Jilli, from the Chimmelier team, serves fried chicken and other drinking food.

New restaurants are adding excitement to the Los Angeles dining scene with exuberant, free-spirited cooking. Here are three spots that are creating their own sunshine.

In Los Angeles, there is Funke pasta and there is funky pasta. And sometimes you want to walk into a dimly lit and moody Koreatown bar, with hip-hop blasting and wine and makgeolli flowing, and order the latter.

Enter Jilli, a new hot spot that encourages you to “drink responsibly reckless” while you eat bangers like a creamy, spicy, delightfully funky rigatoni alla kimchi vodka with difference-making bacon bits. Maybe the most remarkable thing about this habit-forming dish is that chef Dong Hyuk Lee says he had never tried rigatoni with spicy vodka sauce before he came up with this idea. His goal was simply to create a different version of kimchi pasta.

Jilli is a spinoff of new-school Korean fried chicken spot Chimmelier, which has outposts in Westlake and at the Sunday Smorgasburg food market. A bigger location of Chimmelier in the Melrose Arts District is also underway. Therefore, Jilli serves Chimmelier fried chicken along with other favorites like hearty shrimp toast and comforting curry chicken katsu. It’s the kind of food that will make you crave for more makgeolli.

Chilled seafood sets an extravagant beginning for a meal at Steak48.

Steak 48, an upscale restaurant from steakhouse gurus Jeffrey and Michael Mastro, recently celebrated its first anniversary in Beverly Hills. It attracts a stylish crowd for extravagant meals that can feature Florida stone crab claws, Snake River Farms rib-eye cap and sides filled with Alaskan king crab.

The 48 Caesar is a modern twist with a warm poached egg at a restaurant that serves Maine lobster in the style of escargot and chicken-fried lobster tails. A lot of the food here is entertaining in the right ways. But this is also a great place for a traditional chilled-seafood platter brimming with colossal shrimp and fresh oysters. With a 6,000-plus-bottle wine collection, an extensive Scotch list, and TVs at the bar for catching up with a sporting event, this steakhouse has got it all while you savor some Miyazaki A5 wagyu.

ZoZo is located inside home-decor shop Maison Midi.

“It’s not the time for fine dining,” iconic chef John Sedlar says.

So when prolific restaurateur Bill Chait told Sedlar he had an idea for a casual, convivial restaurant in the middle of the Maison Midi home-decor store, the chef who changed the Los Angeles dining scene with Rivera decided it was time for one more LA adventure.

The eclectic Zozo focuses on the “cuisine of the sun,” and this description is on the menu: “Native American, French and Hispanic flavors with world accents.”

Hot Portobello mushroom with melting cheese tucked in a corn tortilla makes an excellent starter. The perfectly cooked duck confit is served on a vibrant red plate featuring a lucha libre wrestler. The main dishes, styled for communal dining, are served on large trays, and there might be a small, tastefully presented replica of L’Air – a famous nude sculpture by Aristide Maillol, displayed at the Getty museum. Ordering the turkey albondigas gives you the chance to enjoy the flavoursome sauce with an Italian, uniquely designed Gio Ponti spoon. If you fancy something sweet, try the Zapotec mole ice cream. You will also find Rivera’s famous barbacoa cocktail here at Zozo – a unique blend of mezcal, poblano, chipotle and beef jerky, proving that even casual dining in Los Angeles doesn’t miss out on details.