Every town needs one genuine special-occasion restaurant, and in Burbank that room is Palma. Since opening on East Palm Avenue, it has staked out territory the neighborhood didn't quite have — a true fine-dining steak and seafood house with an Italian heart, the kind of place you book for an anniversary, a closed deal, or simply a Saturday when a burger won't do.
The kitchen belongs to chef José Martinez, who describes his food as simple and balanced while doing anything but simple things with it. His world pulls from Italy and beyond: house-baked focaccia and hand-rolled pastas share the menu with dry-aged steaks and a glittering raw bar. The result is a menu that reads long and indulgent, built for grazing across courses and lingering over wine.
Start at the raw bar. The fresh seafood tower — oysters, bay scallops, shrimp, hamachi, and lobster piled on ice, salmon crudo added to the large — is the dish the whole room turns to watch arrive, and there's Siberian sturgeon caviar with blini for the full flourish. From there the steaks take over: filet and bone-in New York give way to the big-format cuts, an Australian Wagyu New York, a Miyazaki A5, and a 32 oz Wagyu tomahawk meant to be carved and shared. For a true event, the whole suckling pig, brined 48 hours and slow-roasted in the brick oven, can be pre-ordered.
What keeps Palma from feeling like a stuffy chophouse is the Italian side and the theater. Pappardelle with braised oxtail ragù, tonnarelli with lobster, truffle risotto, and wood-fired pizzas round out the table, and the tableside pasta wheel — noodles tossed inside a whole wheel of cheese, truffle optional — is pure, joyful spectacle. A whole branzino deboned at the table carries the same sense of occasion.
The room matches the food: warm, brass-accented, and deliberately lively, dressed up but never hushed. Palma runs dinner-only Tuesday through Sunday, with the kitchen going late into Friday and Saturday nights, and valet out front to make the evening easy. It's the rare Burbank restaurant where the whole point is to slow down, order too much, and make a night of it — come hungry, bring people, and let the tower and the tomahawk do the talking.
