Cha Cha Cha

Casual Dining

Save Money: KCRW members automatically receive a 15-percent discount.

Save Time: You don't need to make reservations during the week unless your party consists of seven or more. But you do need to make reservations for Friday and Saturday evenings.

This "funky", "colorful" "Silver Lake icon" still satisfies that "Caribbean urge" after 27 years with "tasty" platters of "spicy" jerk chicken and "delish" sangria in a pleasantly "tacky" setting; some bemoan the "so-so service", but "the value is good" – it's so "filling", you "won't be able to cha cha cha out the door."

This tiny restaurant in a not-too-inviting section of East Hollywood was the rage of the artist community (notably David Hockney) when it first opened and made the reputation of chef Toribio Prado. While he’s gone on to other pursuits, his family and friends still supervise the cuisine (as they do in countless restaurants all over town --- over 14 relatives working in kitchens certainly make...

Cha Cha Cha serves the West Coast's best Caribbean food in a fun and funky space on the seedy fringe of Downtown. The restaurant is a festival of flavors and colors. It's impossible to feel down when you're part of this eclectic hodgepodge of pulsating Caribbean music, wild decor, and kaleidoscopic clutter; still, the intimate dining rooms cater to lively romantics, not the obnoxious types....

Trippy Tiki snack shack surrounds happy young eaters blitzed on sangria. Everybody—we say everybody—loves it, even if they never na-na-na. Puff la-la-la before eating tangy jerk chicken, tamales, empanadas, and the famous sauteed shrimp in a folksy Caribbean triple-roomed environment! There's a party in the Anaya's 20-year old place and everyone is invited, including Mayor Tony, who we met over...

Toribio Prado and Mario Tamayo opened the original Cha Cha Cha in Silverlake in 1986. The restaurant's Caribbean food and festive atmosphere was inspired by their travels and became a quick success. A few months later, well-known food critic for the Los Angeles Times, Ruth Reichl, enthusiastically reviewed the restaurant and the rest, as they say, is history. Cha Cha Cha has always been a...