Seline is an award-winning tasting-menu restaurant on Main Street in Santa Monica. The chef, Dave Beran, who also runs Pasjoli, his French bistro down the block, just won the 2026 James Beard Award for Best Chef in California.
The tasting menu works its way through 14–17 courses, usually paired with a cute little spiel about how each one came to be.
Seline was featured as one of The Infatuation's Best New Restaurants of 2025 and caught my eye as one of the more interesting options for a foodie experience that leans into creative, quality food rather than esoteric molecular gastronomy swings like a fig leaf with essence of chrysanthemum.
They recommend two and a half hours for the standard tasting menu and three and a half for the extended menu, so pack your conversation-topic war chest and settle in for a feast.
Details:
Location: 3110 Main Street, Suite 132, Santa Monica
When: Tuesday–Thursday from 6 PM; Friday–Saturday from 5:30 PM
Tasting menu: $325 base price per person before tax, beverages, and tip; 14–17 courses over 2.5 hours. $465 per person for the extended menu; 24–27 courses over 3.5 hours
Optional pairings: $225 wine or $165 nonalcoholic per person
All-in: Plan on roughly $700 per person with the wine pairing, tax, and tip
Booking: Reserve through Seline's website
Dietary restrictions: The standard menu can accommodate some restrictions with at least 48 hours' notice. The extended menu can't accommodate restrictions
Added value: I haven't been to Seline yet, but I took my dad to Beran's other restaurant, Pasjoli, for his birthday a few years ago, and it was outstanding. My dad is English, obsessed with French food, and hard to impress. Being effusively positive about something goes against the very fiber of his being. He came away impressed, which is about as strong an endorsement as we're going to get, so I'm very curious to see what Beran does with a full tasting menu.