"It's a village in a big city," Sora founder Vincent Benoliel said of Brentwood when he picked the neighborhood for his handroll bar's second location. "You're 15 minutes from the water, or 15 minutes from the city. It's right in the middle."
He's right, but this year Brentwood has two villages going at once, and they're a mile apart. If you've only been paying attention to San Vicente Boulevard, the street everyone assumes is Brentwood's whole restaurant scene, you've missed half of what actually opened in 2026. The other half is happening on a street called Barrington, except Barrington shows up twice in this story at two different cross streets, and confusing them will send you to the wrong end of the neighborhood.
The Corner That's Eating All the Foot Traffic
Walk to the intersection of Barrington Avenue and San Vicente Boulevard on a weekday morning and you'll find a corner that looked mostly dormant two years ago now running lines out the door before 9 a.m.
The anchor is Sora, the temaki bar that opened at 908 S. Barrington Ave. on Thursday, June 4. It's Savta Hospitality Group's second Los Angeles location, following the original 900-square-foot, 12-seat counter tucked into a rooftop spot at The Original Farmers Market near The Grove. The Brentwood build-out is not a modest expansion. It's an 80-seat room split into a 36-seat wraparound temaki bar, a 32-seat dining area, and a 12-seat beverage bar, plus a patio with a walk-up cocktail window. Benoliel has been direct about why the fish tastes different here: most of it flies in from the Tokyo or Kyoto fish markets, along with the rice and seaweed. On weekdays, the lunch menu runs an appetizer plus three handrolls for $32, a number that stands out on a boulevard where a sit-down lunch usually costs more.
Sora isn't alone on the block. The same building, a former Contempo Floor Coverings showroom, has been divided in half, with Layla Bagels & Coffee taking the other side at 900 S. Barrington. It's the sourdough bagel brand's third Southern California location, after Santa Monica's Ocean Park Boulevard and Beverly Hills' South Beverly Drive. A few doors down at 912 S. Barrington, Malou Coffee opened with single-origin pours and ceremonial-grade matcha sourced from the Uji region near Kyoto. Right on the corner where San Vicente meets Barrington, La La Land Kind Cafe has been moving into the old Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf space at 11698 San Vicente, giving Westside regulars a second option besides the perpetual line at the Montana Avenue location. And Benoliel isn't done with the block either: Tavlin, his sibling concept built around Middle Eastern street food with a market component, was on track to join Sora on Barrington by the end of summer.
None of this reads as a coincidence when you count it up. Five concepts, one intersection, all landing within a matter of months. This is the corner that shows up on Instagram. It is not, however, the only place in Brentwood where something new opened its doors this year.
A Mile South, an Entirely Different Boom
Here's where the neighborhood's geography gets confusing if you don't already live here. Brentwood Village, the older commercial pocket near where Barrington Avenue meets Sunset Boulevard, is having its own restaurant wave right now, and it has almost nothing to do with the Barrington corner up on San Vicente.
At 155 S. Barrington Place, Terroni is moving forward with a Brentwood location under proprietor Sheereen Koules, who was hoping for a spring 2026 opening. Terroni was founded in Canada in 1992 by Paolo Scoppio and Cosimo Mammoliti and already runs locations on Fairfax and Larchmont. A few doors down at 145 S. Barrington Ave, what was filed on paperwork as "Nuvola" turned out to be All Roads, a Roman-inspired eatery and wine bar from Luca Crestanelli and Roberto Facciolla, both alumni of Toscana Restaurant Group, open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Then it gets stranger. At 150 S. Barrington Ave, the old Café Brentwood corner space has a new liquor license application under the name Sushi Miyagi, with little else public yet. And at 148 S. Barrington Ave, in the gutted shell of the old Brentwood Restaurant & Lounge, an application lists Dana Slatkin, one of the people behind Westwood's Violet, under the working name "Glenbarr." Local chatter has the eventual name as The Wilkes, with a rumored return to the loungey, superclub energy of the old space. Brentwood Village, in other words, is leaning Italian and clubby. The Barrington corner up on San Vicente is leaning bagels and handrolls. Same street name, same neighborhood, completely different personality, and enough distance between them that you cannot walk from one to the other on your lunch break.
The Boulevard in the Middle Hasn't Been Sitting Still Either
San Vicente proper, the strip everyone already associates with Baltaire, Katsuya, and Toscana, is doing its own quiet reinvention in the space between the two newer pockets.
At 11754 San Vicente, a stretch that had defeated three restaurant concepts in a row, including Planta, Kreation, and Pizzicotto, Neighborly opened April 2 with public service following April 11. It's a single dining room built around four separate chef menus: What's Gaby Cooking from Gaby Dalkin, Mini Kabob, Mixtape from Questlove, and Palermo Pizza Club from Frank Pinello. Down the block, Brentwood Gardens at 11677 San Vicente has continued turning what was once best known for a shuttered California Pizza Kitchen into an actual food destination, adding Cafe Landwer to a lineup that already includes Ospi and Sweetgreen, with Pérse still to come.
And the boulevard's after-dark character is about to shift too. The h.wood Group, the team behind Delilah and The Nice Guy, is developing Montana's at 11920 San Vicente, a members-club-style restaurant and lounge slated for early 2027. San Vicente has historically gone dark after dinner. That won't be true much longer.
What Hasn't Moved
For all the turnover, the two fixtures that actually organize a Brentwood week haven't changed at all. The Brentwood Certified Farmers Market still runs year round at 741 Gretna Green Way, Sunday mornings from 9 to 2, and it remains the one part of the neighborhood's rhythm that never needed a press release to keep people showing up.
The Brentwood Country Mart at 225 26th Street, open since November 1948, is still doing what it has always done, just with new faces in old storefronts. This summer it landed the first Los Angeles County store for Varley, the activewear brand's only other California locations being Marin Country Mart and Fashion Island in Newport Beach, alongside Orlebar Brown, the Chanel-owned swim label opening its fourth California shop. The Mart also keeps its own calendar running through September, with free outdoor movie nights on the courtyard lawn:
- September 4: Toy Story
- September 11: Finding Nemo
- September 18: Up
- September 25: a fourth title, TBA on the Mart's site
Why the Split Matters if You Live Here
If someone tells you Brentwood is having a restaurant moment this year, they're right, but they're describing one of three separate scenes without necessarily knowing it. The Barrington and San Vicente corner is a morning and lunch crowd, built around coffee, bagels, and handrolls. Brentwood Village, a mile south near Sunset, is shaping up as the neighborhood's evening and wine-bar pocket. And San Vicente Boulevard itself, the strip most people already know, is adding chef-driven food halls and, come 2027, an actual nightlife address.
Plan your week accordingly. If you're chasing a quick coffee before the farmers market, Barrington and San Vicente has you covered. If you want a longer dinner with a wine list, Brentwood Village is where the newer energy is building. Just don't expect to walk between them on the same outing.
If you're weighing what any of this means for property values or timing a move in this stretch of the Westside, that's a longer conversation, and it's the one Mitch Bassett has with Brentwood buyers and sellers every week. Reach out when you're ready to talk specifics.
