Savor Scout › Cities › California › Santa Monica, CA
Where to eat in Santa Monica, CA
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A few places to eat in Santa Monica
- Solidarity Polish · under 0.1 miles
1414 Lincoln Blvd, Santa Monica - Santa Monica Yacht Club Seafood · 0.1 miles
620 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica - Fritto Misto Italian · 0.1 miles
620 Santa Monica Blvd #A, Santa Monica - Native Restaurant American · 0.1 miles
620 Santa Monica Blvd Ste A, Santa Monica - Pono Burger Burger · 0.1 miles
829 Broadway, Santa Monica
The closest few by distance from central Santa Monica, not a ranking — local places listed ahead of chains. Listings from Overture Maps open data (September 2026); hours and openings change, so check before you go. Want one picked for what you're craving instead? Ask Savor Scout in Santa Monica.
The food scene in Santa Monica
Open listings put 704 places to eat within 2 miles of central Santa Monica, 206 within a ten-minute walk (half a mile). The most common: Mexican (51), American (47) and Italian (41). 23 are fast-food counters; the rest are sit-down restaurants, cafés, bakeries and takeaway spots.
What stands out in Santa Monica is French, vegan and salad — types that are listed here at 5 to 7 times the national rate.
By type of food — tap one for what to order and how to spot a good one:
Mexican 51 American 47 Coffee 43 Italian 41 Pizza 30 Burgers 26 Sushi 25 Bakery 24 Breakfast & brunch 24 Seafood 19
The food in Santa Monica
Santa Monica does not have infinite options, and that brings its own problem: you have been to most of them, and picking again is somehow still hard.
Savor Scout picks one restaurant in Santa Monica and tells you why it picked it. Say what you're craving and it reads menus and reviews for that specific dish, rather than sorting places by overall star rating. Free, runs in the browser, and one search needs no account.
Eating out in Santa Monica
Santa Monica has a population of about 92,472. Somewhere this size rewards knowing which places are actually worth the trip. Savor Scout searches up to 35 miles around Santa Monica, so places just outside the city are still on the table when they are worth the drive.
How well supplied is Santa Monica?
Santa Monica sits in Los Angeles County, where the Census counts 8,227 full-service restaurants, 9,336 limited-service places, 3,530 cafés and snack bars and 723 bars — 21,816 places to eat or drink in all. Santa Monica makes up about 1% of the county's population.
That is 22 per 10,000 residents, comfortably above the national median of 19.4. Enough range that the deciding takes longer than the eating. Counter service edges out sit-down, which is the national norm.
Those county figures also cover Los Angeles, Long Beach, Glendale, Santa Clarita, Lancaster, Palmdale, Pomona, Torrance and 38 more, all within Savor Scout's search radius from Santa Monica.
County-level counts from the US Census (2022) — how we got these numbers.
What are you craving in Santa Monica?
- tacos in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- pizza in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- sushi in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- burgers in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- ramen in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- wings in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- chinese food in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- italian food in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- thai food in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- mexican food in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- barbecue in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- seafood in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- brunch in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- indian food in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- sandwiches in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
- noodles in Santa Monica — what separates a good one from an average one
Near Santa Monica
- Culver City, CA — about 5 miles away
- Inglewood, CA — about 9 miles away
- Hawthorne, CA — about 11 miles away
- Redondo Beach, CA — about 13 miles away
- Gardena, CA — about 14 miles away
- Los Angeles, CA — about 14 miles away
Campuses in and near Santa Monica
Each has its own page: what is within walking distance and a few places to start with.
- Santa Monica College
- University of California-Los Angeles
- Loyola Marymount University
- West Los Angeles College
- Los Angeles Valley College
- University of Southern California
- Los Angeles City College
- Los Angeles Pierce College
How this differs from Google Maps and Yelp
Maps and Yelp are directories: they rank everything nearby and leave the deciding to you. Savor Scout makes the call and shows its reasoning — the match score, what it beat, and the evidence behind the pick. The underlying place data comes from the same public sources, so the difference is the selection, not the data.
Guides
- What to eat when… — 30 guides by situation, from a first date to a hangover to a group of twelve.
- Food guides — what separates a good taco, ramen or pizza from an average one.
- Eating out with a restriction — allergies, halal, kosher, vegan and more.
- Near a campus? — food around 637 US universities.