Walk east from Balboa on a Sunday morning in July and the block reads differently than it did two summers ago. A line forms outside a Japanese bakery that opened last week. Two doors down, a Mediterranean seafood room from a Tel Aviv group has been full since March. The stretch of Ventura Boulevard between roughly 16000 and 18100 has quietly stopped being the place valley residents drove through on the way to Sherman Oaks.
For anyone who already lives in Encino, the shift is worth naming, because it changes the shape of the weekend.
The stretch that finally filled in
For years the running joke among residents west of Sepulveda was that the good tables were somewhere else. A 2017 Our Ventura Blvd piece described valley dwellers as having "put up with a serious lack of great restaurants for decades" before a cluster of new eateries began arriving on the boulevard. That description now reads like a period piece. Between spring 2026 and this month, two of the most-anticipated openings in the greater LA restaurant press landed inside a fifteen-minute walk of one another, and both chose Encino over the more obvious Sherman Oaks and Studio City corridors.
That is the story worth telling. Not that Encino has restaurants. That the openings are choosing this specific stretch of boulevard, and choosing it in a cluster.
What actually opened this year
Two arrivals matter most for how the corridor now functions.
Popular took the room at 18047 Ventura Blvd in March 2026. It is the seventh concept from the Tel Aviv Restaurant Group, and the menu is led by Executive Chef Dor Priezler around Mediterranean fusion with a seafood-forward hand. The space runs about 4,000 square feet with a bar, a patio, and a dining room built for a long dinner rather than a quick pass-through. Standout starters include a fish cigar of branzino, herbs, chili, and lemon zest served with sumac yogurt, and a savory baklava filled with cheese, honey syrup, and sesame. Hours skew late for the valley, running to 11 p.m. most nights and midnight on Saturdays.
Mikan bakery & more opened at 17237 Ventura Blvd on July 3, 2026, roughly a mile west. It is the first bakery from JINYA Holdings, the group behind the JINYA Ramen Bar chain, and the name comes from the Japanese word for mandarin orange. Founder Tomo Takahashi recruited baker Aya Asaumi directly from Japan and built the opening menu in collaboration with Boulangerie MAISON NOBU, a Tokyo bakery known for artisan bread. The counter offers Japanese curry bread, cube-shaped shokupan, shio pan, egg and fruit sandos, and matcha and hojicha drinks made with tea from Uji, Kyoto. The house signature is a Mikan Matcha Latte built on homemade mandarin purée. Doors open at 7 a.m., which matters if the goal is bread before the crowd.
The two openings sit at opposite ends of the day. That is the point. A morning stop at Mikan and a late dinner at Popular now bracket a Saturday without leaving a mile of boulevard.
| Opening | Address | Debut | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Popular | 18047 Ventura Blvd | March 2026 | Mediterranean fusion, seafood, cocktails |
| Mikan bakery & more | 17237 Ventura Blvd | July 3, 2026 | Japanese bakery, matcha, citrus drinks |
The Sunday anchor most residents already have
The ONEgeneration Encino Farmers Market runs every Sunday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 17400 Victory Blvd on the Sepulveda Basin side. It is not new. It is the reason a lot of the new arrivals chose this stretch in the first place, because it delivers roughly thirty farmers, more than twenty-five food vendors, and a standing crowd of residents already in the habit of eating locally on a Sunday morning.
The seasonal produce list is worth reading before you go. Summer at the market means raspberries, stone fruit, grapes, figs, melons, peppers, corn, eggplant, and summer squash. The prepared-food side runs fish tacos, gourmet tamales, Chinese dumplings, and two bakeries. A percentage of every dollar spent supports ONEgeneration's senior services, which is the sort of civic detail that gives the market its texture as a community institution rather than a food event.
A smaller weekly, Hello Farmer, sets up at 16218 Ventura Blvd on Saturdays for residents who prefer to stay on the boulevard itself. Between the two, most weeks now offer a market on both weekend mornings.
The names that were already worth the walk
The new openings work because they land inside an existing bench of restaurants that valley diners have been quietly guarding for years. Three names anchor that bench.
Anajak Thai at 14704 Ventura Blvd has been on the boulevard for 44 years, and chef Justin Pichetrungsi's James Beard Award pulled a national spotlight onto a room his father originally opened as a neighborhood bistro. The à la carte service is one axis. Thai Taco Tuesday, the convivial single-night format the kitchen runs weekly, is the other. Reservations at [email protected] or 818-501-4201 book up early in the week.
Claudine Kitchen & Bakeshop is the all-day brunch café residents send visitors to when the visitor asks where locals actually eat. Chefs Anthony and Lea run the kitchen around scratch breakfast, lunch, and pastry. It is the closest thing the corridor has to a European neighborhood café that never really packs up.
Davenport's at 16120 Ventura Blvd is the New York style meat-and-seafood room co-owned by chef Nigel Davenport, whose previous work was as corporate executive chef for Larsen's Steakhouse. Twin marble bars, pressed tin ceilings, and upholstered walls tuned for sound absorption. It is one of the few rooms on the boulevard that will comfortably hold a large celebratory table.
Just over the Encino line into Sherman Oaks, Petit Trois Le Valley, the second outpost of chef Ludo Lefebvre's bistro, has been the fallback fine-dining French option since 2018 for residents who want white tablecloths without crossing the hill. It is worth knowing when Popular is fully booked and dinner still has to happen.
A weekend template
For residents already living in the neighborhood, the practical value of the new arrivals is that a full Saturday and Sunday can now be built inside one square mile of boulevard.
- Saturday, 8:30 a.m. Mikan bakery & more for a shio pan, a curry bread, and a Mikan Matcha Latte before the counter fills up around 10.
- Saturday afternoon. Hello Farmer market at 16218 Ventura Blvd for the produce and prepared-food browse.
- Saturday, 7 p.m. Popular for the fish cigar and a seat at the bar. Later than most valley rooms, which means an actual dinner-hour dinner rather than a 5:45 reservation.
- Sunday, 9 a.m. ONEgeneration Farmers Market at 17400 Victory Blvd for the week's produce. Bring cash for the vendors that do not take cards.
- Sunday brunch. Claudine, if the market did not resolve the pastry question.
- Sunday night, if the house has guests. Anajak for Thai Taco Tuesday if the visit runs into the week, or Davenport's for a larger table.
Two years ago that itinerary required at least two crossings to Sherman Oaks and one drive to the westside. This summer it does not.
What the cluster suggests
The arrivals worth watching are not the individual restaurants. It is the pattern. When Tel Aviv Restaurant Group placed its seventh concept here, and JINYA Holdings chose Encino for its first bakery venture, both operators were making the same read: that the residential base along this stretch of Ventura Boulevard is deep enough, and consistent enough on weekend traffic, to carry a restaurant that would previously have opened one exit east. That read is worth knowing whether the reason for reading it is the dinner reservation or the long look at the neighborhood you already own a piece of.
For residents, the near-term result is smaller and more useful. A better Saturday morning. A dinner room that runs past 10. A bakery counter open at 7 a.m. daily. The kind of corridor texture that makes a neighborhood feel like it is compounding rather than holding steady.
If a look at the boulevard has you thinking about what the shift means for the value of your Encino home, Landon Realty Group works this micro-market daily and can pair a certified-appraiser read on your property with the neighborhood context behind it. Schedule a valuation and strategy session when you are ready to talk.
