Photograph by Jessica Boone

Having only one person taking orders in the dining room can lead to glacially slow passages in a meal, and the mod black-and-gray decor reminds you that you’re in a convention center hotel. Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant is not glitch free. Yet there is something thrilling about looking down at a tangle of freeways and towers from the dining room 24 stories above L.A. Live. Unlike Chinois on Main, the Santa Monica restaurant where the chef pioneered Sino-California cuisine, WP24 follows a more purist path, albeit with Puckian flourishes: This is big-ticket Chinese. The hint of sweetness in a chilled Bert Simon spätlese plays off the black vinegar and chili oil draping the pork belly dumplings. The sea bass—tender and pearly white after being baked whole in a salt crust—has a subtle power. Encased in a meringue shell, the ginger ice cream tastes brighter still when you look out onto the Staples Center’s klieg lights strafing the L.A. night.  » Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles // 900 West Olympic Boulevard downtown  // 213-743-8824 or wolfgangpuck.com