West Hollywood

West Hollywood's dining record begins with a jurisdictional accident: as unincorporated county land outside Los Angeles police jurisdiction, the Sunset Strip attracted nightlife from the Prohibition-era 1920s. Billy Wilkerson, founder and publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, opened Cafe Trocadero in 1934 at 8614 Sunset, in a building previously occupied by the cafe La Boheme, and followed with Ciro's in 1940. Charlie Morrison and Felix Young opened the Mocambo at 8588 Sunset on January 3, 1941; it ran seventeen years. In these supper clubs the table was an adjunct to the floor show, the gossip column, and, at Wilkerson's rooms, the gambling.

A plainer lineage runs along Santa Monica Boulevard. Barney's Beanery, founded by John "Barney" Anthony in Berkeley in 1920 and relocated in 1927 to the Route 66 alignment now Santa Monica Boulevard, began as a chili cafe; its sign and matchbook slogan directed against gay patrons was abandoned in December 1984, days after West Hollywood voted itself into existence.

The city's most consequential kitchen was Spago, opened by Wolfgang Puck on the Strip in 1982 after his tenure at Ma Maison, with Mark Peel as chef de cuisine. Identified with the emergence of California cuisine and with Swifty Lazar's Oscar-night party, it closed in March 2001, the flagship having moved to Beverly Hills.