiopian, Ghanaian, and Nigerian cuisines escape into the air. Though bands gather only on the weekends, the kitchen staff serve their menu of steamed vegetable, lamb, chicken, beef, and seafood dishes daily until 2 a.m. Their house specialty is the special tibs entree, showcasing spicy beef served atop charcoals in a traditional Ethiopian pot. Servers encourage diners to eat their dishes by hand, resulting in fingers speckled with nutmeg and games of Paper, Rock, Scissors with plantains.

Thatched roofs hover above the eatery's dining areas, which include booths, tables, and traditional Ethiopian mesobs—woven tabletops with woven lids that are surrounded by stools to facilitate easy communal eating. African decor and saturated yellows and reds permeate the entire space and enclose the full bar, and a scattering of TVs helps diners stay up-to-date with local sports even as their taste buds trot the globe.

The kitchen staff at Got Kosher? sidestep preservatives when making their daily yield of international kosher cuisine that includes French, Moroccan, and Tunisian dishes. Under the watchful eye of the onsite mashgiach, they prepare pulled beef brisket, Tunisian couscous, rotisserie chicken, Neshama gourmet kosher chicken, and turkey sausages served on pretzel rolls. Their flavorful fare has caught the attention of LA Weekly's Linda Burum, who calls the brik a l'oeuf—a deep-fried crepe folded over egg, capers, and tuna—"one of the world's great feats of culinary alchemy." In addition to a full slate of Ashkenazi and Sephardic dishes and a well-stocked deli case, Got Kosher? dispatches its full-service caterers to serve meals and resolve family feuds during weddings and special events.

Everything about Layla's Cafe & Catering is designed to create a sense of communal enjoyment. The menu features plenty of tapas and appetizers for sharing, including fresh caprese salad with burrata cheese, heirloom tomatoes, and basil pesto, and grilled kebabs that can easily be divided among friends. Within the quasi-outdoor seating area—which is kept warm by cozy heating lamps—the bottom of one wall is lined with green plants and tiny orbs of strung lights float overhead. A gently murmuring water fountain invites guests to toss in pennies and make wishes, or toss in silver dollars and watch their friends jump in after them. The restaurant also caters for special occasions and hosts private parties.

Café 5901 founder and executive chef Stephen Barkulis draws on an education in classic, French cuisine to craft salads, paninis, and soups with gustatory skills that helped him rank highly on OpenTable's 2010 Diners' Choice list. Organic coffee wakes up taste buds with beans that were allowed to graze freely, whereas a smoked-salmon-heaped toasted bagel starts mornings with layers of swiss and avocado. House-made caesar dressing cloaks salads and chicken-breast sandwiches with fresh, from-scratch flavor, and a soup of the day delivers a different batch of bowl-cargo daily.

If the tables at Kate Mantilini could speak, they'd quickly find themselves booked by every major talk show. Their undersides have seen the feet of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro filming their first scene together in Heat as well as the pants cuffs of Tom Cruise, Mick Jagger, and Antonio Banderas, according to seeing-stars.com.

Founders Marilyn and Harry Lewis built the backbone of this celebrity hot spot. Harry had already worked alongside Humphrey Bogart in the film Key Largo when he told Marilyn that he hoped to open a restaurant chain geared toward folks in the film industry. In 1950, his idea came to life at several Hamburger Hamlets, where Hollywood icons could grab a meal or autograph a fan's shirt with ketchup before returning to their shoots. While luminaries like Sammy Davis Jr. occasionally supervised the kitchen, says the Los Angeles Times, Marilyn taught herself to cook a repertoire of eclectic comfort food. In 1987, the pair sold their Hamburger Hamlets and established Kate Mantilini.

Today, looming Mad Men posters on the walls speak to a modernism that has not abandoned the restaurant's Hollywood roots. A geometric orrery sculpture hangs from the gigantic sundial on the roof, and an elongated mural of a boxing match stretches across the dining hall. The smell of Kate's signature meatloaf weaves throughout the architecture and mingles with a slew of rotating aromas, from calamari to strip steaks and award-winning chicken pot pie. As the scents drift past the tables and onto an outdoor patio in Beverly Hills, they surround the former bank building, which now hosts homestyle breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

The Lewis family has also opened a second Kate Mantilini location in Woodland Hills. The garden setting has its own alfresco seating to supplement 42 indoor booths, where patrons can order the same quality of rustic yet upscale American cuisine. Though they see their fair share of well-known figures, both restaurants cultivate an unambiguously welcoming vibe—one that invites children to feast on macaroni, casual visitors to stop in for a bowl of soup, and hungry families to share tapas rather than saw microwave dinners in half.