"Thanks to a recent renovation, the La Dolce Vita you’ll see today is practically a new restaurant. But that doesn’t mean its history—and Old Hollywood cred— were thrown into the dumpster. With retro cheetah print carpet and lilac-hued brick walls, this tiny, windowless room in Beverly Hills looks like someone decided to serve perfectly stirred vespers and veal parmesan the size of pizza pans inside Liz Minelli’s private dining parlor. You’ll have to fight with every studio exec in town for a table, but we like heading to the gold-tinted bar instead. The whole menu is available and the plush green stools do wonders for lumbar support." - brant cox, sylvio martins, garrett snyder