The Valley’s Top 20 Restaurants : Valley denizens are apparently willing to pay Westside prices to dine in fine establishments on this side of the hill.

To illustrate just how much Valley restaurants have improved in one short year, consider this: Last year, I could only come up with about 15 restaurants that I really deemed worthy of inclusion in a list of the top 20. This year, I spent a good deal of energy mulling over the deserving places I would have to exclude.

I’m not sure about the reasons for this sudden improvement, but I’ll gladly speculate. Perhaps the realization that San Fernando Valley diners would pay Westside prices to dine in such restaurants as Pinot, Posto and Terrazzo Toscana has raised the standard on this side of the hill. But I’m happier with the idea that people’s palates are simply getting more discriminating, and that a bad restaurant cannot survive in today’s market.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the intrepid L.A. restaurateurs who have opened branches in the Valley, among them East India Grill, Talesai and Daily Grill, all Top 20 inclusions. But we shouldn’t let ourselves get too puffed up, because there are still areas where we don’t have it all that good. We don’t have a single first-rate Chinese restaurant, for instance, or a modern, upscale restaurant in which to eat regional Mexican cuisine, such as Santa Monica’s Border Grill.

Again this year, the designated price categories reflect the price of a dinner for one person, and are as follows: inexpensive, less than $15; moderate, $15 to $30; expensive, more than $30.

1. Pinot

Owner Joachim Splichal and executive chef Octavio Becerra have created an upscale bistro to rival the best in Paris. Their menu resembles what you would find in chic Paris today: endive salad with Roquefort and walnuts, sumptuous duck confit , elegant fish preparations, beef tongue, indulgent home-style desserts. Prices are up-market, but more than reasonable for cooking at this level. The two dining rooms offer a choice between old comfort and terminally hip. At the suave mahogany bar, you can sip some of the best Armagnacs this side of Gascony.

12969 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. (818) 990-0500. Expensive.

2. Posto

Posto has evolved into a destination. Chef Luciano Pellegrini’s calling card is plentiful, rustic Italian comfort foods, a delightful departure for elegant owner Piero Selvaggio, the man responsible for high-end Italian dining in this city. Begin with frico and arancini -crisp chips made from Parmesan cheese and tender little rice balls with a golden outside crust. Terrific homemade sausages, wonderful beef brasato (stew) al Barolo and great, chewy risottos complement Pellegrini’s toothsome pastas and delicately sauced shellfish. The wine list is packed with patrician Italian reds at plebeian prices.

14928 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. (818) 784-4400. Expensive.

3. Duet

The creative and well-traveled Andre Guerrero has revamped the former Shaker Mountain Inn and turned it into a glorious place to dine. The main dining room is a breezy atrium paneled in blond wood, revealing an open kitchen where near-miracles occur. The appetizers are as delicious as they sound; fried chicken salad with barbecued pecans, griddled corn cakes with spicy grilled shrimp and risotto with king salmon. Main courses are eclectic and satisfying, everything from chicken adobo , the pride of Guerrero’s native Philippines, to Chinese-style sea scallops and a terrific hunk of grilled Colorado prime rib.

900 N. Central Ave., Glendale. (818) 240-0808. Expensive.

4. Saddle Peak Lodge

The latter-day version of Renoir’s “A Day in the Country” would be a two-income couple driving out to this rustic retreat for cocktails and dinner. The restaurant is a refurbished hunting lodge, a maze of little dining rooms on different levels. Chef Bruce Boyer’s attractive menu features game, fresh fish and ‘40s-style Continental specialties. Try roast venison served with a tangy sauce made from juniper berries; rack of lamb; pheasant; fresh trout, and a wide variety of other North American fish. The best tables for the evening meal are in the upstairs library room. Weekends at brunch, outside tables fill up with a vengeance. Reservations, especially on weekends, are essential.

419 Cold Canyon Road, Calabasas. (818) 222-3888 . Expensive.

5. Cinnabar

California food with an Oriental flair is how proprietor Alvin Simon describes chef Hisashi Yoshiara’s food. I call it superb. It’s not the Franco-Japanese food we’ve been conditioned to; Yoshiara uses no butter or cream in any of his reductions. Among his more appealing offerings are potato ravioli soup with mint, yellowtail millefeuille and baby lamb chops marinated with basil and garlic. There is a brand-new wine list, and half-portions are available. The clean, spare dining room is offset by the original bar from Chinatown’s Yee Mee Loo restaurant.

933 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. (818) 551-1155. Moderate to expensive.

6. Cha Cha Cha

Toribio Prado, the founding chef, is no longer part of the operation, but this colorful Caribbean dinner house is still big-time fun. Executive chef Martin Torres was trained by Prado, and prepares such dishes as ahi Caesar salad, seared mini-rack of lamb and Caribbean paella. Ambience is a color-spasmed Disney ride, dishes retain their outrageous names--mambo gumbo, crispy jerk pork and Carioca chicken--and desserts, among them a frozen ice cream confection made with pieces of Heath candy bar, remain among the Valley’s best. Pastry chef Joanne Phelan, incidentally, does double duty. She is also dessert maker for Selvaggio’s Posto.

17499 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 789-3600. Expensive.

7. Daily Grill

This is the second Daily Grill to open here in the past couple of years, and you still line up to eat here. It’s yet another Deco-inspired, upscale diner, with mirrors on the walls, butcher paper on every table. The can’t-miss menu is loaded with familiar favorites: steak tartare, Caesar salad, sandwiches such as beef dip, and desserts such as a flaky fruit cobbler made with peaches and blueberries. The house BLT on sourdough, crammed with bacon and juicy tomato, is still a world-class sandwich.

12050 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. (818) 769-6336. Moderate.

8. Dos Arbolitos

Dos Arbolitos is just a food stand with an enclosed area built around it, but I’m willing to call it a restaurant of national importance. The kitchen, run by a man known only as Chef Yayo, is a small space crowded with great yawing stewpots of boiling pork flanks, metal pans of deep-fried chicharrones , incredible stews such as posole , regional stars such as mole and more. And the tastes are without equal. Don’t miss costillitas, baby pork riblets in piquant sauce, or any of the $3 tortas , whole meals at giveaway prices.

16208 Parthenia St., North Hills. (818) 891-6661. Inexpensive.

9. East India Grill

The Valley’s hippest Indian restaurant is also its best. Encino’s East India Grill breaks the suburban Indian restaurant mold with postmodern design, subdued earth tones and a makeshift overhead canopy of billowy white cloth. Chef Mohammed Uddin is Bengali, and he relies on mustard seed oil, green coconut and tamarind, items unknown in north Indian restaurant kitchens. Aloo papri chat , spicy potato salad in a crisp flour shell, is a world-class snack. Most main dishes, tandoori cooked meats, curries, rice dishes called biryanis and vegetarian specialties come with colorful homemade chutneys and condiments.

18003 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 343-1838. Moderate.

10. Downtown Cakes and Company

Mitchell Frieder, a Ken Frank protege, runs this homey roadhouse (formerly called Cakes and Company), which is, by leaps and bounds, the Santa Clarita Valley’s No. 1 restaurant. The food here is best described as rustic California. Frieder’s brand-new menu features oeuvres such as spicy angel hair pasta with bacon, pepperoncini and tomatoes with just enough heat to make it wild, an unusual Jamaican jerk chicken with herbal spices from a turn-of-the-century cookbook, and a hearty Louisiana gumbo featuring Bruce Aidell’s intensely smoky andouille sausage. The fine breads and pastries are from Susan Frieder, Mitchell’s wife.

858 W. Lancaster Blvd., Lancaster. (805) 948-2253. Moderate to expensive.

11. Caribou

Caribou at Sportsmen’s Lodge may have an overambitious menu, but ambition need not be a grievous fault. Consulting chef Raimund Hofmeister has assembled a list of hip Americana: grilled Portobello mushrooms, fire-roasted peppers with goat cheese, game, homey desserts. The complex is a hotel and various function rooms sprawling over a large parcel on the northeast corner of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Ventura Boulevard; once inside, you’ll swear that you are in a mountain resort. Try pecan-crusted catfish, a delicious pan-fried filet with a rich crust, or the novel mesquite grilled buffalo steak, wrapped in Sonoma bacon and stuffed with poblano chilies.

12833 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. (818) 984-0202. Moderate to expensive.

12. Art’s

Art’s is still the Valley’s best deli, in spite of what any of the pretenders think. Owner Art Ginsburg is a deli legend right up there with Leo Steiner and Zero Mostel; it’s just that no one past Mulholland Drive knows it yet. Platters of smoked fish, pricey deli meats such as peppery, soft steamed pastrami and Jewish comfort foods from stuffed cabbage to chicken-in-the-pot still bring people down from the hills and out of the woodwork. The corned beef sandwich here is stacked halfway to the ceiling with soft, delicious meat. I grumble about the fact that it is overpriced, but usually not until I’m 10 minutes down the freeway.

12224 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. (818) 762-1221. Inexpensive to moderate.

13. Ueru-Ka-Mu

I like sushi as well as the next fellow, but I do get tired of what is essentially a simple snack being thought to represent a great cuisine. Sushi is merely an afterthought at this great little hole-in-the-wall Japanese sakaba (drinking bar), where most of the 100-odd dishes are classified as ippin , small dishes that sort of push you along to take another drink. Don’t miss ankimo, ebidango and wakaayu tempura , monkfish liver pate, shrimp balls and tiny batter-fried whitebait, respectively. Great soba-- handmade buckwheat noodles--too.

19596 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana. (818) 609-0993. Moderate.

14. Mistral

This friendly bistro is reliable, elegant and reasonably priced, with engaging fin de siecle decor such as dark wood walls and octagonal floor tiles. Chef Richard Flanagan puts out extensive daily specials based on traditional French pub foods: braised short ribs of veal, sweetbreads, even cassoulet during winter.

Come Fridays for Flanagan’s hearty bouillabaisse, chock full of lotte , John Dory and Canadian rock cod, not the strictly shellfish stew most local restaurants serve. I come for the beefy onion soup, thick New York steak and the delicate fruit tarts.

13422 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 981-6650. Moderate.

15. Talesai

The gallery-like Talesai is an offshoot of the successful original on Sunset Strip, and it oozes style, from the gray granite floor to the buttons on the jackets of the overtly modish staff. Cooking is upscale Thai.

The best things to try are hor mok , covered clay pots containing little treasures made from shrimp, crab meat, squid or scallops in a rich basil and coconut milk reduction, and Talesai lamb, crusty sliced lamb with a coriander crust. There is a fine wine list and an all-new menu full of hot new Thai dishes.

11744 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, (818) 753-1001. Moderate.

16. Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler, Texas Barbecue

Same menu, same decor, and same good barbecue, the Valley’s best. This wood-paneled, Western-style roadhouse, all of 15 tables, has been around since the late ‘60s, which qualifies it for protected status by Valley standards. The wood pit is always filled with hickory, oak or cherry; meats--soft brisket, tender chicken and a variety of others--are smoked a minimum of eight hours in it.

Spicy hot links and a sloppy pork sandwich are the two best lunch dishes. Wear your spurs.

8136 Sepulveda Blvd., Van Nuys. (818) 782-2480. Moderate.

17. Rubin’s Red Hots

I’ve always considered Pink’s the most overrated hot dog stand in Los Angeles, but Rubin’s is in a league of its own. Locate the place by spotting a 17-foot span of Chicago “El” track practically under the San Diego Freeway at Ventura Boulevard. Then indulge yourself with a plump, juicy Best’s Kosher Big Red, steamed, not grilled, on a poppy-seed and onion bun splotched with dill pickle, red onion, relish, mustard and a chili pepper. Mmmmm. No wonder the Cubs never win the pennant.

15322 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 905-6515. Inexpensive.

18. Terrazzo Toscana

This place gets a Top 20 nod on sheer style. It’s a sleek wood and glass dining room, the one bright star in a struggling Encino mall complex and a beautiful place to dine. The menu is composed of home-style Italian dishes, and you want to order them all: great spit-roasted leg of veal and lamb, chewy homemade pastas and a huge dessert table full of crusty fruit tarts and creamy cakes. Service is particularly professional, and the crowd, mostly Valley professionals, dresses to kill. Look for the restaurant’s new, family-style dinners.

17401 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 905-1641. Expensive.

19. Barcelona

Catalan Jose Maria Companys lavishes you with the foods of his native Costa Brava in this storefront grill, all ceramics, wine casks and blond wood. The specialty here is tapas --Spanish bar snacks served on tiny plates--and they’re great. You won’t be able to order sangria here, though; Barcelona has not yet obtained its license for beer and wine.

Try morcilla, blood sausage, chorizo, a spicy cousin to salami, marinated octopus and the tiny, meat-filled pastries known as empanadas. Companys also makes a variety of paellas out of such ingredients as sausage, lobster and various other seafoods, a wonderful chicken flamed over charcoal and a great brulee-style dessert called crema Catalana.

14054 Burbank Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 997-6604. Inexpensive to moderate.

20. Gourmet Grub

Mindy Lymperis sharpened her considerable cooking talent as personal chef for such celebrities as the Pointer Sisters, Dudley Moore and Barbra Streisand. At her unpretentious cafe, she specializes in recipes low in fat, sodium and cholesterol, many of which she developed for stars.

Lunchtime sandwiches such as Grub Club, a three-decker piled high with turkey breast, thick country bacon and carmelized onions, may not be on anyone’s diet plan. But goodies such as her flavorful Chinese chicken salad, great turkey meatloaf and Cajun blackened chicken can all be turned out minus oil, butter or salt.

16260 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 501-8051. Moderate.