101

RESTAURANTS
WE LOVE

DECEMBER 2018
 HOW MANY HAVE YOU BEEN TO?
❏ 189 by Dominique Ansel ❏ The Exchange ❏ Lucques ❏ République
❏ A.O.C. ❏ Felix ❏ Lukshon ❏ Rosaliné
❏ Adana ❏ Freedman’s ❏ Ma’am Sir ❏ Rossoblu
❏ Angelini Osteria ❏ Gjelina ❏ Majordomo ❏ Rustic Canyon
❏ APL ❏ Gjusta ❏ Manhattan Beach Post ❏ Sapp Coffee Shop
❏ Asanebo ❏ Grand Central Market ❏ Marché Moderne ❏ Scratch Bar & Kitchen
❏ Badmaash ❏ Guelaguetza ❏ Mariscos Jalisco ❏ Sea Harbour
❏ Bavel ❏ Guerrilla Tacos ❏ Mayura ❏ Shibumi
❏ Bestia ❏ Guisados ❏ Meals by Genet ❏ Shiki
❏ Brodard Chateau ❏ Gwen ❏ Mélisse ❏ Shunji
❏ Broken Spanish ❏ The Hearth & Hound ❏ Mozzaplex ❏ Sichuan Impression
❏ Carnitas El Momo ❏ Hippo ❏ n/naka ❏ Soban
❏ Cassia ❏ Howlin’ Ray’s ❏ Native ❏ Somni / The Bazaar
❏ Centenoplex ❏ Jitlada ❏ Night + Market ❏ Sonoratown
❏ Chengdu Taste ❏ Jon & Vinny’s ❏ NoMad Los Angeles ❏ Sotto
❏ Chichen Itza / Holbox ❏ Kali ❏ Odys + Penelope ❏ Spago
❏ Chong Qing Special ❏ Kato ❏ Officine Brera ❏ Sqirl
Noodles ❏ Killer Noodle ❏ Osawa ❏ Sun Nong Dan
❏ Church & State ❏ Kismet ❏ Otium ❏ Taco María
❏ Colonia Publica ❏ Kogi BBQ ❏ Park’s BBQ ❏ Triniti
❏ Coni’Seafood ❏ La Casita Mexicana ❏ Petit Trois ❏ Trois Mec
❏ Connie & Ted’s ❏ Langer’s Delicatessen ❏ Porridge + Puffs ❏ Tsubaki
❏ Cut ❏ Lasa ❏ Post & Beam ❏ Tsujita
❏ Destroyer ❏ Le Comptoir ❏ Providence ❏ Vespertine
❏ Dialogue ❏ Little Sister ❏Q
❏ El Coraloense ❏ Longo Seafood ❏ Redbird

ON THE COVER: Dialogue, photo by Mariah Tauger. Above, from left: Gjusta, photo by
Ashley Randall; Post & Beam, photo by Kirk McKoy; Bavel, photo by Mariah Tauger

2 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 3

©2018 IMPORTED BY BIRRA PERONI INTERNAZIONALE, WASHINGTON, DC

 In this Wild West,
there’s only one rule:
There are no rules
Fusion, fission, deconstruction, combustion. Diners
around L.A. are game to discover the next frontier, with
or without neighborhood, cultural or stylistic borders.
By Jenn Harris
L
os Angeles is a place of possibility:
where immigrants strive to offer a
taste of home; where chefs endeavor
to express themselves in myriad and
inventive ways; where intrepid diners fear
nothing in their search for something great
to eat.
Going into 2019, it seems as if the ethos of
eating in L.A. is this: There are no rules. Try
anything and everything. Figure out what it
all means later.
These are sentiments our late restaurant
critic, Jonathan Gold, championed time and
time again in his restaurant reviews and in
the best-restaurants lists that he produced
for this paper. The Los Angeles area is a far
better place to eat because of him, and will
continue to be for many years to come.
The majority of this year’s restaurant list
was chosen by me and food writers Andrea
Chang and Amy Scattergood. As we tackled
the enormous task of selecting only 101
restaurants, we kept the notion of possibility
in mind. Which chefs are doing something
Clockwise from top: Connie and Ted’s in West Hollywood; Thai iced tea and coffee at Sapp Coffee Shop; enchiladas from La Casita
Mexicana; chef Gary Menes of Le Comptoir; sesame tofu at Asanebo; and the chef’s special sushi plate at Osawa.
Photographs by, clockwise from top: Ricardo DeAratanha, Christina House, Maria Alejandra Cardona, Mariah Tauger, Wally
Skalij, Ricardo DeAratanha, and Gina Ferazzi.
4 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger
truly new? Who is creating the dishes we
crave as soon as we’ve finished them? Who is
pushing dining forward, and who is keeping
us rooted in our past? And how do we
answer these questions without Jonathan?
Using last year’s list — his last — as a
guide, we tried to introduce the new and fill
in the gaps where appropriate to reflect the
area as a whole. Without a restaurant critic,
we didn’t feel it was right to rank the list, so
we present it here in alphabetical order. To
incorporate Jonathan’s most recent reviews,
15 spots were awarded to significant
restaurants he wrote about in the 10 months
before his death, that we knew he
particularly admired. Look out for the
Jonathan Gold silhouette on these first-time
entrants.
As a bonus, we’ve added 10 restaurants to
what we are calling the Classics list. These
are the types of essential places you take
out-of-towners because they are emblematic
of the L.A. area’s history, diversity and
seemingly limitless possibility.
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 5

ADANA: This Glendale restaurant’s chef, Edward Khechemyan, draws inspiration for his
extensive menu from Armenian, Iranian, Turkish and Georgian cuisines. Above, appetizers.
A.O.C.
When a small fire closed A.O.C. not too long
ago, we held our breath — and our forks. And
then the wine bar reopened, as refreshed as
we were, and the procession of rillettes,
roasted vegetables, fennel-stuffed quail and
escarole salads began again, a quiet engine of
well-being. A.O.C. has reinvented itself a few
times since it opened in 2002, changing ad-
dresses, adding a patio and more trees, like a
secret arboretum, but its essence has re-
mained. It’s an oasis of vaguely Mediterra-
nean food that has always celebrated local
produce and excellent wine, a place where
you could eat as well by yourself as with a
crowd. As the years went by and chef Suzanne
Goin and sommelier Caroline Styne racked up
awards, the cocktails have gotten better and
the seafood has gotten more sustainable,
while the charcuterie boards, roast chicken
and bacon-stuffed dates have stayed blissfully
constant. While the duo’s restaurant Lucques
is the place you go for Sunday Suppers, A.O.C.
feels more like a sit-down party, where you
can match wines by the glass with whatever
Goin is making. Don’t forget to order the
vintner’s plate — and the focaccia. — A.S.
8700 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (310) 859-9859,
aocwinebar.com. Full bar. Valet parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$$
6 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times
Adana
A wave of modern Middle Eastern cooking
has recently taken root in Los Angeles, so now
it’s possible to find foie gras halvah with black
sesame or something called “hummus bling
bling” — creamy chickpea spread enhanced
with brown butter and pickled raisins — on
trendy restaurant menus. The reinventions
are great, the new restaurants deserving of the
hype, but it can all feel like a bit of a scene
when you just want dinner. On those nights,
escape to Adana, a mid-priced 21-year-old
Middle Eastern restaurant on a deserted
stretch in Glendale. Owned by chef Edward
Khechemyan, Adana has an expansive menu
that incorporates Armenian, Iranian, Turkish
and Georgian influences. There are three
eggplant dips and a cheese platter with a
delightfully ropy, curd-like cheese; it comes
with an assortment of greens — basil, mint,
peppers and cucumbers — that Khechemyan
advises should be used to wrap the cheese
“like a little sandwich.” Kebabs are fragrantly
spiced, served with a gargantuan mound of
saffron-tinged rice on a plate the size of a
steering wheel; the chicken and salmon in
particular are splendid. — A.C.
6918 San Fernando Road, Glendale, (818)
843-6237, adanamenu.com. No alcohol. Lot
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$
189 by
Dominique Ansel
Pastry chefs bring a chemist’s preci-
sion to the savory kitchen but also a
willingness to experiment with
form. So it is no surprise that at 189 by Domi-
nique Ansel, a big, airy space looking out over
the Grove’s shoppers-filled main street, little
is quite what it seems. Milk bread, a construc-
tion of soft bread cubes dusted with cotija
cheese and filled with puréed corn, somehow
tastes like the best street corner elote in East
L.A. “Avocado toast” at the downstairs bakery
is a trompe l’oeil confection of avocado ice
cream, frozen ricotta and shortbread. If you
read food magazines, you know about Ansel.
He’s the inventor of the Cronut, the Franken-
steinian love child of a croissant and a dough-
nut whose limited daily run inspired endless
early morning queues, a New York tradition
he has imported to L.A. It’s easy to be happy
at 189. Cabbage soup is almost exactly what
you hope for when you order French onion
soup, down to the boatload of melted cheese.
Roasted game hen, with garlic-infused sticky
rice and marinated scallion slivers, is a rotis-
serie-cooked take on the Korean soup samgye
tang. Right on cue, the server shows up with
shot glasses of strong chicken broth to sip Photographs by GENARO MOLINA / Los Angeles Times
along with the bird. — J.G.
Adam Perry Lang’s steakhouse on Vine Street in Hollywood is serious about beef — and about those “felony knives” that you’d best leave behind.
189 the Grove Drive, Los Angeles, (323) 602-
0096, dominiqueansella.com. Full bar. Validated
garage parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
APL
Angelini Osteria After years of teasing us by doling out his
barbecue from a portable smoker in Jimmy
Kimmel’s backlot, Adam Perry Lang finally
How does Gino Angelini do it? Because
opened an actual restaurant, a swank steak-
restaurants come and go, yet somehow his
house in Hollywood. This is the kind of
charmingly cramped trattoria continues to be
temple to beef where it seems fitting that
full just about every night. That the 17-year-
Kimmel, an investor, would drop by; where
old Angelini Osteria has stood the test of time,
the front door opens to actual sidewalk stars;
becoming for many people the go-to Italian
where there’s an aging room and a man cave
restaurant in a city with no shortage of them,
downstairs; and where the steak knives, made
is a testament to its lively atmosphere, the
by Perry Lang himself, are called “felony
servers with their heavy Italian accents and
knives” because stealing the $950.01 cutlery is
the rustic dishes that are comforting without
a felony. The chef, who cooked for Daniel
feeling dated — this is food you pine for after
Boulud and Guy Savoy before swapping his
you’ve been away from it for too long. Take
toque for a ball cap, has paired his tomahawk
the famous green lasagna: sheets of spinach
chops and 100-day-aged rib-eyes with old-
pasta are interspersed between layers of
school sides that wouldn’t be out of place in a
besciamella sauce and a ragù of beef and veal, a
Paris bistro — small tureens of creamed spin-
heap of fried jewel-toned spinach strewn on
ach and whipped potatoes, plus the kind of
top like crisp leaves on a sidewalk square. It’s
Your meaty main event at APL could sauces that would make Carême happy. And if
not overly fancy per se, but it’s special. The
be a skirt steak, above, doused with the road to excess isn’t well-paved enough,
same is true for so many other dishes: spicy
gribenes gravy, or the rib-eye, at there’s a wedge salad to end all wedge salads.
bombolotti pasta with guanciale and pecorino,
right. To accompany, you might The size of a Nerf football and strewn with
roasted veal bone marrow, a whole salt-
choose old-school sides such as blue cheese dressing, it’s draped with a mas-
crusted branzino filleted table-side. We intro-
creamed spinach and whipped sive slab of house-cured bacon that looks as
duced readers to the osteria in 2001 with a
potatoes. Even the salads are illegal as one of those knives. — A.S.
review headlined, “Angelini Osteria a Home
for Italian Food.” So many years later, this excessive — try the wedge.
1680 Vine St., Los Angeles, (323) 416-1280,
enduring place still feels like home. — A.C. aplrestaurant.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$
7313 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 297-
0070, angeliniosteria.com. Beer and wine. Valet
or street parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 7
 Photographs by RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times Photographs by RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

Asanebo Badmaash
Set in a strip mall on one of the most sushi- When chef Pawan Mahendro and his sons
dense streets in America, the venerable Nakul and Arjun opened the original Bad-
Asanebo continues to be the star of Ventura maash in downtown L.A. in 2013, the restau-
Boulevard. The Studio City restaurant was rant seemed more like a pub than an Indian
opened in 1991 by the Nakao brothers, Tetsuya restaurant, maybe because of the chili cheese
and Shunji, who along with Nobu Matsuhisa naan and the giant Warholian portraits of
were the original chefs at Matsuhisa in Bever- Gandhi in Ray-Bans. The Mahendros’ menu
ly Hills; nearly three decades later, the trio evolved, the butter chicken reached a level of
are still among the most successful sushi profundity, and then the trio opened a second
masters in town. Shunji now runs his own location on Fairfax. The menu is nearly iden-
namesake place in West L.A., but you can tical to the downtown spot, but somehow the
regularly find Tetsuya behind the counter at cooking is even better, as if rebooting the
the cheerful Asanebo. Sushi restaurants some- dishes across town put them into clearer
times take a hard-line approach with their focus. The chili cheese naan is still there, as is
customers — no rolls, no tempura, and don’t the chicken tikka poutine — the Mahendro
even think about asking for spicy tuna — but family came to Los Angeles from India via
Asanebo tries its hardest to please everyone, Toronto — and the brothers have added a
with an exhaustive multi-page menu. The best podcast and a recurrent gig at Coachella to
play, of course, is to pick one of three levels of their repertoire. But this is one of the best
omakase for $95, $140 or $240. But if you still Indian restaurants in town, a place where you
want a California roll afterward, they’ve got can have fun and find terrifically balanced,
you. — A.C. beautifully torqued food. That you can get
your plate of Goan pork curry across the
11941 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, (818) 760-3348, street from Canter’s Deli seems utterly fitting.
asanebo-restaurant.com. Beer, wine and sake.
— A.S.
Valet and street parking. Credit cards ac-
cepted. $$$ 418 1/2 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (213)
281-5185, badmaashla.com. Also at 108 W. 2nd
Sushi chef Tetsuya Nakao, center at top, keeps the Asanebo atmosphere friendly. His menu, St., Los Angeles, (213) 221-7466. Beer and wine. The Mahendro family’s Fairfax Avenue location, top, continues the evolution of the menu that
including the bar snack of fish bones above, is wide-ranging; it challenges and accommodates. Credit cards accepted. $$ began in downtown L.A. Indian pickles (gharwalla achaar), above, are a small-plate pleasure.

8 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 9


LOS ANGELES, CA- June 8, 2018: From
Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger
LOS ANGELES, CA- June 8, 2018: From
Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger
Photographs by Mariah Tauger
Clockwise, from top left: a strawberry sumac
and sweet cheese pastry with pistachio ice
cream; the patio of Ori Menashe and
Genevieve Gergis’ newest restaurant, a
follow-up to Bestia; malawach and its BFFs;
Menashe and Gergis; magnificent hummus;
a cocktail; and lamb neck shawarma.
10 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
BAVEL
The overwhelming popularity of
Bavel may have a lot to do with its
grilled octopus or with Genevieve
Gergis’ date crème brûlée. But I’m guessing
it’s the hummus that keeps Ori Menashe up at
night. You can’t fake hummus. And Menashe’s
hummus is magnificent, a ring of silky, airy
purée surrounding chunkier, denser stuff; a
green rivulet of olive oil; smears of spicy,
smoky harissa; and green puréed herbs. You
scrape hot pita between one density and the
other, an essay in the nuances of texture and
fragrance. Yet the best dish at Bavel may be
grilled oyster mushrooms, chewy as flank
steak, with a bitter wild-nettle purée and an
electric sprinkle of tart sumac. Almost every-
thing at Bavel — Menashe and Gergis’ full-
throttled Levantine follow-up to their down-
town Italian restaurant Bestia — seems
touched with wood fire and cumin, coarse
salt and fresh mint. The crisp, flaky Yemenite
flatbread malawach — served with tomato
pulp, herbed cream and spicy fermented
strawberry jam, a take on the herb sauce zhoug
— explodes into a hundred layers when you
bite into it. The best big meat dish is lamb
neck shawarma, charred and smoking, lami-
nated with a spice-shopful of herbs. Carve off
a bit of the dripping meat, tear off a scrap of
hot laffa bread, tuck in the vegetables and you
will have constructed the ultimate taco al
pastor of the Middle East. — J.G.
500 Mateo St., Los Angeles, (213) 232-4966,
baveldtla.com. Full bar. Valet or street parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$
LOS ANGELES, CA- June 8, 2018: A look inside chefs Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis newest restaurant, Bavel, on Friday, June 8, 2018. (Mariah Tauger / For the Los Angeles Times)
Photographs by MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
LOS ANGELES, CA- June 8, 2018: Chefs Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis at their newest
restaurant, Bavel, on Friday, June 8, 2018. (Mariah Tauger / For the Los Angeles Times)
LOS ANGELES, CA- June 8, 2018: The Hummus spread at Bavel on Friday, June 8, 2018. (Mariah Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger
Tauger / For the Los Angeles Times)
Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 11
 Jay L. Clendenin Los Angeles Times

BESTIA
It seems odd to remember that Bestia has been
open only six years, since the restaurant
seems so integral to Los Angeles restaurant
culture. Maybe it’s because so much of what
Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis offer on a
regular basis is now de rigueur in a certain
class of restaurant: the house-made salumi,
the handmade pasta, the wood-fired pizza, the
industrial design, the natural wine list. Bestia
is a cacophonous palace, a restaurant built
into an Arts District loft that serves multi-
regional Italian cooking with forceful flavors
that have been stirred up by the multicultural-
ism of Los Angeles and the Middle East,
where both Gergis and Menashe have family
history. The result is a menu shot with fennel
pollen and preserved lemon, where local
seafood is paired with house-made ’nduja and
the pasta is twirled with aged cheeses, chiles
and black truffles. Gergis’ desserts are a
masterful juxtaposition of sweet and tart,
LOS ANGELES, CA --SEPTEMBER 22, 2018 --Fresh bread, made before opening, at restaurant Bestia, in the arts district of downtown Los Angeles, photographed Sept. 22, 2018. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) reliant on seasonal fruit, cream and spice.
With the opening of Bavel, the couple’s sec-
ond restaurant, earlier this year, we all hoped
the crowds would thin a bit, allowing an
easier path to a coveted counter seat near the
Photographs by JAY L. CLENDENIN / Los Angeles Times pizza oven. No such luck. Fortunately, the
wait is always worth it. — A.S.
2121 E. 7th Place, Los Angeles, (213) 514-5724,
bestiala.com. Full bar. Valet parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$$

Wine director Ryan Ibsen poses for a portrait pouring wine at Bestia on Monday, July 24, 2017 in
Los Angeles, Calif. Instead of wine decanters, Ibsen uses large wine bottles. The downtown LA
Italian restaurant has more than 125 wines, with some of the most expensive being $750.
(Patrick T. Fallon/ For The Los Angeles Times)
LOS ANGELES, CA --SEPTEMBER 22, 2018 --The cavatelli alla norcina, with ricotta dumplings,
Jay L. Clendenin Los Angeles Times

Freshly baked bread, clockwise from top;

blueberry and lemon frozen torte; cavatelli
alla norcina; wine director Ryan Ibsen; and
lobster crostino at Ori Menashe and
Genevieve Gergis’ cacophonous 6-year-old
Arts District restaurant, Bestia.

Patrick T. Fallon For The Times Jay L. Clendenin Los Angeles Times

12 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 13

 Brodard Chateau
Is it preposterous to drive an hour in traffic
for a plate of grilled-pork spring rolls? Not
really. Especially if the spring rolls in ques-
tion are from Brodard Chateau, the fancy
Vietnamese restaurant from the Dang family.
This is the sort of craveable, full-tilt Viet-
namese food available at your favorite spots in
the SGV; only it’s served in a two-story build-
ing that looks like an ambassador’s residence,
outfitted with a marble fireplace and a Real
Housewives of Garden Grove staircase. The
nem nuong cuon here are divine pork cigars
wrapped in a chewy, almost translucent rice
paper that teases at the grilled pork, crisp
vegetables and ribbons of mint inside. The
rolls are meant to be dunked in a bowl of
traditional nuoc cham that one inevitably ends
up drinking toward the end of dinner. Al-
though there are many other items you should
contemplate ordering (moon cake! beef salad!
pho!), it is not unreasonable to sit down, order
a glass of wine and feast on repeating plates of
spring rolls until you’ve had your fill. — J.H.

9100 Trask Ave., Garden Grove, (714) 899-8273,

brodard.net/chateau. Full bar. Lot parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$

MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times

These grilled-pork spring rolls (nem nuong cuon) aren’t the only dish on the menu, but might be
all you need. They’re served inside a Garden Grove building that lives up to its “chateau” billing.
Photographs by MARCUS YAM / Los Angeles Times
Ray Garcia’s forward-looking fare keeps the chef’s Cypress Park past in mind, and his playful personality shows up in his cooking.

Broken Spanish
Instead of trying to explain what contempo-
rary Mexican cuisine can look like in Los
Angeles to visitors, just take them to Broken
Spanish. Sit where you can see both the open
kitchen, where someone is making tortillas
from nixtamalized heirloom corn, and the
view outside, as you are across the street from
an El Cholo, the ’20s-era Mexican restaurant
WHERE TASTE MEETS TRADITION chain, and the Staples Center (LeBron James!).
Amid this juxtaposition of old and new L.A.,
JONATHAN GOLDS 101 BEST RESTAURANT chef Ray Garcia is cooking food that embraces
(2013-2017) his past, growing up in a Mexican American
family in Cypress Park, at the same time that
it looks forward. He makes esquites with bone
marrow, turns masa into ethereal dumplings,
and tops tostadas with yuzu kosho aioli and
seaweed. His version of a chicharrón, an enor-
mous golden disk adorned with radish sprouts
and pickled herbs, looks like it could have Cucumber, green apple, celery root and
come from Pierre Hermé’s pastry kitchen. Yet pistachio have a place in Broken Spanish’s
there’s a playfulness that permeates the cook- spinach tamale, above. At left, a milhojas —
ing, along with all the guajillo chiles and a hand-rolled puff pastry — includes salted
green garlic and epazote. Garcia, after all, is caramel, fig and chocolate whiskey
“This is the kind of place that the guy who once won Cochon 555, the nose- crémeux.
2901 Ocean Park Blvd., people go to again and again, to-tail pig cooking competition, while wear-
LOCATION Santa Monica, CA 90405 the place that they think of ing a luchador costume. — A.S.
10406 VENICE BLVD (310)450-1241 as a home away from home.
1050 S. Flower St., Los Angeles, (213) 749-1460,
CULVER CITY,CA,90232 www.ilfornocaffe.com
This is a restaurant where the
brokenspanish.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
TUE-SUN 11AM-10PM waiters know you, you know
Credit cards accepted. $$$
LUNCH BUFFET 11AM-3PM ORDER ONLINE! the menu, and the chef knows
Easy reservations with RESY! your tastes.”
TEL 310-559-9644 FAX 310-559-9645 LOS ANGELES TIMES | 15
WWW.MAYURA-INDIAN-RESTAURANT.COM @IlFornoTrattoriaSM @ilforno_sm
 Cassia
A meal at Bryant Ng and Kim Luu-Ng’s Santa
Monica restaurant can weave through Indone-
sia, Vietnam and Singapore — often in the
same night, and sometimes in the same bowl.
Ng’s riffs on recognizable dishes are the
versions you’ve always wanted but didn’t
know until he put them on the table in front of
you. Many restaurants around town are trying
their hand at an inventive bread-and-dip
course, and Ng’s luscious chickpea curry and
bubbly flatbread probably trumps them all.
His charcuterie fried rice is reminiscent of the
salty fish fried rice at your favorite Chinese
cafe in the SGV but enlivened with Chinese
bacon and lap cheong. The steak frites look
standard, but that peppercorn sauce is umami-
boosted with fish sauce, and the butter melt-
ing on your steak is richly redolent of shallots.
Cassia has a charcuterie board like every
other hot restaurant in town, but this one is
filled with Singaporean candied pork, lamb
ham and Vietnamese meatloaf. On a recent
visit, a diner was overheard proclaiming that
“all pork should be Singaporean candied
pork!” He’s not entirely wrong. — J.H.
1314 7th St., Santa Monica, (310) 393-6699,
cassiala.com. Full bar. Valet Parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$$
Photographs by KIRK McKOY / Los Angeles Times
The taco truck can typically be found parked in one of two spots in Boyle Heights, above. But you’re at the mercy of Instagram to know for certain.

Carnitas
El Momo
The food truck chase has become a part of life
for a certain kind of gastronomically inclined Photographs by RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

Angeleno, and Carnitas El Momo is a truck At Santa Monica’s Cassia, Southeast Asian food moves easily across national borders. Unusual
worthy of the pursuit. The specialty of the riffs on recognizable dishes can seem custom-made for cravings you didn’t know you had.
family-owned El Momo — actually a boxy
trailer hitched to a driveable vehicle — is, of
course, carnitas: pork that has stewed and
bubbled merrily in a gargantuan copper pot
for 5 1⁄2 hours until the meat is goopy and
falling apart and glistening with oil, flaps of
white-rimmed fat floating on the surface. The
“aporkalypse” is a mix of pork butts, skin and
stomach, and you can get it in a $2.50 taco. But
the $5 mulita is the pro move, a supercharged
double-decker stacked taco/quesadilla hybrid
that oozes with crispy-edged griddled cheese.
Carnitas are chopped and bound Generally speaking, Carnitas El Momo can be
for a tortilla. At right, buche tacos. found toward the end of the week in one of
The tacos are obviously the go-to, two Boyle Heights spots. But sometimes it’s
Bryant Ng, above, has a bread-and-dip
but an ace might opt for the downtown or in Compton, maybe parked
course — luscious chickpea curry and
mulita, a taco/quesadilla hybrid. outside a brewery or reserved for an event.
bubbly flatbread — that might be the best in
The only way to know for sure is to check El
town. At right, oysters and snow-crab claws.
Momo’s Instagram — and to find the truck
before the dreaded “sold out” photo gets
posted. — A.C.
Locations vary, typically in Boyle Heights,
instagram.com/carnitaselmomo. No alcohol.
Credit cards accepted. $

16 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 17

 CENTENOPLEX
When people ask where to eat in downtown,
my usual response is Josef Centeno. Because
to eat at one of his four downtown restaurants
is to, in a sense, taste the entirety of Los
Angeles. The chef, who has colonized the
corners of 4th and Main streets, specializes in
food that draws inspiration from his upbring-
ing in Texas and his time cooking at places
such as Manresa, Daniel and Charles Nob
Hill. You will crave his oxtail hash-stuffed
bäcos and za’atar and eggplant fava dip at
MEL MELCON / Los Angeles Times Bäco Mercat and honey nut squash with mole
dukkah at P.Y.T. There will be weekend nights
where the puffy tacos and bowls of queso at
Bar Amá seem like an inevitability. But where
Centeno may excel most is at his Italian Japa-
nese tasting menu restaurant Orsa &Winston.
In the evenings, there’s a six-course menu
with things such as silky satsuki rice porridge
with Santa Barbara uni and Parmesan cream.
For brunch and lunch, an omakase Japanese
breakfast or a chicken katsu sandwich on milk
bread. And if you want to baller out, there’s a
caviar service that starts at $85. — J.H.

Multiple locations. bacomercat.com. Full bar

(except Orsa & Winston, which has beer and
KATIE FALKENBERG / Los Angeles Times wine). Credit cards accepted. $$$

RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

GARY CORONADO / Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 17, 2018 -
Clockwise, from above: P.Y.T.’s chef’s salad, Donabe with dashi broth, wagyu beef,
with walnut marigold dressing; Bar Ama’s market vegetables, mushroom, tofu, nori,
enchiladas, with carrot sofrito, queso fresco egg, served at Orsa & Winston restaurant in
and potato; Bäco Mercat’s seared artichoke, downtown Los Angeles, October 17, 2018.
with pine nuts; Orsa & Winston’s kitchen, Japanese milk bread is in the back. (Ricardo
and right, its donabe; downtown empire DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
builder Josef Centeno; and the exterior of
P.Y.T.

RICARDO DEARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

GARY CORONADO / Los Angeles Times RICARDO DEARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

18 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 19


CHICHEN ITZA: Rice, beans, pico de gallo and corn tortillas accompany a whole grilled branzino that has been deboned and butterflied.
Chengdu Taste
As L.A.’s Sichuan renaissance evolves,
Chengdu Taste remains a constant. The cook-
ing is as vibrant as when the place opened five
years ago, a procession of beautifully cali-
brated dishes that bring the famous heat of the
regional cuisine but don’t overwhelm the
sophistication of the flavors underneath. That
layering is evident not only with the heat
index but also on the huge menu itself. There
are the classics, such as mapo tofu, dan dan
mian noodles and hot pots. Folks still wait in
line for its signature dishes — plates of tooth-
pick lamb, green peppercorn-spiked fish and
numb-taste wontons — with the kind of
reverence kids have for a hot dog at Pink’s.
(The lines have been mitigated by the opening
of two more locations, but still: be prepared.)
And once you’ve visited a few times, you
make it deeper still, to the cult favorite stuff
like Rabbit With Younger Sister’s Secret
Recipe, fiery sauced mung bean jelly noodles
and the skewers of chicken feet, like a jumble
of pick-up sticks. After enough visits, all of it
is in your purview, which means you can go to
Chengdu Taste because it’s one of the best
Sichuan restaurants in the city and beyond, or
because you’re in the mood for an unadven-
turous but excellent helping of kung pao
chicken. — A.S.
828 W. Valley Blvd., Alhambra, (626) 588-2284.
Also at 8526 W. Valley Blvd., Rosemead, (626)
899-8886; and at 18406 E. Colima Road, Row-
land Heights, (909) 675-8888. No alcohol.
Cash only. Street parking. $
20 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
Chichen Itza /
Holbox
Remember when food halls weren’t trendy?
Like before Grand Central Market became
gentrified and started selling gourmet peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts
trimmed off? Those feeling nostalgic should
head to Mercado La Paloma, a converted
garment factory near USC that houses food
stalls and a handful of shops. It’s easy to park,
the lines (if any) are short, and you can build a
fantastic meal from Gilberto Cetina Jr.’s two
casual Yucatecan spots, Chichen Itza and the
seafood-intensive Holbox, without breaking
the bank. At the former, don’t miss the co-
chinita pibil, a heap of moist pork that has
been marinated in sour orange juice, spices
and a paste made from the red-orange seed
achiote and then cooked in banana leaves, or
the tikin-xic, two buttery basa fillets balancing
atop a mound of rice in a pool of bright
achiote-spiked sauce. If you can stand the heat,
a splash of fiery house-made habanero hot
sauce goes great on both. Over at the newer
Holbox a few feet away, Cetina serves raw and
cooked seafood dishes including ceviches,
cocteles and fish tacos. Thursday through
Saturday, the order-at-the-counter stall offers
a $65 six-course tasting menu at night. — A.C.
3655 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles (inside Mer-
cado La Paloma), (213) 741-1075 (Chichen Itza)
and (213) 986-9972 (Holbox), chichenitzarestau
rant.com and holboxla.com. No alcohol. Lot
parking. Credit cards accepted. $
KIRK McKOY / Los Angeles Times
Chong Qing
Special Noodles
Half of the tables at Chong Qing
Special Noodles seem to hold a big
plate of what the menu calls Gele
Mountain Chicken, fried chicken cubes tossed
with dry chiles. But you are here for the
noodles: hand-pulled zha jiang mian, with
pork and sweet, black bean paste; oniony
Qishan noodles, from Shaanxi province,
served with minced pork; hand-cut, fanbelt-
thick noodles buried under a wokful of
chicken stewed with carrots and potatoes, a
close analogue to what the Shaanxi restau-
rants in town tend to call Big Plate Chicken.
The noodle shop is a kind of spinoff of the
nearby Best Noodle House in Rosemead;
Best’s chef left to start the San Gabriel restau-
rant. The namesake Chongqing noodles are
thin, bouncy things, vibrating with several
different kinds of chile heat, tossed with
vegetables and pork — everything you want
when you go out for Sichuan noodles, with a
hard-fried egg on top. When you inhale a big
bowl of thick, hand-cut you po noodles with
vinegar, herbs and fragrant oil, chase them
with smoky plum juice, finishing with a plate
of marinated cucumber, sliced pigs’ ears
pressed into a translucent terrine, and maybe
a huge bowl of fat wonton sluiced with chile
oil, it is hard not to be happy. — J.G.
708 E. Las Tunas Drive, Unit B, San Gabriel,
(626) 374-1849. No alcohol. Lot parking. Credit
cards accepted. $
CONI’SEAFOOD: The aguachile’s translucent raw shrimp, with heads attached, are marinated
in lemon juice and green salsa, then topped with red onions and served with cucumber slices.
Church & State
Before there was Bestia, diners ventured to
the Arts District for crusty baguettes, proper
charcuterie boards and excellent wine at this
classic bistro. Then Tony Esnault came on as
executive chef, and the Frenchman, who
cooked under Alain Ducasse, brought his
thoughtful French-California cooking with
him. Although the Church & State menu
doesn’t quite reflect it yet — it’s Esnault’s
bouillabaisse, pâté de campagne and Burgundy
snails in garlic butter that draw most of us
there — he is a vegetable whisperer. At Spring
— the restaurant he and owner Yassmin Sar-
madi operated until earlier this year — his
legumes de saison, a medley of more than 10
vegetables in varying preparations, thor-
oughly exemplified Los Angeles-influenced
French cooking. Here’s to hoping it finds its
way to the Church & State menu soon. — J.H.
1850 Industrial St., No. 100, Los Angeles, (213)
405-1434, churchandstatebistro.com. Full bar.
Parking lot across the street. Credit cards
accepted. $$$
MARCUS YAM / Los Angeles Times
Colonia Publica
If you’ve never tried fideo, the umami-rich
soup that gets most of its flavor from toasty
brown noodles, you should get in your car
right now and drive to Whittier. Think of it as
Mexican ramen if it helps, or as the chicken
soup that’s as comforting as you always want
it to be. It’s the specialty at Ricardo Diaz’s
downtown Colonia Publica, where you can
build your own bowl and add such things as
house-made pork chorizo, grilled corn and
blanched cactus to a broth built on chicken,
vegetables and pork bones simmered until
they liquefy. Diaz is also making the kind of
food you should enjoy with a michelada (or
many): crispy potato tacos with morita-curry
salsa, a fried tortilla-wrapped hot dog and a
quesadilla full of fried pork cracklins. Alter-
nating between bites of quesadilla, sips of
michelada and slurps of fideo is an ideal way to
spend an evening. — J.H.
6717 Greenleaf Ave., Whittier, (562) 693-2621,
coloniagroupinc.com. Beer and wine. Street and
city lot parking. Credit cards accepted. $$
Coni’Seafood
Before you’re even settled in at Coni’Seafood,
maybe as you’re being led to your table in the
modest dining room or to the patio in the
back, you would do well to inquire about a
snook. Snook is the white-meat fish that the
restaurant turns into pescado zarandeado, a
triumph of Nayarit-style seafood cookery, in
which a huge marinated fish is grilled, slowly,
for 30 minutes, to something approaching
perfection. If it’s available — and it usually is
— order it right away; the server will eyeball
your party and pick a fish size accordingly.
Fill your wait with cheesy marlin tacos, an
unlikely but inarguable alliance of smoky fish
and melty cheese, and aguachile, translucent
raw shrimp coated in an electric-green mar-
inade, their heads still feebly attached. While
you’re at it, you might as well get a platter of
shrimp, too, offered in what seems like unlim-
ited permutations: among them garlicky and
buttery, spicy and oniony, or peppery and
spiked with tequila. The snook is an impres-
sive sight when it arrives, butterflied and
charred in parts, a row of sliced cucumbers
decorating one side, rings of bracelet-sized
red onion lining the other. Make a taco with
the steamy tortillas and caramelized onions
that come with the fish, or just dig into the
medium-firm flesh directly. Only in Los
Angeles will your favorite seafood joint be
found on the side of a highway. — A.C.
3544 W. Imperial Highway, Inglewood, (310)
672-2339, coniseafood.com. Beer and wine
(separate bar at Fields LA). Limited lot and
street parking. Credit cards accepted. Also in
Los Angeles at 4532 S. Centinela Ave., (310)
881-9644, and the Fields LA food hall, 3939 S.
Figueroa St. $$
Connie and Ted’s
This is the seafood shack you wish you’d had
growing up, in some small New England town,
with a fishmonger who knows your name and
a patio that looks out onto choppy, blue wa-
ters — except it’s in an improbably tony West
Hollywood spot where you’d have dinner
with your agent. Michael Cimarusti is one of
the best chefs in the country, full stop. Here,
he and head chef Sam Baxter visit their talents
on elevated stuffies, extra-excellent lobster
rolls and perfected clam chowder (there are
three kinds). There are boiled dinners full of
all the seafood you want to eat with your
hands on top of this morning’s paper, served
with a bib. The oysters are vibrantly fresh and
supremely slurpable. And it’s almost too easy
to make a meal out of the fried clam strips and
a cocktail. It’s straightforward food made well,
in what has become a bona fide neighborhood
restaurant. — J.H.
8171 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood,
(323) 848-2722, connieandteds.com. Full bar.
Valet parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 21

BEVERLY HILLS, CA- September 3, 2016: A 34 Oz Porterhouse with adds of Black & Golden Caramelized Garlic and Roasted Bone Marrow, Parsley
at CUT on Saturday, September 3, 2016. (Mariah Tauger / For the Times)
Cut
If you’re celebrating a birthday, an anniversa-
ry, a new job or your best friend’s new baby,
this is the place to do it. This Beverly Wilshire
restaurant is where you come when you want
to #treatyourself or someone else. The service
is impeccable. The steaks are cooked exact-
ingly. The sides are precisely what you
wanted. And Billy Crystal may be at the next
table. Wolfgang Puck and head chef Ari
Rosenson have perfected the art of the old-
school expense-account steakhouse, and
they’re doing it better than everyone else. The
steak is wheeled out to you on a cart in the
dining room so you can ogle the marbling in
the 12-ounce Japanese pure-breed Wagyu
rib-eye you just ordered. And if you’re at-
tempting extra decadence (you came here for
a reason, right?), start with the bone marrow
flan. It’s served with rounds of toasted bri-
oche, red-wine bordelaise and a parsley-caper
salad for a make-your-own “things on toast”
situation. It should also be noted that Cut
Lounge, directly opposite the restaurant, is a
fantastic place for some Japanese whiskey and
a “snack” of dry-aged USDA Prime New York
sirloin skewers. — J.H.
Beverly Wilshire Hotel, 9500 Wilshire Blvd.,
Beverly Hills, (310) 276-8500, wolfgang
puck.com/dining/cut-beverly-hills. Full bar.
Valet parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$$
22 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
Photographs by MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
BEVERLY HILLS, CA- September 3, 2016: A Starter of Prime Sirloin "Steak Tartare" with Herb
Aioli and Mustard at CUT. (Mariah Tauger / For the Times)
Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger
For those very special occasions, from top:
a 34-ounce porterhouse with caramelized
garlic and roasted bone marrow; sirloin
steak tartare starter with herb aioli and
mustard; and heirloom tomatoes with olive
oil and micro basil.
Photographs by Mariah Tauger
CULVER CITY-CA-OCTOBER 8, 2018: Chef Jordan Kahn is photographed at Destroyer in Culver City on Tuesday, October 8, 2018. (Christina House /
Los Angeles Times)
Photographs by CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times
Destroyer
Viewed through the lens of a daytime coffee
shop, Destroyer can be a mystifying place —
what to make of the deconstructed avocado
toast or the beef tartare buried under a carpet
of radish sprouts and powders? Then you find
out it’s by Jordan Kahn, and suddenly it all
makes sense. Destroyer is a modernist restau-
rant in a minimalist white space: clean lines,
shelves of pickling jars and a futuristic menu
board projected onto the wall. Kahn, the
curtain-haired chef who trained under Thom- CULVER CITY-CA-OCTOBER 8, 2018: Young
as Keller and Grant Achatz and helmed Red lettuces, buttermilk, pistachio, and radish
Medicine in Beverly Hills, presides over two served at Destroyer in Culver City on
restaurants on Hayden Avenue in Culver City,
one of them kinda weird, and the other — the
$250-per-person Vespertine — very weird.
Destroyer is the accessible one, a snug all-day
place that whips up highly Instagrammable
bowls of rice porridge, chicken confit and
vegetables, most of which arrive looking
nothing like you expect. There’s almost al-
ways a row of jammy fruit bars on the
counter; do yourself a favor and order one —
they’re as out of this world as Kahn’s Jordan Kahn’s modernist Destroyer is in a
spaceship-looking building across the street. minimalist space with clean lines and
— A.C. shelved pickling jars. Above, a blueberry,
currant and elderflower dish. At left, a mix of
3578 Hayden Ave., Culver City, (310) 360-3860,
lettuce, pistachio, radish and buttermilk.
destroyer.la. No alcohol. Street parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 23
 MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

DIALOGUE
Dave Beran is nothing if not hyper-
ambitious. He burns stuff. He makes
powders. He will serve you a glass of
strawberry-flavored bubbles, the kind you
used to make in chocolate milk with a straw,
and hide caviar and a bit of pork belly under-
neath. If you have the patience for 20 small
courses, roughly structured like a kaiseki meal,
and the resources to pay for the not-inexpen-
sive meal, Beran will take you places you have CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times
never been. He cooked for years at Alinea
with Grant Achatz and was the executive chef
at Achatz’s Next, a dream restaurant whose
theme changed completely every few months.
Like Next, Dialogue changes its menu, al-
though the changes tend to be seasonal. If you
are lucky, there will be pressed duck. Beran
captures the juices that flow from the spout of
a gleaming duck press and reduces them with
aromatics until they thicken into a suave
gravy. You get a little puddle of the sauce, a
sliver of crisp-skinned breast and braised
fresh pineapple crowned with a crisped sage
leaf. You spoon ragout made from the duck’s CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times
leg and thigh out of a bowl. You resist the
temptation to lick the plate or decide that at MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
$220 prix fixe you just don’t care. You are
Chef Dave Beran, at left, who for years
experiencing one of the grandest dishes of
cooked at Alinea with Grant Achatz and was
French cuisine lovingly prepared on the
executive chef at Achatz’s Next, will take you
second level of a mall food court. And it is
places you’ve never been — from the second
magnificent. — J.G.
level of a mall food court, no less.
1315 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica,
dialoguerestaurant.com. Beer, wine and sake.
Nearby city lot parking. Reservation only.
Credit cards accepted. $$$$

CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times

24 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 25

 El Coraloense
The chef David Chang has promoted
Ugly Delicious food — dishes whose
horrible appearance masks the
EL CORALOENSE: The loveliness of something great. There may be
Campechana mixed-seafood nothing in Southern California so Ugly Deli-
cocktail, at right, has shrimp, cious as the aguachile at El Coraloense, run by
octopus and abalone. Below, a Natalie Curie, a culinary-school grad who
dish named Viagra.com is took over the mini-mall restaurant from her
oysters topped with cooked parents. Although Curie’s version of the spicy
shrimp and avocado. shrimp ceviche at the heart of the Nayarit-
MEL MELCON / Los Angeles Times
Sinaloa kitchen is nicely arranged with cu-
cumber, red onion and fanned avocado slices,
the marinade is murky, tinged brown with soy
sauce. If you are familiar with the Nayarit/
Sinaloan seafood at Coni’Seafood and
Mariscos Chente, Curie’s menu will seem
familiar: smoked-marlin tacos, mammoth
seafood cocktails and more than a few ceviche
tostadas. The infamous shrimp-topped raw
oysters called Viagra.com? Check. But that
aguachile? When you bite into those withered-
looking shrouds of flesh — pop! — there is
garlic and heat, a rush of juice, and an em-
phatic flavor that you don’t usually get with
finer-looking but mushier takes on the dish.
It’s pretty spectacular in any of Curie’s five
versions. I like the salty, spicy, slightly smoky
ahogados. — J.G.
6600 Florence Ave., Bell Gardens, (562) 776-
8800, elcoraloense.com. No alcohol. Lot park-
ing. Credit cards accepted. $
MEL MELCON / Los Angeles Times
Photographs by CHRISTIINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times
If you want a meal at Venice’s Felix, you’d better be patient, and you’d better have a plan — and maybe be prepared to lose a few hours of sleep.
The Exchange
Wedged into a corner of the Free-
hand L.A. hotel, the Exchange is a
proto-Israeli restaurant where the
Felix
chef, Alex Chang, is a Californian with a I know we’re all supposed to be off-carb, on
Mexican mother and a Chinese dad and who quinoa, spinning our way to splendid slender-
spent formative years in Tokyo. So if the ness, but, honestly, I want to be one of the
Israeli thing is basically a conceit (proprietor beautiful people in Evan Funke’s Venice
Elad Zvi, who runs the place with Gabe Orta, dining room, those who are actually eating
is from Israel), it kind of works. Tel Aviv, like piles of handmade pasta every night. Funke,
Los Angeles, is a place where cultures smash who doesn’t just make pasta by hand but does
together. It’s no surprise, then, that the best of so with only a rolling pin (his favorite hashtag
the main courses is a grilled sweet potato with on Instagram emphatically disses your pasta
almonds, cilantro and chile morita. The dish machine), studied how to make pasta in Bolo-
erases the boundaries between Japanese street gna. But he makes pasta from all over the boot:
food and Middle Eastern cuisine; between His Roman cacio e pepe is hot and punchy with
Holy Land food and flavors of the Mexican black pepper, his troffie are delicate
table at Lent. There are salatim (more or less corkscrews coated with fragrant pesto Geno-
KIRK Mckoy / Los Angeles Times
mezze) of silken hummus made with chick- vese. Order all the pastas that appeal, but do
peas from cult grower Rancho Gordo; fluffy not forget to add a pan of sfincione focaccia
THE EXCHANGE: Above, pita baba ghanouj that leans into the bitter- siciliana to your pasta order. The focaccia,
bread with an Arabic salad of sweetness of burnt eggplant; and diced avoca- fluffy with a good chew, ends up frying in the Fiori di zucca, above, is squash
cucumber, tomato, sumac, do with herbs and toasted seeds that you’ll olive oil it’s cooked in, creating a supremely blossoms with crema di ricotta
onion and citrus; pickled and probably end up reordering before dinner is decadent table bread. To make a reservation and green garlic. At left, mezze
fermented vegetables; burnt through. A red-cabbage salad is snapped from for dinner at Felix, you must plot 28 days in maniche alla carbonara: pasta with
eggplant with Blue Lake beans, Eastern Europe to the Middle East with a advance: I advise setting a midnight alarm, guanciale, egg and pecorino
bonito flakes and fruit; and lashing of cumin and a sprinkle of the booking the table online, going to sleep and Romano.
olives. At right, hummus made crushed-nut condiment dukkah, and in all, I’m dreaming sweet dreams of pillows of gnocchi.
from Rancho Gordo chickpeas, rather glad that it was. — J.G. — J.H.
with Syrian pepper.
416 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, (213) 395-9531, 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, (424) 387-
freehandhotels.com/los-angeles/the-exchange. Full 8622, felixla.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
KIRK McKOY / Los Angeles Times bar. Valet parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$ Credit cards accepted. $$$

26 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 27

Freedman’s
Freedman’s would have been the
favorite restaurant of your late Uncle
Morris, the guy who had a favorite
room at the Sands and a chilled seltzer gun in
the fridge. The wood is dark, the bar is ready
to make a whiskey sour or a fancy martini,
and you can get smoked dates served in a
splash of smoked foie gras fat. Tiny latkes,
“pommes Freedman,” are tricked out like tater
tots. There is house-smoked pastrami — good
if not quite Langer’s — and what may be the
best sliced deli tongue you have ever tasted,
cured in the manner of corned beef but with a
bounciness and depth that corned beef rarely
approaches. The $105 brisket for four, a show-
case dish sliced table-side with an electric
knife, is luscious, juicy and soft enough to eat
with a spoon. Still, this may be the only deli in
existence whose signature sandwich involves
ripe avocados and fried chicken skin, which is
delicious in ways it may be difficult to ex-
plain. The best meal at Freedman’s might be
weekend brunch, when the soft, dense To-
ronto-style bagels are freshly baked, the
cream cheese may be blended with whitefish
or roasted Hatch chiles, and the streaky
scrambled eggs are airy and light. You can get
pancakes with crème fraîche and salty shreds
of hot-smoked salmon; the spectacular hash is
made with corned tongue and diced potatoes.
Three-tiered smoked-fish platters, served
with a tower of bagels, are the equivalent of a
Guelaguetza
This isn’t so much a Mexican restaurant as it
is L.A.’s Oaxacan cultural center, the place
you go if you want a plate of chicken mole, a
shot of excellent mezcal, a supply of toasted
grasshoppers for your margarita party or to
watch the World Cup with a couple hundred
new friends. Housed in a giant orange build-
ing in Koreatown, the restaurant is the culmi-
nation of years of work by the Lopez family,
which opened the first iteration of the restau-
rant in 1994. It’s the kind of restaurant where
you could theoretically never leave. Go for a
breakfast of huevos rancheros; move on to
tlayudas, the Oaxacan answer to pizzas, for
lunch; then spend the evening with plates of
mole coloradito and barbacoa while you check
out the local music scene: The restaurant has
live music every night. Did we mention the
mezcal? Settle in, and don’t forget to get a jar
of mole to go. — A.S.
3014 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, (213)
427-0608, ilovemole.com. Full bar. Valet park-
ing. Credit cards accepted. $$
Guerrilla Tacos
Dylan + Jeni
For years, we trailed Wes Avila’s taco truck,
FREEDMAN’S: The weekend brunch may be the deli’s best meal, but the $105 brisket for four, a lining up in front of coffee shops, ordering his
showcase dish sliced table-side with an electric knife, is soft enough to eat with a spoon. blissful sweet potato tacos and uni tostadas,
content to eat some of the city’s best tacos on Photographs by MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

Gjusta Grand Central

first-class plateau de mer. — J.G.
2619 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 568-3754,
freedmansla.com. Full bar. Lot parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$
Gjelina
So much has happened since Travis Lett
opened Gjelina 10 years ago. Many of the
things that were remarkable about the restau-
rant back then are now happily commonplace:
the produce-loaded menu, the wood-fired
pizzas, the mismatched vintage decor, the
leaf-strewn patio, even the local grain pastas
and beautiful chef cookbooks. But there’s a
magnetism to Gjelina that keeps us all coming
back, maybe because Lett has always been
better at this than many of those who fol-
lowed him; he finesses all that burrata and
Bloomsdale spinach and caramelized fennel in
ways that seem at once innovative and as
comfortable as the old J. Crew sweater you’ll
want when you sit on the patio outside. These
days you can order artisanal pizza in High-
land Park, make Lett’s salads at home with his
recipes and find hipster enclaves far from
Abbot Kinney. Meanwhile, the trendiness at
Gjelina has morphed into something more
interesting, a kind of depth that comes with
good things given time to mature. — A.S.
1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, (310) 450-
1429, g jelina.com. Beer and wine. Valet park-
ing. Credit cards accepted. $$$
Walk into Gjusta, past the stacks of Central
Milling flour and permanent crowd by the
door, and you wonder how it functions at all,
much less thrives. The popular Venice spot is
a seemingly chaotic mash-up of deli, bakery,
coffee bar, patio lunch meeting place and
commissary for Travis Lett’s other restau-
rants. Yet thrive it does, turning out all man-
ner of excellent products — rye boules and
galettes, smoked fish and pastrami, pizza
and house-bottled hot sauce — to take home
at the same time that it makes a marvelous
restaurant menu. There are grain bowls for
breakfast, sandwiches and soups for lunch,
steak frites and pork chops and agnolotti for
dinner: This is a place that can be many things
to many people. And although the lines of
Westsiders can seem oppressive at times, it’s
worth ordering a salted mocha and chatting
up one of the folks behind the counter and
watching the enormous engine of the open
kitchen and bakery at work while you wait.
And if you can score a coveted patio table,
stow your bag of extra baklava croissants and
babka and settle in, remembering to hit the
Gjusta Goods gift shop next door on your
way home. Because why not get a gorgeous
ceramic dish to put all those croissants in?
— A.S.
320 Sunset Ave., Venice, (310) 314-0320, g justa
.com. No alcohol. Street and limited lot park-
ing. Credit cards accepted. $$
Market
You could probably eat your way through this
downtown food hall every day for the rest of
your life and be content. The century-old
market is as essential to the city as the Colise-
um and the Hollywood Bowl. Clark Street
Bread is making some of the best bread — and
avocado toast — in the city. The cheese mon-
gers at DTLA Cheese and Kitchen may actu-
ally change your life — and certainly your
next dinner party — with their rounds of
Normandy butter and wheels of cheese. The
nut, mole and candy vendors still offer sam-
ples with a smile. The Filipino rice and sisig
bowls and buko coconut pie at Sari Sari Store
cure most ills. The carnitas at Villa Moreliana
are a national treasure. And the lattes at G&B
Coffee are the gold standard for every serious
coffee drinker in Los Angeles. A friend de-
mands vegan ramen? It’s there too. Look
around and you’ll see what seems like the
whole world, elbow to elbow at packed count-
ers, digging into ice cream cones, pastrami
sandwiches and tacos, breaking bread to-
gether under one roof, a place of feasting for
all. And it doesn’t hurt to know that you can
buy party supplies at the discount store
downstairs too. — J.H.
317 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 624-2378,
grandcentralmarket.com. Beer and wine avail-
able. Lot parking next door. Price: $$
a dusty sidewalk. Sometimes the truck would
move, or Avila would run out of supplies, and
we’d be bereft for a few days; that was part of
the charm, but it was also unsettling, as it
reminded us how tenuous the promise of
those tacos was. Earlier this year, Avila took
up permanent home in the Arts District. Now
there’s not only a roof, tables and chairs, but
lamb kebabs, a full bar, even weekend brunch.
Avila is using his new, bigger kitchen to expe-
riment, loading hard shell tacos with wild
boar, beef chile colorado with foie gras, and
queso fundido with chorizo and octopus. If you
haven’t had his tostadas topped with hamachi
or raw scallops, they’re remarkable — and a
reminder that you don’t have to trek to Con-
tramar in Mexico City or La Guerrerense’s
Ensenada cart when Avila is here. — A.S.
2000 E. 7th St., Los Angeles, (213) 375-3300,
guerrillatacos.com. Full bar. Street parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$
GUERRILLA TACOS: Creative taco varieties
include sweet potato, left, and sweetbread.
GUISADOS: The taco sampler may be the savviest choice. The six miniatures above: bistek en
salsa roja, cochinita pibil, mole poblano, chicharrón, chuleta en chile verde and tinga de pollo.
Guisados
When the taqueria opened in 2010, Guisados
was a novelty for many Angelenos. The Boyle
Heights shop didn’t offer the more familiar
crumbly carne asada or sliced al pastor tacos,
instead spooning powerfully flavorful braises
— tinga de pollo, bistek en salsa roja, chuleta en
chile verde — from bubbling vats. Known as
guisados, the stews are pure comfort food with
roots in home cooking, hugely popular in
Mexico City. The little shop also brought
thicker, more richly corn-y tortillas to the
L.A. taco scene, in part because they stand up
better to the hearty stews. The substantial
handmade tortillas can be polarizing, but the
guisados are universally adored. Seemingly
overnight, Guisados turned into a mini-chain,
with taquerias in some of Greater L.A.’s trend-
iest corners and an expanded menu that
includes breakfast items at some locations and
specials such as chiles rellenos. But the sam-
pler of six miniature tacos is still the way to
go: You’ll get to try more of the braises, and
the ratio of tortilla to stew is just right. — A.C.
2100 E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Los Angeles,
(323) 264-7201, guisados.co. No alcohol. Street
parking. Credit cards accepted. Also locations
in downtown, Echo Park, West Hollywood
and Burbank. $
Gwen
Australian brothers Curtis and Luke Stone
own one of the most opulent dining rooms in
the city, a throwback to Old Hollywood, with
its glittering pair of spiral chandeliers, sweep-
ing arches and Art Deco-meets-steampunk
vibe. You’re here to eat meat, though, not to
ogle the gorgeous space or the many defeath-
ered or defurred creatures hanging upside
down in the adjoining butcher shop. Gwen
opened in 2016 on Sunset Boulevard with a
required five-course tasting menu for custom-
ers seated in the main dining room; it has
since switched to a more accessible à la carte
format, though there’s still an $85 “Taste of
Gwen” available. The house-made charcuterie
board is a nice way to kick off the evening
before the heavy-hitters arrive: Creekstone
bone-in rib-eyes, dry-aged for 30 or 80 days,
hanger steak, Kurobuta pork or any one of the
Blackmore Wagyu cuts — there’s a separate
menu devoted to the Australian beef — are
sure to give you happy meat sweats later. It’s a
different scene at lunch, when the restaurant
is closed but you can swing by the butcher
shop, order a sandwich and enjoy it in that
grand dining room. — A.C.
6600 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 946-
7500, gwenla.com. Full bar. Valet and street
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$$

28 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 29

 Hippo
Hippo seems very much a restaurant of 2018
Los Angeles. It occupies a loud, open-beamed
industrial space in Highland Park, the go-to
neighborhood of the moment for chefs trying
to make their mark. You have to pass by an
on-trend pizzeria — the Roman-style, by-the-
slice pie shop Triple Beam Pizza — even to get
to the front doors, which is fitting, given that
Hippo’s chef is none other than Matt Molina,
who ran the kitchen for L.A. pizza queen
Nancy Silverton at Osteria Mozza. Since
leaving Mozza, Molina has been slinging
burgers, albeit insanely good ones, at Everson
Royce Bar, his downtown wine bar, so it’s
terrific to find him at work in the huge open
kitchen. You can see Molina’s history on his
menu, the rustic California-Italian style that
he learned coming up in Campanile and
Mozza, with its emphasis on house-made
pasta and roasted vegetables, salumi and
intense sauces. And to pair with all that inten-
sity, it should come as no surprise whatsoever
to find a heavy-hitting wine list from Mozza
alum David Rosoff, along with Rosoff himself,
as familiar to L.A. diners as the plates of
burrata and agnolotti. Get the barbecued,
pancetta-wrapped quail and let Rosoff take
Photographs by RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times care of filling your glass. — A.S.
Inside the convivial confines that once held the Cat & Fiddle, the Hearth & Hound’s seasonal menu shows why chef April Bloomfield is a force.
5916½ N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, (323)
545-3536, hipporestaurant.com. Full bar. Street
RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times
HOWLIN’ RAY’S: Johnny Ray Zone gives
his hot chicken the same attention that
Michelin-starred chefs give their seasonal
Howlin’ Ray’s
“Have you been to Howlin’ Ray’s? Is the line
really that long? Is it worth it?” When people
learn that I’m a fried-chicken freak (this is not
an exaggeration), these are the first questions
out of their mouths. So, for the record: Yes.
Yes. And unequivocally, yes. Since Johnny
Ray Zone opened his Nashville-style hot-
chicken shop in Chinatown in 2016, lines have
snaked through the Far East Plaza and out
onto North Broadway. He is the catalyst for
the city’s current fried-chicken boom. What
makes his chicken so special? Howlin’ Ray’s
affords the same care to a piece of fried
chicken as a Michelin-star chef does to each
tweezered tasting menu course. Each piece is
brined, dredged in seasoned flour and fried in
peanut oil. The chicken is showered in a
“shake,” a blend of more than 10 spices — that
the DEA will one day classify as a Schedule I
drug. The results are juicy to the point of
perversion and have the ideal crackly,
crunchy coating. You could order your
chicken sandwich “country” (no spice), and
be content. Try the medium for a sweat-
inducing level of heat. If you’re willing to try
your chicken Howlin’ Hot, brave your mouth
for a delicious beating. — J.H.
727 N. Broadway, Chinatown, (213) 935-8399,
howlinrays.com. Credit cards accepted. $

The Hearth parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$ tasting menus.

& Hound
I have friends I respect who refuse
to set foot into the Hearth & Hound SUBSCRIBERS
because the chef, April Bloomfield,

Get the eNewspaper

was said to have brushed off complaints about
allegations of sexual misconduct by restaura-
teur Ken Friedman at the Spotted Pig, the
Manhattan restaurant they ran together. But
the choice is not simple. If you boycott the
Hearth & Hound, are you silencing an impor-
every morning.
tant woman’s voice? The line is not mine to Activate your Unlimited Digital Access to receive
draw for you, but Bloomfield, who seems to a daily edition of the newspaper on all of your
have dissolved her partnership with Friedman devices. Plus, it’s included in your subscription!
and taken control of the Hollywood restau-
rant, is a wonderful chef, a force in American
cooking. Inside the old expat pub Cat &
Fiddle, she serves a changing seasonal menu Pork, above, with quince
that might include whole roasted beets and verjus. At left is
smeared with creamy blue cheese, Moroccan- black cod with orange
ish roast lamb with carrots and black lime, sauce and fennel. Other
and possibly the best chicharrónes I had ever menu offerings might
tasted outside of Baja. My favorite dish was a include roast lamb or
wedge of steamed, lightly pickled cabbage chicharrónes.
flavored with meaty beef drippings and
slumped onto a puddle of a briny oyster purée
— the dish tastes like a marvelous sea creature
you have never before encountered but can’t
wait to taste again. — J.G.

6530 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 320-4022,

thehearthandhound.com. Credit cards accepted.
Full bar. Valet or street parking. $$$
Just call Or visit

30 | LOS ANGELES TIMES 213.550.3953 latimes.com/activate


KALI: The reliable crowd-pleaser has tasting and chef’s menus as well as a robust à la carte menu. Kevin Meehan, formerly of Patina, is the chef.
Jitlada
The L.A. restaurant world lost one of its
biggest stars last year with the passing of
Jitlada co-owner Suthiporn “Tui” Sungkamee,
who died of lung cancer at 66. Years before
diners were setting their taste buds on fire at
Howlin’ Ray’s or Chengdu Taste, the king of
curry was pushing the limits of spice toler-
ance at the Thai Town restaurant he took over
in 2006 with his sister, the perennially sunny
Sarintip “Jazz” Singsanong. The siblings
attracted a cult following of Hollywood types
and regular folks who came for Jitlada’s ex-
pansive southern Thai menu, a daunting tome
of curries, pillowy green mussels and “adven-
turous bizarre foods” in addition to the Thai
standards found everywhere else. Today,
Singsanong and other family members are
carrying on, but Sungkamee’s presence con-
tinues to be felt in the jumbled dining room
plastered with framed cartoons by “The
Simpsons” creator and Jitlada superfan Matt
Groening. One section of the menu is dedi-
cated to his seafood specialties and another to
the “dynamite spicy challenge presented by
Chef Tui” — a dare so sweat-inducing that it
comes with a warning label. — A.C.
5233 1⁄2 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 667-
9809, jitladala.com. Beer and wine. Lot park-
ing. Credit cards accepted. $$
32 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
Jon & Vinny’s
These days, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo have
a mini empire in this city, stretching from the
still-unmarked doors of their landmark dude
restaurant Animal to the dining rooms they
share with chef Ludo Lefebvre. But it is at the
pizza and pasta restaurant they named after
themselves that they seem most at home, and
maybe so do the rest of us. Jon & Vinny’s is a
cozy, all-day place, where there are crayons
for your kids and an easygoing menu that
includes Nutella-filled Italian doughnuts,
mozzarella sticks, house-made pasta with
six-hour Bolognese sauce, chicken Parmesan
and tiramisu. And then there is the pizza:
lightly charred at the edges, built on thin but
not crisp crusts, and loaded with good things
like Nueske’s bacon or local burrata or black
kale or house-made chorizo. If you’re a pizza
voyeur, sit at the counter, where you can
almost feel the heat from the fire. On the go?
Grab bottles of Grüner Veltliner from Helen
Johannesen’s supremely well-curated wine
room, a separate glassed-in shop conveniently
located at the back of the place. It is the kid’s-
meal restaurant of your grown-up, hung-over
dreams. And, yes, they deliver. — A.S.
412 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 334-
3369, jonandvinnys.com. Beer and wine. Valet
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$
MARCUS YAM / Los Angeles Times
Kali
Kali began as a refined underground pop-up
dinner series before evolving into a full Cali-
fornian restaurant on Melrose Avenue in 2016.
It is a reliable crowd-pleaser, appropriate for
all kinds of dining scenarios: date night,
weekday business lunch, family celebration or
solo walk-in dinner at the bar. As such, Kali
does its best to be flexible: There are tasting
and chef’s menus (Kevin Meehan, the chef,
worked at Cafe Pinot and Patina downtown
before launching Kali) as well as a robust à la
carte menu with several dishes that can be
ordered half-size. Meehan’s food is familiar
but not. Yellowtail crudo is practically a menu
staple of fancier places in L.A.; his stands out
in a pool of smoked bone broth, scattered
with edible flowers and charcoal rice crackers
that look like Asian shrimp chips. A “risotto”
grain bowl is made of black barley, fermented
black garlic tea and wheat-grass oil — the
brownish sludge is not much to look at, but
the umami-rich notes and chewy mouthfeel of
the nutty barley are a savvy rethinking of how
to deliver on the promise of risotto with a
completely different set of ingredients. —
A.C.
5722 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 871-4160,
kalirestaurant.com. Full bar. Valet or street
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. -- SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2017: chef-owner Jonathan Yao of Kato, Japanese-Taiwanese-seafood-driven tasting-menu restaurant
Photographs by MARCUS YAM / Los Angeles Times
Kato
Kato, the contemporary Taiwanese-esque
strip mall spot run by chef Jon Yao, may have
the most restrained and unpretentious tasting
menu in town. It’s a breezy affair, a dozen or
xLOS ANGELES, CALIF. -- SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2017: Hamachi, cucumber, scallion served at so courses served at a speedy clip, a welcome
Kato, Japanese-Taiwanese-seafood-driven tasting-menu restaurant in the Sawtelle break from the overly long multi-course meals
neighborhood of Los Angeles, Calif., on June 17, 2017. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) at other restaurants of this caliber. A recent
meal began with a buckwheat cracker with a
smear of avocado and egg yolk jam under a
blanket of nasturtium leaves, followed by a
shiso leaf “sandwich” of thinly sliced scallops;
aged tuna, uni, lobster and turbot also made
appearances on the seasonal seafood-inten-
sive $85 menu. Yao weaves Taiwanese and
other Asian influences into his elevated cook-
ing, such as a house-made bolo bao — the
Hong Kong-style pineapple bun with the
Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times
telltale sugary-crust topping — with foie gras
mousse, or duck breast resting in a pool of
black vinegar. There was just one dessert, and
it was a good one: a pingpong-ball-sized
scoop of tangerine-colored snow, nestled in a
At Kato, chef Jon Yao, top, whisks a
Mandarin orange peel that had been filled
variety of Asian influences into his
with buttercream. You’ll be wowed by Yao’s
sophisticated cooking. Above,
delicate cooking — and grateful to be leaving
hamachi with cucumber. Right, an
happily sated but not stuffed. Kato has a
octopus dish.
casual menu at lunch and has been experi-
menting with occasional à la carte dinners.
— A.C.
Photographs by Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times
11925 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, (424)
535-3041, katorestaurant.com. No alcohol. Lot
or street parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 33
Killer Noodle
Tantanmen, spicy ramen loosely
based on Sichuan dan dan mian, is a
perfect cult object, occupying the
space where chile freaks and ramen obses-
sives intersect. There has never been a local
tantanmen restaurant like Killer Noodle, from
the people behind Tsujita. You select your
spice level, from one to six, for conventional
chile heat and for sansho pepper, whose
numbing effect is similar to that of Sichuan
peppercorn. There will be no refund if the
noodles turn out to be too spicy, but there are
big pitchers of ice water at every table. You
try the Tokyo-style noodles with soup, level
three (sansho level four), and you like them.
The soup is thick with ground nuts, and there
is an almost imperceptible funk of dried
shrimp. The noodles are thin, firm, chewy,
almost bouncy. There is a flavor bomb of
ground pork, miso and aromatics floating in
the center. It is spicy but not too spicy. Yet
there is the level six. You return and order a
bowl. Servers hover around you, making sure
you are not in too much physical distress,
offering you towels, refilling the ice water.
Then you are floating on a sea of endorphins.
Still, the next time around you are thinking
you’ll go back to three. — J.G.
2030 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, (424) 293-
0474, killernoodle.com. Beer, wine, sake and
soju. Street and limited lot parking. Credit
cards accepted. $
Kismet
There is a lighthearted tone at play on the
menu at Kismet: One section is labeled “sal-
ad-y,” the malawach is simply called “flaky
bread,” and the “Turkish-ish breakfast” comes
with “all the things.” And, truth be told, nearly
all the things at Sara Kramer and Sarah Hy-
manson’s all-day, Middle-Eastern-with-
California-flair restaurant are good. Every
meal at the Los Feliz space — a minimalist
dining room with white walls, white tables,
white counter, white-blond wood and hipster-
looking shrubs — should begin with that flaky
bread, so intoxicatingly buttery that you, in
your desperation to grab a piece as soon as it
hits the table, are all too happy to scald your
fingertips on it. The bread doesn’t show up on
the dinner menu, but the kitchen will make it
if you ask, so order it and the savory pies
filled with loosely ground chicken, pine nuts
and citrus notes. Then move on to the fatty
lamb belly and the roasted eggplant slathered
with diced peppers. On the side, you’ll want
the jeweled crispy rice, a mound of currants
and toasted pumpkin seeds adorning the
golden layer of intentionally overcooked rice,
a runny egg yolk buried deep inside. — A.C.
4648 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, (323)
409-0404, kismetlosangeles.com. Beer and
wine. Street parking. Credit cards accepted.
$$$
34 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times
Kogi BBQ
Roy Choi and his Kogi BBQ truck forever
changed food-truck culture. Many people
learned what Twitter was, and actually signed
up for an account, just to find out where the
truck would pull up next. Although Choi
knows how to rack up the followers on social
media, what made you seek Kogi out was his
thoughtful, craveable fusion of Korean and
Mexican cooking. He stuffed his tacos with
your favorite Korean barbecue meats: galbi-ish
marinated short ribs, spicy pork and even
calamari. And he even did his own spin on a
classic bacon-wrapped “dirty” dog, with spicy
pork, lettuce, cheese and a touch of mayo.
When a craving for a short rib taco or a kim-
chi quesadilla hit, you’d check Twitter, then
jump in the car and go. Now it’s a little easier
to get that taco or quesadilla, with the Kogi
taqueria staying put in a Palms strip mall, but
the revelation of the rightness of spicy,
squishy kimchi and melted quesadilla-filling
cheese is as fresh as it’s ever been. — J.H.
kogibbq.com. Hours and locations vary. $
KILLER NOODLE: A cook
prepares bowls of
ramen. Make sure to
choose your spice level
wisely; there are no
refunds for poor
judgment. Fortunately,
there is plenty of ice
water on hand.
LA CASITA MEXICANA:
Chile en nogada, stuffed
with beef and fruit, is
flecked with
pomegranate.
MARIA ALEJANDRA CARDONA / Los Angeles Times
La Casita Mexicana
Jaime Martin del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu
opened their landmark Bell restaurant two
decades ago, and for all those years it’s been
both a neighborhood staple and a destination
restaurant for the rest of the country. The
anchors of the massive menu are dishes from
their native Jalisco: bowls of homey pozole and
the intense chile-spiked birria. The kitchen
turns out superlative versions of dishes from
other regions: cochinita pibil, queso fundido,
zucchini blossom enchiladas and a showstop-
ping chile en nogada. And there are plenty of
moles, which first appear with your introduc-
tory bowl of chips, as if to remind you to
order them. (Get all three moles — poblano,
green and red pepian — with pork.) Although
Del Campo and Arvizu have opened a second
restaurant, Mexicano in Baldwin Hills, and
are Univision cooking show celebrities, the
pair are still often in the kitchen or in the
garden behind the restaurant. — A.S.
4030 E. Gage Ave., Bell, (323) 773-1898, casita-
mex.com. Beer and Mexican wine. Lot parking
in rear. Credit cards accepted. $$
Langer’s
I grew up spilling pickle juice on the vinyl
booths at Langer’s Delicatessen. During my
childhood, my dad, a real estate broker who
has worked just blocks away from the restau-
rant, would take me to the deli. And so I’ve
been eating the No. 19 sandwich here since I
could chew solid food. But my experience
with Langer’s is not unique. There’s a palpa-
ble energy during the lunch rush, and you get
the sense that all the people in the booths
around you are in on the secret. Jonathan
Gold frequently extolled the virtues of the
Langer’s pastrami sandwich, calling it the best
in the country. And he was right. The pas-
trami, made by RC Provisions to owner Norm
Langer’s specifications, is fatty and rich, piled
onto the restaurant’s famous, hot double-
baked rye bread. Jonathan liked his with a
squirt of yellow mustard. But the No. 19, with
Russian dressing, coleslaw and a slice of Swiss
cheese, is the stuff of legend. — J.H.
704 S. Alvarado St., Los Angeles, (213) 483-
8050, langersdeli.com. Beer and wine. Validated
lot parking at 1923 W. 7th Street. Credit cards
accepted. $
LITTLE SISTER: Tin Vuong,
above, prepares noodles
at the downtown L.A.
version of his restaurant.
The chef offers punchy,
addictive food at three
locations.
LE COMPTOIR: All of Gary
Menes’ courses, at right,
are vegetarian, but in
some cases there are
meat or seafood dishes
listed as substitutions.
Lasa
Brothers Chase and Chad Valencia helped
jump-start the movement of great Filipino
cooking from home kitchens to restaurants
when they opened Lasa as a pop-up, which
followed a series of backyard dinner parties.
Now their space in the Far East Plaza feels
lived in, a comfortable dining room with a
takeout window where the pair continue to
present modern takes on the traditional food
they grew up with. Chad’s cooking has
evolved with the restaurant, moving from
tasting menu-style dishes to street food and
back again, as he experiments with what
second-generation regional cooking can look
like in a Chinatown food court in contempo-
rary Los Angeles. So adobo translates into
cocktail peanuts, pancit comes with calamansi
butter and cured egg yolk, and there is salty
duck egg custard with the dessert fritters.
Imagine family cooking from a test kitchen,
the flavors exacting, the end result addictive.
— A.S.
727 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 443-6163,
lasa-la.com. No alcohol. Street and under-
ground parking. Credit cards accepted. $$
BRIAN VAN DER BRUG / Los Angeles Times
MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
Le Comptoir
Practically every chef in Los Angeles claims
to be vegetable-forward, but few lovingly tend
to fresh produce the way Gary Menes does.
He grows much of what winds up on the plate
at Le Comptoir, shuttling it from an organic
garden in Long Beach to his narrow 10-seat,
counter-only, $89 tasting-menu restaurant
inside the Hotel Normandie. For a course
simply called “vegetable and fruit plate,”
Menes and his tiny team painstakingly, in
tweezer-assisted assembly-line fashion,
arrange some three dozen ingredients that
change by season: a tuft of purple cauliflower,
a blistered shishito pepper, a slice of sweet
plum. It’s a nod to the gargouillou by French
chef Michel Bras, an iconic dish that has been
replicated in high-end kitchens around the
world. All eight courses at Le Comptoir are
vegetarian, although in a couple of cases you
can swap out a dish for a supplementary
charge and put meat — maybe grass-fed beef
or crispy pork belly — in the mix. But why
bother? For those of us who are not vegetari-
an, the best kind of all-vegetable meal is the
one that sneaks up on you, so captivating and
satisfying that you don’t even miss the meat.
— A.C.
3606 W. 6th St., Los Angeles (inside the Hotel
Normandie), (213) 290-0750 (text only),
lecomptoirla.com. Wine. Valet parking avail-
able at the hotel. Credit cards accepted. $$$$
Little Sister
When Tin Vuong opened his first Little Sister
— there are three locations now — in 2013, it
seemed so energetic, so progressive as to be
almost dangerous. Although maybe it was just
the paintings of machine guns on the walls of
a loud, clubby restaurant in laid-back Man-
hattan Beach. His plates of Singaporean chile
crab, Viet crepes with pork belly, and a paella-
like crock of black rice with seafood are
neither pan-Asian nor fusion as much as they
are a kind of personal mash-up. Vuong grew
up in Monterey Park in a family that moved
from Shanghai to Saigon to Los Angeles, and
you can trace that path on his plates. His food
is as punchy and addictive as his playlists.
And although it’s indisputably fun to order a
feast of lemon-grass beef and e-fu noodles
across the street from the Pacific, the down-
town branch has a short list of congee dishes,
and Vuong’s cheffy take on the rice porridge
comfort food is masterful. Although it’s easy
to get distracted by the green papaya salad, do
not overlook the “Eastside 626 Provisions,” a
sub-group of pickles and hot sauces. — A.S.
1131 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, (310)
545-2096, dinelittlesister.com. Also at 523 W. 7th
St., Los Angeles, (213) 628-3146; and 247
Avenida del Norte, Redondo Beach, (424)
398-0237. Full bar. Valet parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 35
 LONGO SEAFOOD:
Within the vast, flashy dining Longo Seafood
room, small wonders abound.
This restaurant has almost every-
At right, lobster dumplings.
thing you’d expect from a mega-
Before 3 p.m., there is
dining room — modernist chande-
indulgent dim sum.
lier, marbled surfaces and the largest video
screen you have seen outside a stadium.
Flashing wall signs advertise specials, and you
should probably take them up on the soy
sauce chicken, which is one of the restaurant’s
best dishes. I’m not sure I have ever managed
to get through a dinner here without ordering
the luscious slices of braised pork belly
IRFAN KHAN / Los Angeles Times draped over pungent Hakka preserved vegeta-
bles, or the crisped oysters buried under a
stack of cleanly braised scallions substantial
enough to be a course of their own. But if you
are there before 3 p.m., you have come for the
dim sum. Flaky barbecued pork pastries and
sticky baked barbecued pork buns; gooey,
spicy steamed chicken feet cooked with XO
sauce; domes of puff pastry atop bowls of
thin, hot almond milk spiked with ginkgo
nuts. The steamed rice noodles, cheong fun, are
not the usual delicate rolls but chewy and
twisted like scarves, with fillings of shrimp,
dried scallops, sweet pork or roast duck. The
BBQ Supreme rice noodle roll, stuffed with
crunchy bits of roast pig, resembles a cross
between dim sum and first-rate carnitas, and I
cannot recommend the dish enough. — J.G.
7540 Garvey Ave., Rosemead, (626) 280-8188.
No alcohol. Lot parking. Credit cards ac-
cepted. $$

Lucques RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

For the last 20 years, Suzanne Goin and Car-
oline Styne have quietly made the former
carriage house on Melrose Avenue the spir-
itual home of contemporary Southern Cali-
fornia cooking. Goin’s dishes — plates of
charred vegetables and harissa, of chicken
paillard and corn pancakes, of grilled lamb
with Bloomsdale spinach and charmoula —
feel like she just blew through the kitchen
doors with a massive basket of produce and
invented her recipes on the spot. If that
sounds a little like Alice Waters, it’s for good
reason. Goin began her career at Waters’
Berkeley restaurant and then brought that
ethos down the coast, saucing her vegetable-
oriented plates with more vibrant flavors and
turning up the fire on the grill. Pull up a patio
chair, order most of the small plates, as if
you’re assembling a mezze feast, then a few of
the centerpiece dishes — something with
olives or stone fruit or smoked butter — and
wine to match, remembering that you’ll need
to save room for a wedge of fruit galette, may-
be a vacherin and some cheeses. As you settle
in under the leaves, it will occur to you, not
for the last time, that Lucques is our Chez
Panisse. — A.S.
JAY L. CLENDENIN / Los Angeles Times 8474 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (323)
LUCQUES: At the former carriage house, you’ll want to order most of the small plates, then a few 655-6277, lucques.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
of the centerpiece dishes and wine to accompany them. But save room for something sweet. Credit cards accepted. $$
MA’AM SIR: Charles Olalia left Patina to start a lunch counter. Now in a bigger space with a well-staffed kitchen, his classical training reemerges.
Lukshon
Sometimes it seems as if Lukshon, the high-
minded pan-Asian restaurant Sang Yoon
opened in 2011 in the Helms Bakery complex,
is as much of a test kitchen as his actual test
kitchen, which is across the parking lot. Yoon
plays with a lot of the dishes at Lukshon,
swapping out sauces, firing up new kitchen
toys, switching ingredients. So the bowl of
Chiang Mai noodles can change color from
one month to the next. The subject of the
restaurant morphs, sometimes seeming to be
about riffs on Chinese street food (cold
sesame noodles, Sichuan dumplings, spicy
chicken pops), sometimes more about Miche-
lin-y tasting menu fare (butterfish with lime
cells and coconut snow, oysters and frozen
dipping sauce). Just when you feel you have
a handle on the place, Yoon will wander in,
after another trip to Hong Kong or a pickup
ice hockey game across town, with new ideas.
You will never be bored eating here, because
Yoon will never allow himself to stop rein-
venting. — A.S.
3239 Helms Ave., Culver City, (310) 202-6808,
lukshon.com. Full bar. Lot parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$$
MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
LUKSHON: Sang Yoon’s creations are
ever-evolving. Above, the Santa Barbara sea
urchin with jalapeño, peanuts, puffed black
rice and a bourbon fish sauce. But of course,
with Yoon, nothing is set in stone.
Ma’am Sir
Think of Ma’am Sir not so much as the latest
of L.A.’s new wave of wonderful Filipino
restaurants but as the triangulation of chef
Charles Olalia’s career. The first two points
were Joachim Splichal’s Patina, where the
young Filipino American was executive chef,
and Rice Bar, the seven-stool lunch counter
Olalia left the fine-dining universe to start, an
ode to the comfort food of his Manila child-
hood. From those two points, Ma’am Sir is
what you get to, if you’re a chef of Olalia’s
talents. There are the homey dishes, the adobo
and sisig, the kare kare and lumpia. But now
that the chef has a big, well-staffed kitchen,
his classical training (he also cooked for Guy
Savoy and Thomas Keller) is coming through.
The lumpia is built with shrimp mousse, uni
and lardo. The mango-jackfruit tapioca des-
sert comes in the form of an actual verrine.
The milkfish inihaw, split whole and grilled,
the top caramelized until it has the crackle of
crème brûlée, is so good you’ll actually dream
about it. — A.S.
4330 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 741-8371,
maamsirla.com. Full bar. Street parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$

36 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 37

MAJORDOMO
If you were going to put a name to
David Chang’s aesthetic, it could be
something like Cracked Perfection
— the way of the shokunin, a Japanese crafts-
man whose bliss comes through the search for
mastery, tempered with an all-American
restlessness that keeps mastery from being
achieved. Chang’s style, vividly on display at
Majordomo, his first Los Angeles restaurant,
is an intensely flavored, willfully eclectic
mash-up of traditional Asian cooking, modern
European fine dining and touches of bling. As
at Ssäm Bar, the New York restaurant that
cemented Chang's place in the food world, the
Majordomo menu draws from the Korean
dishes he grew up eating, but in Los Angeles
they seem less abstracted: closer to the origi-
nal. You can eat something like a pure Korean
meal here. When the kitchen is on point — a
succulent short rib rubbed with spices,
smoked for the better part of a day, carved
table-side and served with fermented Korean
sauces, herbs and wrappers — the flaws (im-
perfectly rendered fat) can make a dish hu-
man, and thus compelling. I loved skate-fried
rice, presumably a riff on bibim bap, with a
Photographs by WALLY SKALIJ / Los Angeles Times
slash of spicy gochujang, a scattering of herbs
and a bottom layer of crunchy fried skate
wing that doubled for the crunchy rice crust
that is always the best part. — J.G.

1725 Naud St., Los Angeles, (323) 545-4880,

majordomo.la. Full bar. Valet parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$$

David Chang’s first Los Angeles restaurant

is a mash-up of traditional Asian cooking,
modern European fine dining and touches
of bling. Dishes, clockwise from top left,
could include rice and peas with smoked
pork neck; chuck short rib; crab three ways;
and what’s called the Bounty Bowl.

38 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 39

 Mariscos Jalisco
Years before Los Angeles became known for its
fleets of nouveau food trucks, Raul Ortega had
parked his taco truck on the side of Olympic
Boulevard in Boyle Heights and was handing
down paper plates of tacos dorado de camarones
to loyal crowds. Ortega is still there making
those shrimp tacos, addictive envelopes of
corn tortillas folded around mashed fresh
shrimp that are fried golden and topped with
spicy salsa and slices of avocado. It’s a recipe
he brought with him from San Juan de los
Lagos in Jalisco, Mexico, some 35 years ago,
and it has remained as constant as the crowds.
There are other things you can get to
supplement your order — incendiary
aguachile, fish ceviche on crispy tostadas. But
it’s the fried shrimp tacos that you’ll keep
coming back for. Take a plate loaded with as
many as will fit and a bottle of Mexican Coke
and go sit on the brick stoop beside the truck
with folks doing the same. It’s an L.A. rite of
passage as much as it is lunch. — A.S.

3040 E. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, (323)

528-6701. No alcohol. Street parking. Cash
only. $

Mayura
Tucked in the back of a mini-mall off Venice
Boulevard, Mayura is an easy place to miss.
ALLEN J. SCHABEN / Los Angeles Times
But there it’s been for 13 years, serving a huge
MARCHÉ MODERNE: The O.C. restaurant’s open kitchen and grand dining room are of-the-
menu of dishes from the southern Indian state
moment; its heart is in classical French preparation. Above, Parmesan caramelized sweetbread.
of Kerala. The dosas are exemplary: golden
crepes that come folded into giant triangles or, Photographs by MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

if you get the ghee dosa, formed into a massive MEALS BY GENET: After nearly two decades, the restaurant is still a one-woman show. Above, Genet Agonafer prepares a vegan version of tibs.
Manhattan Marché Moderne cone. The uthappam, hubcap-sized pancakes

Meals by Genet Mélisse

Beach Post
The menu at David LeFevre’s almost
beachside restaurant reads more like a
conversation between friends than an actual
menu, with notes scribbled in between and
around the dishes: “This is the world’s best
pork!” It sets the tone for what’s to follow: a
procession of food you’ll recommend to
friends in those same words. The menu —
American-ish, market-ish, is solid and
includes roasted Brussels sprouts in a
honey-thyme gastrique, spaghetti with Swiss
chard pesto and pickled wild mushrooms, and
char siu lamb belly — but what you are here for
are the insanely delicious bacon cheddar
buttermilk biscuits. These are not pretty
biscuits. They arrive on a misshapen slab of
wood, with bits of bacon and cheddar poking
out of the dough. But they are perfection:
crisp, tender, flaky, flavorful. And with a
healthy pat of maple butter, there are few
things in the universe more satisfying. — J.H.
1142 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach,
(310) 545-5405, eatmbpost.com. Full bar. Street
Marché Moderne has all the
accouterments of a grand modern
restaurant: the vast, open kitchen
and oversized flower arrangements, heavy
Laguiole steak knives and a wine list on a
leather-bound e-tablet. The music is discreet.
The detailed menu entries are in English,
spiked with short French translations at their
end, in case you’d rather order canard fumé
than smoked duck. You will always find foie
gras here, sautéed or perhaps in the form of a
smooth, cool terrine with preserved cherries,
a bit of gingerbread and a dusting of Sichuan
pepper. Briefly seared hamachi and
Thai-flavored lobster are nods to the times,
but the heart of Amelia and Florent Marneau,
the proprietor and chef, is in classical French
preparations: properly roasted marrow bones
drizzled with thick, winy demiglace, and
crisp-skinned duck confit with a splash of
Banyuls vinegar and burnt-edged caramelized
figs. And coq au vin, wine reduced with
mushrooms, tiny onions and chunks of bacon
to near-blackness, is as splendid as you’d hope.
— J.G.
made from ground rice and lentils, are pretty
great, especially the spicy ones studded with
disks of jalapeños. Kerala cooking is
spice-laden and awash in coconut milk. Order
a table’s worth of the curries, made with fish,
chicken, or goat; you need a bowl of the dense
porridge upma; and at least one biryani, which
is more ornately seasoned here than is often
the case. You can get butter chicken and lamb
vindaloo too — the menu seems endless, as do
the ways to configure a superior meal. — A.S.
10406 Venice Blvd., Culver City, (310) 559-9644,
mayura-indian-restaurant.com. Beer and wine.
Takeout, delivery and catering. Lot parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$
Genet Agonafer’s almost 20-year-old Ethiopian There’s joy in the journey as you make your
restaurant, on the southern end of L.A.’s Little way through an evening at Josiah Citrin’s
Ethiopia neighborhood near LACMA, is a tasting-menu restaurant in Santa Monica. The
study in contrasts. Agonafer is still the only dining room hits all the marks of classic fine
cook in the tiny kitchen, running the place like dining: the tablecloths are white, and the
the one-woman catering business it originally lighting is dimmed for the optimal romantic
was, after she came to L.A. from Addis Ababa. setting. On any given night there’s a festive
The rustic food — the doro wat and kitfo and atmosphere, as most of the diners around you
tibs that are eaten by hand, scooped up with will be marking some kind of occasion. It has
bits of the injera flatbread that’s also your plate been this way for the last 19 years and will
— is served in a dining room that looks like a hopefully continue to be around for the next
Paris bistro: white tablecloths on the tables, 19. Because there should always be cause for a
napkins folded into wine glasses, low soft poached egg tucked into its shell with a
candlelight and framed art on the walls. The dollop of smoked lemon crème fraîche and
doro wat, long-stewed chicken cooked in a golden osetra caviar. And equal cause to make
berbere-spiced sauce the color of mahogany, is it rain white truffles over al dente Acquerello
the best in town, a magnificent amalgam of rice enveloped in mascarpone. And to order
spice and heat and flavor. In the years since the cheese course as a second dessert.
the chef went vegan, she’s added a version of Someone in the kitchen is surely using
tibs with tofu that’s almost as addictive as her tweezers, but nothing skews stuffy. With each
showpiece dish. And fittingly enough for the course more decadent than the next, it’s a
cuisine from the birthplace of coffee, there are fitting way to celebrate whatever you’re
affogatos for dessert. — A.S. celebrating. — J.H.
GENARO MOLINA / Los Angeles Times

parking and valet Friday-Sunday. Credit cards 7862 E. Coast Highway, Newport Beach, (714) JAY L. CLENDENIN / Los Angeles Times 1053 S. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (323) MÉLISSE: The bigeye tuna tartare, which is 1104 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310)
accepted. $$$ 434-7900, marchemoderne.net. Full bar. Valet MAYURA: Chicken tandoori is among the 938-9304, mealsbygenetla.com. Beer and wine. wrapped in Hass avocados, comes with uni 395-0881, melisse.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
and lot parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$ Indian dishes at this inconspicuous spot. Street parking. Credit cards accepted. $$ panna cotta as well as osetra caviar. Credit cards accepted. $$$$

40 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 41

 JAY L. CLENDENIN / Los Angeles Times

MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

JAY L. CLENDENIN / Los Angeles Times
Mozzaplex
Some of my best nights in Los Angeles are
spent hopping around Nancy Silverton’s
Mozzaplex, the cluster of restaurants on the
edge of Hancock Park that includes Pizzeria
Mozza, Osteria Mozza, Mozza2Go and Chi
Spacca. She’s taken over the southwest corner
of Highland and Melrose avenues and turned
it into Nancyland, a place where you can get a
bubbly pie and a Negroni at the pizzeria,
move on to a bowl of oxtail ragú, a good bottle
of Barbaresco and one of Dahlia Navarez’s
divine sweets at the Osteria. And lastly to Chi
Spacca, to a 36-ounce costata alla fiorentina
and a focaccia di recco cooked in a handmade
copper pan that would make an Italian nonna
weep. Would the Los Angeles dining scene be
what it is without Silverton? Most certainly
not. — J.H.

Highland at Melrose avenues, Los Angeles,

(323) 297-0101, mozzarestaurantgroup.com. See
website for details about Pizzeria Mozza,
Osteria Mozza, Chi Spacca and Mozza2Go.
Valet parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
JAY L. CLENDENIN / Los Angeles Times

Bouncing around the Mozzaplex, you might

see, clockwise from above, Chi Spacca’s
beef and bone marrow pie; Pizzeria Mozza’s
roasted carrots dish, pizza with Brussels
sprouts, guanciale, red onion and
mozzarella, and its open kitchen; Chi
Spacca’s roasted squash blossoms;
Osteria Mozza’s linguine with clams;
and mastermind Nancy Silverton herself.

RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

42 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 43

N/NAKA
Los Angeles has its fair share of blowout
big-occasion restaurants, and Niki Nakayama
is at the helm of one of the most wonderful
places to go when there’s something really
special to celebrate. N/naka, her exceptional
kaiseki restaurant, is set in an unassuming
bungalow in Palms, with a 13-course meal that
takes diners on a journey through this formal
school of Japanese cooking, splashed with a
touch of Californian influence. Some recent
highlights included an avocado-and-Alaskan-
king-crab-stuffed tomato at the peak of the
season, crowned with a tangle of fried ruby-
red beet threads, and a sublime piece of A5
Wagyu beef grilled over binchotan, intense in Photographs by MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
flavor and astoundingly buttery in texture.
Nakayama’s $225 menu changes frequently,
and dishes rarely appear again, save for the
pretty little twirl of spaghettini with abalone
and pickled cod roe. N/naka has a reputation
for being L.A.’s hardest-to-book restaurant, a
set-your-alarm-and-frantically-refresh situa-
tion. Here’s a tip: Use the “Notify Me” func- Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger Mariah Tauger
tion on booking platform Resy and stay glued
to your email — chances are you’ll get in once
someone cancels. — A.C.

3455 S. Overland Ave., Los Angeles, (310)

836-6252, n-naka.com. Beer, wine and sake.
Valet or street parking. Credit cards accepted.
$$$$ From Niki Nakayama’s n/naka, top left:
roasted carrot purée, scallop tartare, crispy
shallots and sunflower seeds. Above, a
Japanese sardine dish. At left, seafood —
jellyfish, soft-shell crab and sweetfish with
compressed watermelon — alongside foie
gras crème brûlée and yamaimo with okra.

44 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 45

 Odys + Penelope
The first thing you see when you open the
doors to Quinn and Karen Hatfield’s restau-
rant is the open-fire grill where most of your
dinner will be cooked, next to an impressive
stack of firewood that makes you forget you’re
in the Fairfax neighborhood. You’ll want to
order large plates for sharing: tri-tip, whole
branzino, pork ribs, smoked and grilled
Mary’s chicken — all of which will come
trailing the scent of that massive grill. Eat
your vegetables, as they too come out of the
fire before being dosed with sauces: charred
broccolini with beet remoulade and hazelnut
dukkah, say, or roasted spaghetti squash with
salsa cruda. Do not forget dessert, as Karen is
one of the best pastry chefs in the country
and her chocolate rye pie one of the best
desserts in town. The dishes are hearty and
rustic, but you won’t forget that the Hatfields
met at Spago and that their previous restau-
rant, Hatfield’s, had one star in the Michelin
guide, back when Los Angeles had one. — A.S.

127 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 939-1033,

NATIVE: Nyesha Arrington’s food is like L.A. — colliding flavors from many traditions. Above, the Spanish octopus with house-made corn nuts.
Native
Without anyone quite noticing,
Native chef Nyesha Arrington has
become a force in Los Angeles
cooking: a protégé of Josiah Citrin at Mélisse
who drifted through an oddly vegetable-
intensive year at Wilshire steakhouse and a
turn on “Top Chef” before her brief, brilliant
run as chef at Venice restaurant Leona. It is as
difficult to categorize Arrington’s food as it is
the chef herself, a young African American,
born and raised in L.A., whose love of cooking
began in her Korean grandmother’s kitchen. A
fat curl of crisped octopus tentacle with
smoky, tangy yogurt comes with a handful of
house-made corn nuts. In a mustardy, hand-
chopped tartare, made with Wagyu beef, the
crunchiness comes not from the slivered pear
you’d expect in a Korean yuk hwe but from
sprouted seeds that have nearly the same
texture. I loved the rabbit “sugo” and spaetzle,
a tomato-rich dish that resembled a first-rate
Tuscan cacciatore. What is clear is that her
food tastes like L.A.: colliding flavors from a
dozen culinary traditions, tied together with
exquisitely seasonal produce from the nearby
Santa Monica farmers market, a list of funky
natural wines and music that seems drawn
from a KJLH playlist circa 1983. — J.G.
620 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, (310)
458-4427, eatnative.la. Full bar. Valet and
street parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
Night + Market
When Night + Market first opened, Kris
Yenbamroong was known for challenging
Thai food — full of blood and bitterness, with
incendiary chile heat. But as his empire has
grown, he’s relaxed and switched gears: He
makes food you want to eat again and again,
authenticity be damned. Sure, there’s still a
recognizable northeastern Thai backbone to
what he does, but there’s also duck pizza at
the Venice location and a take on crab ran-
goon in Silver Lake. Somehow it all works,
and better than it should. You will not want to
leave any of his three restaurants without at
least one order of the nam khao tod crispy rice
salad. The dish is a study in textures: rice
puffed up and fried until it turns into golden
crunchy kernels, slivers of red onion, raw
ginger, fresh herbs, Yenbamroong’s version of
Spam, chile and a tart, electric dressing of
lime and fish sauce. But whether it’s the khao
soi, the fried chicken sandwich or the larb gai,
he has managed to coax flavors that you want
to keep coming back to. And he and wife and
partner Sarah are among the city’s top pushers
of natural wine. These are wines that are
off-center, easy to drink and pair splendidly
with his food. Before you know it, that crispy
rice salad is gone, so is that bottle of wine, and
you’re plotting to make your way back. — J.H.
Multiple locations. nightmarketsong.com. Beer
and wine (full bar at WeHo). Credit cards
accepted. $$
WALLY SKALIJ / Los Angeles Times
NoMad
The New York invasion of Los Angeles con-
tinues with the Manhattan transplant NoMad.
Should we be alarmed that New Yorkers seem
to be coming out of every coffee shop, win-
dow and alley? Not so much when the result
is a 241-room hotel that has transformed the
old Giannini Place building into an opulent
Vogue Italia spread outfitted with polished
tiled floors, floral print rugs and velvet, ev-
erywhere. Chef Daniel Humm (of NoMad and
Eleven Madison Park in New York) and execu-
tive chef Chris Flint seem to be doing their
best to make sure no one thinks of what the
NoMad serves as “hotel food.” There’s a dish
of sea urchin that’s a cross between caviar
service and a make-your-own-taco bar. Suck-
ling pig is confited and served with charred
cherries. There is a carbon copy of the dec-
adent roast chicken for two that put the din-
ing room on the map in Manhattan, and a
roast duck preparation that may be even
better. Wine director Ryan Bailey’s recom-
mendations are consistently #spoton. If
you’re still worried there’s going to be some-
thing hotelly about the place, head to the
coffee bar in the lobby for pastry chef Mark
Welker’s viennoiseries. A baklava croissant?
Howard Johnson has nothing on these guys. —
J.H.
649 S. Olive St., Los Angeles, (213) 358-0000,
thenomadhotel.com/los-angeles. Full bar. Valet
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
odysandpenelope.com. Full bar. Valet parking
and street parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
BARBARA DAVIDSON / Los Angeles Times
OFFICINE BRERA: The lardo al pepe.
Officine Brera
Everything about Officine Brera screams, “I’m
in the Arts District!” The exposed-brick walls,
über-high ceilings and warehouse windows
give the dining room an art house feel, like
you’re in a friend of a friend’s loft for a cool
party, thrown in honor of that artist you
pretend to have read about. The chef at this
party is Angelo Auriana, who opened Factory
Kitchen and previously cooked at Valentino.
At Officine Brera, he’s making a handful of
pastas and cooking as much as he can on the
wood grill or in the wood oven. His pièce de
résistance? The Milanese risotto. Anyone who
has ever cooked the stuff knows that to do it
right, it takes a watchful eye and patience.
Auriana’s is toothsome, with a sauce that
sticks to each kernel. The rice is stained a pale
yellow and perfumed from the saffron, with a
piece of smoky roasted bone marrow rising
from the middle. — J.H.
1331 E. 6th St., Los Angeles, (213) 553-8006,
officinebrera.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$
ODYS + PENELOPE: The massive grill — as well as the woodpile next to it — is not for rustic
effect. Most of your food, including your vegetables, will be subject to the flames.
GINA FERAZZI / Los Angeles Times
GINA FERAZZI / Los Angeles Times
OSAWA: Head sushi chef Yutaka Kudo, top,
uses a blowtorch for searing. A sashimi
plate, above, offers a wide variety. Osawa’s
assortment of fish is as impressive as you’ll
see outside of Japan.
MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ /Los Angeles Times
Osawa
The best Japanese restaurants tradi-
tionally define themselves by spe-
cializing in a particular food or
presentation. Osawa, a project of Sayuri
Tachibe and her husband, Shigefumi Tachibe,
corporate chef for all the U.S. Chaya restau-
rants for 31 years, may be as close to a one-
stop shop as I’ve ever seen. You can get suki-
yaki and foie gras with daikon, and nobody
will give you side-eye if you order an albacore
volcano roll. But you can also get sushi of
delicately seared nodoguro, a black-throated
perch famous for its oil-free flesh and robust,
meaty taste, that is hard to find even in Tokyo.
Call the place izakaya-plus. There’s as beauti-
fully diverse an assortment of fish as you’ll
see outside of Japan: sanma, saury pike, served
as sushi at the height of its season; the sea
robin called hobo, cooked in a spicy Italian-
style broth; lovely sardines from Hokkaido;
and a dozen other things that don’t make it
onto the menus of strip-mall sushi-ya. Osawa
is an easy place to be a secret connoisseur. But
I’m a peasant, which means I always order
battera sushi too — vinegared sushi rice
pressed into a mold over lightly pickled
mackerel and a transparent slip of seaweed —
more train station sushi than the stuff of
omakase meals. For anyone who enjoys getting
whomped over the head with flavor, it’s a
pleasurable way to go. — J.G.
77 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, (626) 683-1150,
theosawa.com. Beer, wine and sake. Street and
valet parking. Credit cards accepted. $$

46 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 47

 Photographs by CHRISTINA HOUSE / For The Times
Otium
Welcome to chef Timothy Hollingsworth’s
mad, magical world. You can often catch him
in the large, open kitchen at the center of the
restaurant, whizzing from one station to the
next. And at first glance, the menu may seem
just as spontaneous. There is no real through
line that carries you from dinner to dessert. A
recent menu included hamachi with ponzu
granita, gnocchi with truffle and grilled fish
with tamarind and tomato. He’s the guy who
put foie gras mousse on his funnel cake like it
belonged there. His Lebanese wife inspired
the dry-aged beef tartare, his take on a kibbeh
nayeh, with rough-chopped raw beef, bulgur
and yogurt served on a shard of lavash. And of
course there’s caviar, served with truffle
butter and a misshapen piece of naan that
would make the guys at Badmaash happy. For
brunch, there are cubes of fried pork belly
artfully plated next to squares of French toast
topped with dollops of whipped maple,
served out of a donabe. Mole with eggs and
blue corn tortillas? Why not? Don’t try to pick
a theme; just go with it. His culinary compul-
sions may swing irregular, but his plates will
often leave you humming with satisfaction. —
J.H.
222 S. Hope St., Los Angeles, (213) 935-8500,
otiumla.com. Full bar. Valet parking at 225 S.
Grand Ave. Credit cards accepted. $$$
48 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
At the downtown
restaurant, don’t fret about
choosing a theme to take
you from dinner to dessert.
In fact, just go with your
gut. At left, deconstructed
“pastrami” in a donabe pot.
PETIT TROIS: The restaurant, unlike Trois Mec next door, is unabashedly French. It doesn’t get much more French than Burgundy escargots, above.
Park’s BBQ
Are you familiar with the term “meat sweats”?
It’s a glorious condition brought on by gas-
and charcoal-fueled grills overflowing with
glistening meat, and a table crammed with
banchan and frosty mugs of Hite. There is
probably no better place to experience the
#meatsweats than at Jenee Kim’s Park’s BBQ.
Her Korean barbecue restaurant is a neighbor-
hood institution, replete with celebrity visi-
tors’ pictures on the walls and with a staff
that, once you’ve been in enough times, wel-
comes you back when you return. Kim is
known for introducing Los Angeles to a cer-
tain level of Korean barbecue that may be
commonplace now but was practically un-
heard of when she opened the restaurant 15
years ago. You can’t not order the marinated
galbi. Her American Wagyu rib-eye steak is
marbled through and through. When the meat
hits the grill and sputters to life, the fat melts
into the steak and bastes itself while it cooks
in front of you. There are seasoned pork belly,
prime beef tongue, seasoned shrimp and ggot
sal too. The banchan (cucumbers slashed with
chile, spaghetti strands of spicy raddish, good
kimchi and caramelized anchovies) are better
than most and change frequently. Every meal
here is the ideal Korean barbecue experience.
Bring your friends, and bring on the meat
sweats. — J.H.
955 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 380-
1717, parksbbq.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$
BRET HARTMAN / For The Times
BRET HARTMAN / For The Times
PARK’S BBQ: Rib-eye steak, top, gets a
grilling at a restaurant table, where it takes
its place with banchan, Korean side dishes.
Above, more beef and banchan.
ALLEN J. SCHABEN / Los Angeles Times
Petit Trois
It’s often said that the mark of a good chef is
how well he or she handles eggs. That bodes
well for Ludo Lefebvre, whose name has
become synonymous in L.A. with a damn
good French omelet. The custardy eggs lan-
guish over low heat for longer than any home
cook has patience for before being tucked
around a log of Boursin cheese and sprinkled
with chives. Deceptively plain-looking, the
omelet has a silky-soft mouthfeel, as decadent
as the superb butter that comes with your
baguette. Unlike sister restaurant Trois Mec
next door, Petit Trois is unabashedly French.
You’ll find expertly executed bistro favorites
such as croque-madame and steak frites, plus
a few Lefebvre creations that have become
legendary: the confit-fried chicken leg doused
in brioche butter and, of course, the Big Mec.
This is a knife-and-fork burger: a $25 double-
patty monstrosity that oozes a waterfall of
foie gras bordelaise sauce and drippy melted
cheese. Lefebvre expanded the brand’s foot-
print this year by opening Petit Trois Le
Valley in Sherman Oaks. The escargots are as
plump and garlicky as ever, only now you get
to enjoy them in a much larger space with
reservations and actual tables, under a paint-
ing of Lefebvre depicted as Louis XIV. — A.C.
718 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, (323)
468-8916, petittrois.com. Full bar. Valet and
street parking. Credit cards accepted. Also at
13705 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818)
989-2600. $$$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 49
 LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 19, 2018 - The Gold
served at Porridge and Puffs restaurant, on Beverly
Blvd, October 19, 2018. A tribute to beloved
Jonathan Gold, this “trust us” set meal showcases

John Cleveland’s menu leans toward soul food. The soul-food-leaning menu includes mac and cheese — above, topped with breadcrumbs — fried
catfish and excellent cornbread.

RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times Photographs by KIRK McKOY / Los Angeles Times

Porridge + Puffs Post & Beam

For the last few years, Minh Phan’s bowls of When Post & Beam opened a few years ago, it
ethereal porridge have been elusory, appear- was something of an event. It was the latest
ing very infrequently as part of a pop-up restaurant from chef Govind Armstrong, the
event, but mostly as either memory or prom- “Top Chef” alum who had famously started
ise. Phan first presented them in 2014, as a his career as a teenager at Spago. And it was in
LOS ANGELES-CA-AUGUST 21, 2018: Chef Minh Phan is photographed at Porridge + Puffs in Los
short-lived project called Field Trip con- Baldwin Hills, which had a vibrant African
Angeles on Tuesday, August 21, 2018. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
nected to the Hollywood farmers market. American community, but not a lot of destina-
When it closed, we waited, and waited. That tion restaurants, much less one run by a chef
wait finally ended in August, when Phan with Armstrong’s résumé. Armstrong is still
opened a bricks-and-mortar in Historic executive chef, and owner and founder Brad
Filipinotown, near downtown: a pretty space Johnson is still there, part maître d’, part
centered around a long communal table, a neighborhood impresario. Also behind the
perfect setting for the bowls of porridge and stoves is chef John Cleveland, an Armstrong
plates of rice-flour doughnuts. In a city awash protégé from Oakland, who has been putting
in congee and juk, Phan’s sticks out because of his stamp — and his family’s smoked baby
how she tricks hers out, with the kinds of back ribs recipe — on the menu for the last
things you’d normally find on a forager’s year. That menu leans toward soul food, with
fancy tasting menu: soy-braised poultry, plates of shrimp and grits, fried catfish with
hibiscus-shiso pickled eggs, five-spice short dirty rice, cast-iron chicken and excellent
ribs, black-eyed pea miso, plus a catalog of CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times cornbread. There are also Sunday Suppers,
house-made pickles and edible flowers. This brunch on the weekends and happy hours
is not some grandmother’s gruel, but porridge “The Gold,” top, offers varied textures and where you can get a plate of buttermilk fried The soul-food-leaning menu by “Top Chef”
elevated to an art form. — A.S. flavors so you can build your own bites; chicken wings or tacos along with your Sazer- alum Govind Armstrong includes macaroni
Minh Phan, above, created it as a tribute acs. — A.S. and cheese, top, finished with breadcrumbs;
2801 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 908-5313, to Jonathan Gold. At left, poultry and catfish with dirty rice; and excellent
porridgeandpuffs.com. No alcohol. Street mushroom porridge incorporates sweet soy 3767 Santa Rosalia Drive, Los Angeles, (323) cornbread. On the lighter side is a green
parking. Credit cards accepted. $ braised chicken, turkey, mushrooms, crispy 299-5599, postandbeamla.com. Full bar. Free lot bean salad, left, with heirloom tomatoes,
shallots, celery pickles, seasonal edible parking. Credit cards accepted. $$ avocado and cucumber.
flowers, mirepoix, rice and hibiscus-shiso
pickled soft egg.

CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times

50 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 51

 PROVIDENCE
Even after 13 years, Michael Cimarusti’s
Melrose restaurant continues to be an evolv-
ing expression of fine dining in Los Angeles.
His is hyperseasonal cooking that is built on
a foundation of sustainable local seafood
brought to shore by his sustainability-driven
seafood company Dock to Dish Los Angeles.
On a recent evening, there were monkfish
liver tacos wrapped in shiso leaves resting
precariously on a branch, salmon rillette
RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times bursting out of rye crackers, and Cimarusti’s
signature spot prawns, encased completely in
salt and cooked for about 90 seconds. One of
the most delicious bites of the evening was
actually disguised as a garnish: a piece of
potato skin fried in Wagyu fat until it turned
into the world’s most amazing chip. Cimarusti
is one of the best chefs in the world, one
cooking at the height of his powers, as he has
been for years. That his restaurant isn’t
packed with even more awards or ranked on
worldwide lists is a criminal oversight, but
one that makes the place even more special: It
is probably Los Angeles’ best restaurant, and
it is all ours. — J.H.
MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
5955 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 460-
4170, providencela.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$$

RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

Providence’s concept of fine dining refuses MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
to stand still. Clockwise, from above: salmon
with matsutake; strawberries with basil,
lime and opalys; Wagyu and sunchoke and
pickled nori; the bar and dining room at the
L.A. institution; Michael Cimarusti; and
soy-milk chowder with crab, geoduck
and uni.

RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

52 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 53

 Q
Stepping into Q is like entering an alternate
universe. The minimal, serene space — a
narrow passageway of dark wood and soft
lights — blocks out all the noise and clutter of
whatever kind of day you’re having. And you
can blissfully concentrate on the task at hand:
eating sushi. Hiroyuki Naruke and wife Kyoko
have managed to create an Edo-style sushi
bubble in the center of downtown, where you
can get lost in an omakase lunch for an hour or
a three-hour procession of fish for dinner. At
Q, there is no need to dip your sushi in soy
CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times sauce. Hiroyuki, who ran a six-seat sushi
restaurant in Tokyo before opening Q, ages
and cures his fish to manipulate the flavors to
his liking, and his rice is artfully seasoned
with red vinegar and salt. He works gracefully
behind the bar, his nimble hands shaping each
course and placing it carefully before you —
each piece of fish a gift, created just for you.
— J.H.

521 W. 7th St., Los Angeles, (213) 225-6285,

qsushila.com. Beer, wine and sake. Valet
parking after 6:30 p.m. Credit cards accepted.
$$$$

CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times

Seafood from Hiroyuki Naruke (lower right)

at his minimalist and calming downtown
space (center) where there’s no need to
bring out the soy sauce: clockwise from
above, wavy slices of mackerel; Shigoku and
Kumamoto oysters, side by side; sardine
sashimi; and a sushi plate that includes
fluke, gizzard shad, tuna, toro and sea eel.
LOS ANGELES-CA-OCTOBER 2, 2018: Q Sushi in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, September 26, 2018. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 13, 2016 -

LOS ANGELES-CA-OCTOBER 2, 2018: Sushi plate: (top left to right) fluke, gizzard shad, and soy LOS ANGELES-CA-OCTOBER 2, 2018: Chef Hiroyuki Naruke is photographed at Q Sushi in Sardine Sashimi served at Q Sushi, in
marinated bluefin tuna; and (bottom left to right) toro, sea eel, egg cake, and ginger, downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, September 26, 2018. (Christina House / Los Angeles downtown Los Angeles, September 13, 2016.
Times) (Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times).

RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times

CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times

54 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 55


Redbird
The airy atrium in the shadow of the Vibiana
bell tower is reason enough to go to Redbird,
the New American downtown restaurant by
chef Neal Fraser and wife Amy Knoll Fraser. If
you need another, the happy hour is among
the city’s best, with the restaurant’s addictive
quinoa-strewn shishito peppers, house-cured
sardines and hamachi crudo all on discount,
plus more than half a dozen $9 cocktails. You
easily could spend a very happy hour or two
sitting at the marble-topped bar under the
retractable roof, chatting with the attractive
bartenders and eating nothing but
complimentary Brazilian cheese ball after
cheese ball. But then you’d miss out on the
gemelli pasta with braised goat, bread crumbs
and poached egg, enlivened with the heat of
Fresno chiles, or the lamb belly with charred
eggplant and pickled walnuts. Since opening
in 2014, it has quietly become one of
downtown’s finest places to drink and eat the
work day away. — A.C.
114 E. 2nd St., Los Angeles, (213) 788-1191,
redbirdla.com. Full bar. Valet or street parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$
56 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
Photographs by RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times
Ricardo DeAratanha Los Angeles Times
Under the retractable rooftop, you’ll find one
of L.A.’s best happy hours. Above, rosemary
focaccia next to burrata, muscat grapes and
pine nuts. At left, house-cured sardines with
heirloom tomato, fennel and croutons.
Ricardo DeAratanha Los Angeles Times
An employee prepares food as bottles of wine stand on shelves at Republique restaurant on Thursday, December 15, 2016 in Los Angeles, Calif.
PATRICK T. FALLON / For The Times
République
There are myriad reasons to frequent Walter
and Margarita Manzke’s Hancock Park restau-
rant: the amped-up French bistro food, which
includes what is arguably L.A.’s best roast
chicken, handmade pasta sauced with uni and
black truffles, foie gras torchon on toast, Green
Goddess salad built with local lettuces, Chan-
nel Islands black cod with gnocchi. Margari-
ta’s desserts are terrific riffs on classics — a
towering chocolate cake the color of obsidian,
say, that’s so good you’ll forget to Instagram it.
If you come in the morning, there are pastry
cases and shelves of baked goods that trans-
form the restaurant’s entryway into one of the
best bakeries in the city. Inside, the place is as
breathtaking as the food — it looks like a cross
between a French farmhouse and a tiny cathe-
dral — and the hanging charcuterie, wine
cabinets and wooden communal tables en-
courage you to order more than you responsi-
bly should. No worries: Any extra chicken Wine bottles line the shelves above where
will make a great sandwich, and you can amped-up French bistro dishes are created.
probably pick up a baguette on the way out. If At left, carpaccio including Santa Barbara
there are any canelés de Bordeaux left from the spot prawns, uni and caviar. Above, Cook
morning’s baking, get them all. — A.S. Ranch pork chop, belly and sausage; braised
turnips; and oven-dried peaches.
624 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (310) 362-6115,
republiquela.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 57

ROSALINÉ: Peruvian restaurant veteran Ricardo Zarate’s best yet is set on Melrose Avenue.
Above, chicharrón de paiche: a fried Amazonian fish with popped kiwicha and yuzu aioli.
Rosaliné
Ricardo Zarate has always cooked exemplary
food, whether it was at his modest stall at the
Mercado La Paloma or when he was running
his trifecta of modern Peruvian restaurants:
Mo-Chica downtown, Picca in West L.A. and
Paiche in Marina del Rey. Those restaurants
are gone after a split between Zarate and his
investors, but the chef is still very much a
force in the L.A. dining scene. His restaurant
Rosaliné, which opened in 2017, is his best one
yet. The West Hollywood hot spot sits on one
of the trendiest stretches of Melrose Avenue,
as pretty as the customers it attracts. The
striking center room feels like a greenhouse,
with voluminous hanging plants and white
herringbone tiled walls. Zarate is churning
out excellent versions of Peruvian classics
here. His ceviches — try the kampachi with
ají pesto and sweet potato — are intensely
tangy, his seafood paella fully loaded with
tender clams, prawns, scallops and calamari.
To finish, the chancay con leche, a Peruvian
cake with goat’s milk, coconut milk, guava
frozen yogurt and toasted meringue, might be
the greatest dessert you have all year. — A.C.
8479 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (323)
297-9500, rosalinela.com. Full bar. Valet or
street parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
58 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
GARY CORONADO/ Los Angeles Times
Rossoblu
Is there a tiny nonna hiding somewhere in the
back of Steve Samson’s Bologna-inspired
restaurant in the downtown Fashion District?
Is that her behind the grill? Maybe she’s in the
bar sipping a Negroni. Nope, it’s Samson in
the kitchen, cooking food he’d probably like
you to believe a sweet nonna made, out of one
of the hippest dining rooms in downtown. His
Bolognese, paler and richer and, frankly, more
Bolognese than most of what you’ll find at
other restaurants, is the kind of stick-to-your-
ribs meat sauce that will leave you wishing we
had actual seasons in Los Angeles. (He’s
dressing his brunch burger with a ladleful of
the stuff, too, which sounds like a gimmick
but eats like a dream.) Before the Bolognese,
you will taste your way through Rossoblu’s
house-cured meats draped over the puffed
pillows of dough known as crescentine fritte.
The coppa di testa is a delicious mosaic of pig
parts, the dry-aged whipped beef tallow is
pure meat butter, and the salame stands tall as
some of the best in the city. Samson may cook
like your nonna, if she had Instagram. — J.H.
City Market South, 1124 San Julian St., Los
Angeles, (213) 749-1099, rossoblula.com. Full
bar. Valet and street parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$$
Rustic Canyon
If you follow Jeremy Fox on Instagram, and
you should, you can see how much of a hands-
on chef he still is, five years after taking over
the stoves at Rustic Canyon. The repeating
dishes that come out of his kitchen, composi-
tions (he favors top shots on a wooden table)
showcasing produce from the nearby Santa
Monica farmers market, local seafood and
grains and cheeses, and prettily plated with
Fox’s supremely creative and well-flavored
sauces, make you wonder if the chef wouldn’t
make a pretty good Flemish-style still-life
painter if this cooking gig doesn’t work out.
Though Fox is fond of vegetables (he famously
helmed the vegetarian restaurant Ubuntu in
Napa and wrote a cookbook devoted to vege-
tables), he is equally gifted with hanger steak
and rib-eye, roasted chicken and rockfish,
employing all his chanterelles, pomegranates,
amaranth and shelling beans in supporting
roles. The restaurant, invariably loud and
packed, has an impressive wine list (it’s called
a wine bar for good reason) and a dessert
menu that’s so good — dishes tend to focus on
whole grains, raw cream and local fruit — that
you’d be advised to leave yourself space to
fully explore it. Get the current iteration of
“beets and berries,” and even if you always
order the pozole verde, do it again. — A.S.
1119 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 393-
7050, rusticcanyonwinebar.com. Full bar. Valet
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$
Sapp Coffee Shop
When you sit down at your table, the first
question your server will ask is not if you’d
like something to drink. Or if he or she can
take your order. The only thing he or she
wants to know, really, is “how many orders of
jade noodles?” Because when you find your-
self in this tiny Thai Town strip mall, in a lot
that will give the most agile of drivers a rea-
son to squirm, there is only one objective:
Order the jade noodles. And really, order your
own bowl, because you will not want to share.
It should be noted that the boat noodle soup
and the crispy pork with broccoli are great
too. But you came here for the jade. The
sage-colored noodles are thin, springy and
easily slurpable. Someone in the kitchen
artfully arranges slices of barbecued pork and
roast duck, shredded crab meat, crushed
peanuts and chile flakes, wedges of Chinese
broccoli and a handful of chopped herbs
around the bowl. And that spoonful of sugar
off to the side is not a mistake. Use your
chopsticks to mash it all together, and make
each bite the very best bite. Then suck down a
first-rate Thai iced tea and go and attack your
day. — J.H.
5183 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, (313) 665-
1035. No alcohol. Lot parking. Cash only. $
Scratch Bar &
Kitchen
All the fine-dining tropes at play in Los Ange-
les right now are on display at Scratch Bar.
Will you start in one part of the restaurant
before moving to another partway through
the meal? Yep. Use your hands to eat some of
your 20-plus courses? Of course. Interact
directly with the chefs because there are no
servers? You’ll be pals by night’s end. The
restaurant, run by Phillip Frankland Lee of
“Top Chef” fame and his wife, pastry chef
Margarita Kallas-Lee, moved from Beverly
Hills’ Restaurant Row to the second floor of
one of those monolithic suburban corner
mini-malls in 2015. Expect top-notch versions
of such tasting menu mainstays as foie gras,
duck breast and Wagyu beef, and luxurious
garnishes of truffles and uni. If all of that
sounds standard, there’s literally magic hid-
den inside the place: On Monday and Tues-
day nights, Lee hands over a secret back room
at Scratch Bar to a roster of magicians who put
on a pop-up show for 16 people. Is it all an
illusion? Because the hidden space transforms
into an omakase sushi spot, also run by Lee, on
other nights. — A.C.
16101 Ventura Blvd. No. 255, Encino, (818)
646-6085, scratchbarla.com. Full bar. Valet or
self-park garage. Credit cards accepted. $$$$
Sea Harbour
Choosing which of the San Gabriel Valley’s
dim sum palaces to visit is one of those em-
barrassment of riches situations, a true First
World problem, as the saying goes, albeit with
a Los Angeles twist. Sea Harbour is the stand-
out of the pack, a grand Hong Kong-style
restaurant in Rosemead that is worth the hour
or more that you will almost certainly wait if
you show up from midmorning to early after-
noon on a weekend. The spiral-bound menu
— no dim sum carts here — is carefully ar-
ranged with a helpful photo of each dish, like
a children’s picture book but for hungry
adults. So what makes Sea Harbour superior?
It’s simple: Just about every dim sum staple —
whether it’s the barbecue pork buns, shrimp
dumplings, radish cakes, chicken feet or rice
noodle rolls — tastes better here. The gener-
ously filled, cloud-like buns deserve a special
shout-out, in particular the baked low-fat milk
bun, which does not taste low-fat in the
slightest, and the steamed preserved salty egg
yolk bun, the velvety yellow-orange goo
threatening to pour out as soon as you take a
bite. The price points are slightly higher, and
you might have conflicted feelings about
truffle shu mai, but when it comes to high-
quality, fresh dim sum, Sea Harbour is where
it’s at. — A.C.
3939 Rosemead Blvd., Rosemead, (626) 288-
3939. Beer and wine. Lot parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$
RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times
SHIBUMI: Sophistication hides off a grimy
street downtown. Enter to find a cypress
counter and dishes like the octopus above.
KIRK McKOY/ Los Angeles Times
SCRATCH BAR: The bone marrow dessert,
above, isn’t the only seemingly magical
touch: Some nights, there are magicians.
GENARO MOLINA / Los Angeles Times
SHIKI: Morihiro “Mori” Onodera puts the
final touches on a plate of sushi. He is an
expert in seasonally attuned cuisine.
Shibumi
Dining at Shibumi feels kind of like the sur-
prisingly refined reward of a postmodern
urban treasure hunt. David Schlosser’s small,
sophisticated Japanese restaurant could be
mistaken for a dive bar from the outside,
crammed next to a parking garage in a grimy
section of downtown L.A. But duck inside and
you’ll find an omakase counter fashioned from
a hundreds-year-old cypress tree, behind
which Schlosser stands, making gorgeous
little plates of salmon trout smoked in cherry
bark, steamed abalone and handmade mochi
diced into a bath of ginger miso. There are
tinier plates of pickles, mushrooms aged for a
year, bits of raw eggplant, a hunk of tuna that’s
been cured in salt until it looks more like
charcoal than fish. You can spend more than a
hundred bucks on an omakase menu, plenty
more if you want Kobe beef or a bottle from
the impressive sake collection. Or just order a
plate of grilled onigiri, the rice balls you can
find in Tokyo department stores, served with
a lacto-fermented pickle. And for dessert?
Maybe a cake made of water. — A.S.
815 S. Hill St., Los Angeles, (323) 484-8915,
shibumidtla.com. Full bar. Lot parking. Credit
cards accepted. $$$
Shiki
At a good sushi bar, the kind that
makes you swoon, the first piece you
are offered is the tell, a statement of
purpose that should let you know whether
you are in for an hour of bliss or an hour of
sake-lubricated sadness at the happiness that
might have been. The first piece that chef
Morihiro “Mori” Onodera nestles onto my
plate at Shiki, a specialist in washoku, tradi-
tional Japanese cuisine exquisitely tuned to
the seasons, is a slash of Japanese sea bream
on a narrow pillar of body-temperature rice —
softness not quite collapsing into richness, a
breath of acid, a lick of salt from the kelp in
which it has been marinated, a fine, searing
filament of heat that vanishes as quickly as it
appears. This is what sushi devotees are
looking for when they save up their nickels, a
definitive experience that exists only for the
lifetime of a sigh. In addition to Onodera,
until recently without a restaurant since he
sold his Michelin-starred Mori Sushi in 2011 to
focus on pottery, Shiki has attracted star chef
Nao Sugiyama. If you were lucky enough to
visit his kaiseki restaurant, Sugiyama, in Man-
hattan’s theater district, you may recognize
some of the courses — maybe kumquat sus-
pended in a cube of clear jelly; simmered baby
abalone served with a bit of its liver and an
atomic-strength yuzu kosho, a citrus-chile
condiment; or braised enoki mushrooms
under a blizzard of smoky shaved fish. — J.G.
410 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 888-
0036, shikibeverlyhills.com. Full bar. Valet
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$$
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 59
 Photographs by KIRK McKOY / Los Angeles Times Photographs by CHRISTINA HOUSE/ Los Angeles Times
It’s wise to put yourself in Shunji Nakao’s hands; the omakase promises a remarkable experience. Above, an assortment of appetizers. Your problem will not be the intense heat followed by numbness; your problem will be how many dishes you will have to order due to FOMO.

Shunji Sichuan Impression

Memorable meals take place in all kinds of Having dinner at Sichuan Impression without
unexpected settings in Los Angeles, with one the proper number of people is a problem
of the best unfolding in the middle of a build- because you will have to wait for a table —
ing shaped like a chili bowl. Inside the quiet Sichuan food is the rock star cuisine of Los
circular space just off the 10 Freeway, Shunji Angeles at the moment — and once you are
Nakao presides over the exquisite Japanese seated you will need to order much of the
restaurant that bears his name. The bar is menu. You shouldn’t have to choose between
where you want to be, as it is supremely the Bobo chicken (a pot of deep red tobanjan-
pleasurable to get an up-close view of Nakao fueled broth with skewers of chicken, gizzards
deftly slicing, pressing and saucing piece after and intestine shooting out of the middle) and
piece of delicate fish, the anticipation height- the toothpick lamb (a pile of equal parts
ening as the nigiri makes its way from his chopped dried chiles and bits of lamb impaled
station to your plate. There are no unremark- with toothpicks). You’ll need to try the boiled
able bites — Nakao somehow understands fish with rattan pepper in a nuclear green
how to draw out the best of each fish’s innate broth. And the wontons in chile oil too. This is
characteristics, whether it be a piece of otoro head-banging food that ping pongs you with
crosshatched on one side and then lightly that mala effect: a volley of wicked-intense
seared with a blowtorch, or a Japanese scallop heat followed by a wave of peppercorn-
garnished simply with flecks of sea salt and induced numbness. Sichuan Impression is
Nakao is able to draw out Above, tea-smoked pork ribs with
yuzu zest. Shunji is equally adept at cooked bringing this style of food west and out of the
the best of each fish’s innate dried chiles, scallions and chopped
items from the kitchen, a procession of which San Gabriel Valley with its new location in
characteristics. Above, quail peanuts. At right, the spicy frog dry
you will receive if you opt to do the omakase. Westwood. So for those of you constantly
egg with caviar and corn; at pot: fresh bullfrog, potato, lotus
And you really should — it’s a profoundly asking where to get legit spicy Chinese food
left, tuna otoro. roots, baby bamboo shoots and
special experience. — A.C. on the Westside, go and be impressed. — J.H.
dried chiles.
1900 W. Valley Blvd., Alhambra, (626) 283-4622.
12244 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 826- No alcohol. Credit cards accepted. Street
4737, shunji-ns.com. Beer, wine and sake. Lot parking. Also at 13816 Red Hill Ave., Tustin,
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$$$ (714) 505-9070; and 11057 Santa Monica Blvd.,
Los Angeles, (310) 444-7171. $

60 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 61

 Sonoratown
Sonoratown opened in downtown two years
ago with the lure of something not commonly
found in L.A.’s robust taco scene: buttery soft,
almost translucent, super-thin flour tortillas
made in-house by hand. Those outstanding
tortillas are the base of Sonoratown’s northern
Mexican-style tacos, quesadillas and
“chivichangas,” mini burritos that are grilled
instead of deep-fried like chimichangas.
Co-owners Teodoro Diaz-Rodriguez and
Jennifer Feltham, perhaps the friendliest
person to ever take your taco order, run this
tiny counter-service storefront not far from
Santee Alley. Most items are modest in size,
RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times
and all are modest in price, so you can build
an extremely affordable meal by mixing and
SOBAN: Side dishes surround the galbi jjim — braised short ribs — cooked with chestnuts, ginkgo nuts and vegetables, including carrots.
matching: maybe a chivi with shredded
chicken, a carne asada taco and a chorizo

Soban
In many Asian cultures, there is no greater
expression of heartfelt hospitality than a
table where every inch is filled with food.
Koreatown’s Soban embodies that in a way few
other restaurants do. Not long after you place
your order, your table will be covered with 15
or so banchan, the litmus test of the meal to
come in any Korean restaurant. Here the
side dishes might include seasoned soybean
sprouts, cubed radish kimchi and eggplant
flecked with sesame seeds. When your main
dishes arrive, the server will inevitably play a
game of table Tetris, moving the little bowls
this way and that to make everything fit. The
food here is noteworthy: The raw marinated
crab, ganjang gaejang, that Jonathan Gold
called the best dish in all of Ktown will make
you feel a bit like a sea otter as you pry the
gooey flesh from the shells (don’t bother
digging around with chopsticks; the best
method is to suck the meat right out). The galbi
jjim, the crowdpleasing braised short rib, will
fall apart beautifully. And the thick medallions
of braised black cod — a well-rounded
combination of sweet, salty and spicy —
should not be missed. But it is the banchan,
and that full-table hospitality, that will keep
you coming back. — A.C.
4001 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, (323)
936-9106, soban.site.mobi. No alcohol. Street
parking and limited lot parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$
KIRK McKOY / Los Angeles Times
SOMNI: You don’t have to guess what you’re
about to eat at the exclusive restaurant; a
cook will explain in detail right in front of
you. It’s part of your $235 dining experience.
Somni / The Bazaar
Chef José Andrés’ various spots inside the SLS
Beverly Hills have always felt a bit over the
top: There’s lots of dry ice as well as molecular
gastronomy olives that burst in your mouth
and a dessert bar out of “Alice in Wonderland.”
At his newest restaurant here, Somni, which
replaced Saam, diners buy $235 tickets in
advance and sit side by side at a semicircular
chef’s counter facing a deep exhibition
kitchen. A dozen chefs and cooks, including
head chef Aitor Zabala, are on display as they
prepare, plate and present 22 or so intricate
courses, Spanish-influenced and hyper-
modern. Each visually stunning dish is served
to every diner at precisely the same time
before a cook takes center stage and carefully
explains what is on the plate (or wooden
mannequin hand, as the case may be — the
restaurant takes liberties with its service
pieces). That might include a turbot wing
served in a bowl resembling a fish, a pigtail
curry bun or a nori empanada shaped like a
Chinese fan. The Bazaar, another José Andrés
restaurant that you walk through before
entering Somni, offers trappings of the same
unreality in a more affordable à la carte menu.
— A.C.
465 La Cienega Blvd. (inside SLS Beverly
Hills), Los Angeles, (310) 246-5543 (Somni)
and (310) 246-5555 (The Bazaar), slsbeverlyhills
hotel.com. Full bar. Valet parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$$$
caramelo — a large folded taco with Monterey
Jack cheese and pinto beans; all told, that
would run you $11. Get a bean and cheese
burrito to go and eat it as a snack later. — A.C.
208 E. 8th St., Los Angeles, (213) 628-3710,
sonoratown.com. No alcohol (beer and wine
coming soon). Street parking. Credit cards
accepted. $
SOTTO: Besides pastas, wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas and house-cured pork, there are seafood
dishes such as the one above: crispy octopus with salame piccante, fingerlings and fior di latte.
Photographs by KIRK McKOY / Los Angeles Times
SONORATOWN: At the tiny counter-service storefront, you don’t need to spend much for the
northern Mexican-style tacos, quesadillas and “chivichangas,” miniature burritos that are
grilled instead of deep-fried like chimichangas. Top left, Francisco Grijalva works the grill.
Sotto
Steve Samson’s pizzas are exactly what you
want when you’re craving a Neapolitan-style
pie: A chewy, flavorful crust completely
covered in crisp leopard spots of char just out
of a wood-fired oven. The pizzas arrive blaz-
ing hot, with toppings such as Calabrian
chiles, house-cured pork jowl and fennel
pollen scattered artfully across them. Order a
side of burrata, and within minutes a server
will whisk a bowl full of the milky cheese over
to your table. Add dollops to your pizza, to
your meatballs, to your pasta, to whatever you
like; it makes everything better. The dining
room is dark enough so that you can eat like
no one’s watching. Kick it off with a stiff
Negroni and end with an order of cannoli
and you’re on your way to a pretty great
night. — J.H.
9575 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 277-0210,
sottorestaurant.com. Full bar. Valet parking.
Credit cards accepted. $$$

62 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 63


Photographs by MARIAH TAUGER/ For The Times
Spago
The patio dining room at Spago can feel like
the center of the L.A. restaurant universe, a
serene place where you will be attended to by
a staff as well-trained as a theater troupe and
where, as often as not, Wolfgang Puck himself
will stroll through, greeting both neophytes
on a sightseeing trip and folks who may have
been Spago regulars for more than 35 years.
Spago has changed locations, added fancy art
and a retractable roof over the patio, even
switched chefs a few times — though some of
the crew have been with Puck for decades —
but its excellence remains constant. You will
be presented with an introductory tuille cone
filled with tuna tartare, as long-running as
Puck’s Home Shopping Network collection,
and then all bets are off. The menu, engi-
neered by executive chef Lee Hefter and chef
de cuisine Tetsu Yahagi, is surprising, espe-
cially if you’re expecting smoked salmon
pizza and spaetzle. There could be handmade
agnolotti with shaved truffles under glass; a
veal chop with black garlic and preserved
lemon; a côte de boeuf with pommes aligot; or
impossibly fresh chirashi presented like bright
gems in a jewelry box. There will probably be
caviar, definitely a series of exquisite desserts
— Della Gossett helms the pastry kitchen as
expertly as Sherry Yard did — and a tiny box
of chocolates to end your meal, as if you’re
already in a swank hotel for the night. The
tourists will be impressed, but so are the rest
of us, year after year. — A.S.
176 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 385-
0880, wolfgangpuck.com. Full bar. Valet park-
ing. Credit cards accepted. $$$$
64 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
Sqirl
Sqirl is a place you want to dislike: It is too
popular, and the people who eat there are too
hipster. It is a place you swear you’ll never go
on a weekend morning. But there you are,
posted up in a line down Virgil Avenue, trying
to decide if you’re going to get a $9 piece of
toast nearly drowning in what seems to be a
jar’s worth of lovely apricot jam and house-
made ricotta, or maybe the long-cooked
chicken and rice porridge with frizzled on-
ions. Will you add a poached egg for $2.50?
You know you will. Years after Jessica Koslow
opened her groundbreaking all-day spot, Sqirl
is as insanely trendy as ever; the sorrel pesto
rice still the grain bowl against which all
others are compared (add the house-made
sausage and avocado); and the scones and
cookies and other pastry case goodies worth
breaking whatever gluten-free diet you’re on.
Sqirl has been described as New Californian
cooking. But Koslow’s hyperlocal, whimsical,
seasonally driven style feels more like New
Los Angeles — cooking that is uniquely of this
time and place. — A.C.
720 N. Virgil Ave., No. 4, Los Angeles, (323)
MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
284-8147, sqirlla.com. No alcohol. Street
SQIRL: The sorrel pesto rice at the popular hipster haven is the grain bowl against which all
parking. Credit cards accepted. $$
others are compared. But there are other draws — have you tried the scones and cookies?
Sun Nong Dan
The galbi jjim at this Koreatown strip-mall
restaurant is everything. It is the reason you
braved the parking lot and waited almost two
hours for a seat at the tiny restaurant. ( Jona-
than Gold’s full-throated endorsement of the
place has a lot to do with that.) The super-
extra rendition of the short-rib soup arrives
scalding hot, the red broth threatening to
bubble up and over the sides of its cauldron,
to overtake the heap of meat, bone, vegetables
and rice cakes filling it to the brim. It’s hot to
begin with, and if you order it spicy, be pre-
pared for a wave of chile heat that will warm
you down to your toes. Although it doesn’t
really make it taste any better, you can add
cheese — yes, cheese — to your galbi jjim, and
your server will cover your soup in fistfuls of
shredded white mozzarella-ish stuff, then
melt it with a blowtorch, a perversion built for
Instagram likes and late-night revelry. To that
end: Know that this place is open 24 hours —
Serenity permeates Spago,
because there’s nothing like a trough of spicy
above, where chefs have
short-rib soup to knock you out of a karaoke-
changed but excellence has
and soju-fueled stupor — and no shorter lines
continued uninterrupted. At
than when you show up for breakfast to help
top: crispy scaled black bass,
you recover from one. — J.H.
Maine lobster, caramelized
corn and a coral chip. An 3470 W. 6th St., Suite 7, Los Angeles, (213)
heirloom-tomato salad, left, 365-0303, sunnongdan.com. Valet parking.
with pickled plums, red shiso Credit cards accepted. Also at 927 E. Las
and green-tea marshmallow. Tunas Drive, Suite J, San Gabriel, (626) 286-
1234 (beer, wine and soju); and 18902-A E. Gale
ALLEN J. SCHABEN / Los Angeles Times
Ave., Rowland Heights, (626) 581-2233. $$
SUN NONG DAN: Come for the galbi jjim. The short-rib soup comes to your table red-hot —
scalding, actually — and if you order it spicy, it’ll warm you all over. You can get it 24 hours a day.
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 65
TACO MARÍA
Sometimes it’s difficult to persuade folks that
one of the best and most serious of restaurants
in California is a taco joint in an Orange
COSTA MESA, CA- October 12, 2018: A look inside Taco Mar?a as customers enjoy their evening on Friday, October 12, 2018. (Mariah Tauger / For the Los Angeles Times)
County shopping center just off the 405
Freeway, or that a $79 four-course prix fixe
menu built around a taco and a tamale is a
bargain. And then they have dinner at Taco
María, Carlos Salgado’s progressive Mexican
restaurant in Costa Mesa, and have the same
conversion experience the rest of us did,
probably while sitting under a camp blanket
on the tiny restaurant’s patio. For the last five
years, Salgado has made glorious dishes,
either in the form of that revelatory fixed
dinner menu, or more casual lunchtime tacos
and appetizers, or weekend brunches. What-
ever the incarnation, Salgado’s food is the
culmination of a childhood spent at his par- MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
ents’ Santa Ana Mexican restaurant, an adult-
hood at Bay Area fine-dining palaces, and an
obsession with ingredients and techniques.
He makes his own masa with heirloom Mexi-
can corn. He engineers crumbs from squid
ink. He roasts strawberries over embers to
whir into atole, the homey corn drink he
sometimes makes for brunch. He drops raw
Hokkaido scallops into a broth built from
citrus, chiles, cucumbers and avocados for
something that goes by the name aguachile but
might just be the essence of both sea and
garden in one modest bowl. — A.S.
SoCo Collection, 3313 Hyland Ave., Suite C-21,
Costa Mesa, (714) 538-8444, tacomaria.com. MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times
Beer and wine. Mall lot parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$$ Clockwise, from far left: callo gratinado,
with scallops, queso Chihuahua, squid ink
crumbs and ancho chiles; progressive
Mexican food in an unlikely place, an Orange
County shopping center; the enfrijolada,
which has bean purée, lavender onions,
MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times
queso fresco and garlic crema; pork-belly
tocino, with stone fruit, salsa de aguacate,
a piloncillo glaze and cilantro; chef
Carlos Salgado; and blue maize tortillas.

LOS ANGELES-CA-FEBRUARY 16, 2016: Tortillas made from organic blue maze corn are cooked COSTA MESA, CA- October 12, 2018: A look inside Taco Mar?a and owner, chef Carlos Salgado
on a grill at Taco Maria in Costa Mesa on Tuesday, February 16, 2016. (Christina House / For The on Friday, October 12, 2018. (Mariah Tauger / For the Los Angeles Times)
Times)

MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

CHRISTINA HOUSE / For The Times MARIAH TAUGER / For The Times

66 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 67

 xxLOS ANGELES, CA --OCTOBER 16, 2018 -- Scenes from restaurant Trois Mec, with chef Ludo Lefebvre, located in a strip mall along N. Highland

Photographs by RICARDO DeARATANHA / Los Angeles Times Photographs by JAY L. CLENDENIN / Los Angeles Times

Triniti Trois Mec

A breakfast of eggs and potatoes is about as Trois Mec is ostensibly a fine-dining estab-
ordinary as it gets, so there is a certain expec- lishment, but N.W.A’s “Straight Outta Comp-
tation that when such a dish arrives, it will be ton” is reliably pumping out of the dining
business as usual. At Triniti, chef and co- room sound system. It is also ostensibly a
LOS ANGELES, CA --OCTOBER 16, 2018 --The hand of chef Ludo Lefebvre, with his California
owner Joseph Geiskopf’s modernist Echo Park French restaurant, but the first bite on the
ceviche, herbs and flowers, from the tasting menu, for $110 per person, at restaurant Trois Mec,
cafe where the coffee is bold and the food recent fall tasting menu is a cube of fried
located in a strip mall along N. Highland Ave, in Los Angeles, Oct. 16, 2018. (Jay L. Clendenin /
bolder, there is no discernible trace of po- tapioca that tastes like Italian arancini. The
Los Angeles Times)
tatoes and only the faintest hint of egg in his grilled lobster tail and lobster mousseline-
rendition of the all-American breakfast stuffed zucchini blossom arrive in a Thai-
combo. Rather, it looks like a bowl — a very inspired sauce. The loveliest dish of the night
pretty bowl — of overgrown garden weeds. A is dubbed California ceviche: luscious late-
furtive poke into the dense forest (a mix of season quartered tomatoes, thin slivers of
local farm greens, edible golden flowers and watermelon radish and cucumber, and a single
brassicas, arranged into the shape of a spring berry each of raspberry, blueberry and black-
wreath) unearths a hidden layer of chunky berry, all partially submerged in a thin yellow
roasted potatoes, a runny poached egg and a pool of leche de tigre, the mouth-puckering
mound of skordalia, a thick Greek garlicky dip Peruvian marinade. This is formal cooking
so good it’ll make you regret all those morn- done Ludo Lefebvre’s way — a bit wild, con-
ings you reached for ketchup. Food this pre- ceived by a roguishly charming chef who
cious and unexpected is everywhere at colors outside the lines but manages to stay on
Triniti, Geiskopf’s first restaurant after he the page. More than five years in, Lefebvre,
pinballed around the industry for years, who runs Trois Mec in partnership with pals
Joseph Geiskopf, above center, is co-owner Tattoo-sleeved Ludo Lefebvre, top, takes
including stops at Noma in Copenhagen and Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, still hasn’t taken
of modernist Echo Park coffee shop Triniti, formal cooking into a form distinctly his
at Destroyer in Culver City. Don’t skip the down the old Raffallo’s Pizza sign above the
where eggs, at left, are inspired and where own. The chef’s California ceviche, above, is
pastry case, which contains revelatory canelés door. In case you were seriously starting to
salads, top, look like something out of a all produce, no seafood, and is finished with
and buckwheat banana bread that has been doubt the Frenchness of the meal, know that
backyard flower garden. Looking for a a pour of the Peruvian marinade leche de
slathered in honey, then pan-seared. A black the bread basket comes with crepes and three
sweet revelation? Stop to check what’s in tigre. At left: cantaloupe soup, avocado and
sesame cappuccino is the perfect comple- kinds of butter. — A.C.
the pastry case. white chocolate.
ment. — A.C.
716 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, (323)
1814 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, triniti.la. No 484-8588, troismec.com. Beer and wine. Valet
alcohol. Street parking. Credit cards accepted. or street parking. Tickets purchased in ad-
$$ vance. Credit cards accepted. $$$$

68 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 69


THE TSUJITA: Ramen chefs at the Glendale spinoff of Tsujita, which has a menu similar to that of the restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard.
Tsubaki
Have you tried chicken oysters, the true
nuggets of the poultry world? Tsubaki has
them, skewered five to an order, wonderfully
flavorful ovals of dark meat excavated from a
pair of crevices in the bird’s back. The meat is
grilled until the ring of skin is blistered and
browned, making the oysters look a bit like
pigs in a blanket, and then topped with a dab
of yuzu kosho for a low-grade kick. They’re
among the many highlights at Tsubaki, an
intimate, under-the-radar izakaya that opened
last year, tucked just off Sunset Boulevard in
Echo Park. It’s a tranquil, deep-blue-walled
space, no heavy air of smoke from the grill or
diners getting rowdy from too many sake
bombs. The menu is largely categorized by
cooking method: steamed, fried, grilled,
yakitori. Choose one or two from each — the
California abalone with shiitake mushrooms
and brown butter, maybe, or the 48-hour
braised short ribs with furikake and a heavy
shower of scallions — and don’t miss the
restaurant’s comprehensive sake list. It is
easily one of the city’s best, with about three
dozen different bottles available nightly. —
A.C.
1356 Allison Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 900-4900,
tsubakila.com. Wine, beer and sake. Street
parking or valet. Credit cards accepted. $$$
70 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
LOS ANGELES, CA -- JUNE 29, 2018: Fruit
MYUNG J. CHUN / Los Angeles Times
MYUNG J. CHUN / Los Angeles Times
TSUBAKI: Tomato kimchi, top, and a skewer
plate with soft egg, below, at the intimate
izakaya in Echo Park. Make sure you take a
look at the sake list, which is one of the best
in Los Angeles.
CHRISTINA HOUSE / Los Angeles Times
Tsujita
Before Tsujita, the ramen landscape in Los
Angeles was dominated by bowls of tonkotsu
ramen, noodles and chashu and egg all swim-
ming merrily together in porky broth. Then
the Tokyo ramen chain opened an outpost on
Sawtelle Boulevard in 2011, unleashing tsuke-
men — noodles and broth served separately —
to the masses and sparking a dipping ramen
craze. Long lines formed every day outside
the corner shop, and copycats were suddenly
everywhere. The crowds are, thankfully,
shorter at the original Tsujita now, but the
noodle joint remains the standard bearer by
which all other tsukemen newcomers are
judged (and ultimately fall short). There are
several components to tsukemen, and Tsujita
gets each one right: medium-sized springy
noodles that come apart easily; creamy broth
with the essence of pig cranked up to 11; but-
tery hunks of roast pork; and that gloriously
soft egg, all gooey orange jam inside. A squirt
of lime and dab of spicy mustardy greens
enhance the flavors. Tsujita has since
spawned a small family of local ramen shops,
including locations in Glendale and on Fairfax
Avenue. — A.C.
2057 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 231-
7373, tsujita-la.com. Beer, wine and sake. Valet
and street parking. Cash only. $
CULVER CITY, CALIF. -- MONDAY, AUG. 28, 2017: Detail of Vespertine chef Jordan Kahn's live scallop dish at his restaurant in Culver City Monday,
Aug. 28, 2017. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Photographs by ALLEN J. SCHABEN / Los Angeles Times
Vespertine
Few restaurants have been as discussed and
debated in the last year as Vespertine. Is it
worth the price tag? Is it delicious? Do the
CULVER CITY, CALIF. -- MONDAY, AUG. 28,
servers speak? Can you really eat the dish-
ware? What chef Jordan Kahn has created is
an experience unlike any other, and a conver-
Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times sation piece for the entire world. I won’t wax
poetic about the waffle-like architecture, the
music and uniforms designed specifically for
the restaurant, or the fact that the building
actually has its own signature scent. What you
need to know, if you’re going to spend about a
month’s rent on dinner, is that Vespertine will
leave a lasting impression. It’s about five
hours of stimulating the senses, introducing
you to many sights, sounds and flavors you’ve
never tried (how many flowers can you eat in
one dinner?). It is an odd, post-apocalyptic-
ish place. Dinner should and will surprise
you. You will walk away feeling like you’ve
glimpsed another world, one where the dark
green crunchy bits draped over a tree trunk
Jordan Kahn’s dinners are meant to surprise are something you want to eat even if you still
— and they will. Clockwise from top: a can’t figure out what they were. — J.H.
live-scallop dish; hazelnut cream with
hyssop; bastard halibut; and mango with 3599 Hayden Ave., Culver City, (323) 320-4023,
redwood. At this singular restaurant in vespertine.la. Wine and three beverage pair-
Culver City, Kahn has created a senses- ings. Valet parking. Credit cards (but not cash)
stimulating experience where you’re not accepted. $$$$
always sure what it is you’re eating.
LOS ANGELES TIMES | 71
 Mark Boster Los Angeles Times Calvin B. Alagot Los Angeles Times Lawry's Lawry's Calvin B. Alagot Los Angeles Times Calvin Alagot Los Angeles Times Kathy M.Y.Pyon Los Angeles Times Calvin B. Alagot Los Angeles Times Calvin B. Alagot Los Angeles Times

Photographs by Calvin B. Alagot except Border Grill by Mark Boster and Lawry’s Prime Rib by Lawry’s Photographs by Calvin B. Alagot except Beverly Soon Tofu by Kathy M.Y. Pyon and Canter’s by Myung J. Chun
Top row, from left: Border Grill, Philippe the Original, Lawry’s Prime Rib, Pie ‘n Burger. Above: The Musso & Frank Grill. Top row, from left: Leo’s Tacos, Beverly Soon Tofu, Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery, Daikokuya. Above: Canter’s.

10 CLASSIC RESTAURANTS THAT HAVE STOOD THE TEST OF TIME

Bay Cities Italian
Deli & Bakery
Open since 1925, Bay Cities
is a destination market
where you can pick up
wine, baguettes and fresh
burrata. At the deli, get the
Godmother: a strata of
mortadella, prosciutto,
Genoa salami, capicola,
ham and provolone
mortared by pickles and
dressing on crusty bread.
1517 Lincoln Blvd., Santa
Monica, (310) 395-8279,
baycitiesitaliandeli.com.
Sells wine and beer. Lot
parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$
Beverly Soon Tofu
When Monica Lee opened
her soon tofu restaurant in
1986, it was the first of its
kind in L.A. It’s still one of
the best places to order the
cauldrons of spicy soft
tofu, as well as pretty great
dolsot bibimbap, galbi and
bulgogi. Get a spot at the
long wooden table and
watch the line of pots
bubble and steam.
2717 W. Olympic Blvd.,
Suite 108, Los Angeles, (213)
380-1113, beverlysoontofu-
.com. Beer and wine. Lot
and street parking. Accepts
credit cards. $$
Border Grill
Susan Feniger and Mary
Sue Milliken have been
making Mexican food in
L.A. for decades, in ver-
sions of their Border Grill
restaurant, which moves,
expands and contracts, and
also comes in truck form.
Their margaritas and
tamales, tacos and quesa-
dillas, even their quinoa
bowls, are L.A. on a plate.
445 S. Figueroa St., Los
Angeles, (213) 486-5171,
bordergrill.com. Full bar.
Valet and underground lot
parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$
Canter’s
There may be better Jewish
delis in L.A., but Canter’s is
the most nostalgic, maybe
because the same family
has owned it since the ’30s.
There’s the expected menu
of matzo ball soup, brisket,
corned beef Reuben and all
those knishes — but it’s the
homey specials, and the
staff, that keep you coming
back.
419 N. Fairfax Ave., Los
Angeles, (323) 651-2030,
cantersdeli.com. Full bar.
Private lot and street park-
ing. Credit cards accepted.
$ $
Daikokuya
Long before the ramen
craze hit L.A. there was
Daikokuya, a counter
noodle spot in Little Tokyo
that felt decades older than
it was even then: vinyl
booths, faded movie post-
ers and huge bowls of
tonkotsu ramen that now
seem retro, even minimal-
ist. The gyoza are terrific
too.
327 E. 1st St., Los Angeles,
(213) 626-1680, daikoku-ten
.com. Also at other loca-
tions. Beer and wine. Street
parking. Cash only.
Lawry’s Prime Rib
Step into a place where
people still dress up and
the plush booths make you
feel like the most important
person in the world. The
restaurant has been around
for 80 years, providing
diners with a place to
celebrate over a plate of
good prime rib, still carved
at the table.
110 N. La Cienega Blvd.,
Beverly Hills, (310) 652-
2827, lawrysonline.com/
lawrys-primerib/beverly-
hills/. Full bar. Valet and
street parking. Credit cards
accepted. $$$
Leo’s Tacos
Imagine a taco truck
crossed with a flash mob
and you get the idea of
what the parking lot at La
Brea and Venice looks like
nightly. The al pastor,
carved from trompos set up
by the truck at night
(though it’s open in day-
time) and topped with
smoky pineapple, is like an
urban myth that’s true.
1515 S. La Brea Ave., Los
Angeles, (323) 346-2001,
leostacostruck.com. Also at
other locations. No alcohol.
Lot and street parking.
Cash only. $
The Musso &
Frank Grill
Open for almost a century,
with waiters who’ve
worked there for half that
time, this is Hollywood
pre-Prohibition dining.
Order calf liver with on-
ions, a New York strip
steak, or linguine with
clams — wash them down
with a martini, and maybe
have another with dessert.
6667 Hollywood Blvd.,
Hollywood, (323) 467-7788,
mussoandfrank.com. Full
bar. Validated parking in
rear. Credit cards accepted.
$$$
Philippe the
Original
One of the oldest restau-
rants in L.A. and the inven-
tor, by most accounts, of
the French dip sandwich,
Philippe is like an opera-
tional museum. The French
dip — a crusty French roll
dipped in the jus from
whichever of the roasted
meats you choose, plus
optional cheese — is best
ordered double-dipped.
1001 N. Alameda St., Los
Angeles, (213) 628-3781,
philippes.com. Beer and
wine. Lot and street park-
ing. Accepts credit cards. $
Pie ’n Burger
Nothing much has changed
in the last 50 years at this
Pasadena burger counter
joint, which is most of its
charm. The burgers come
with iceberg lettuce, Thou-
sand Island dressing and
American cheese and are
wrapped in white paper.
There are maybe 20 pies on
the menu, including Dutch
apple and olallieberry.
Enough said.
913 E. California Blvd.,
Pasadena, (626) 795-1123,
pienburger.com. Beer and
wine. Street parking. Cash
only. $

72 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 73

 JONATHAN GOLD’S BEST
RESTAURANTS 2013 - 2017
(that are still open)
❏ 71Above ❏ Fig ❏ Lincoln ❏Q
❏ 101 Noodle Express ❏ Garlic & Chives ❏ Lucques ❏ Redbird
❏ A.O.C. ❏ Gjelina ❏ Lukshon ❏ République
❏ Aburiya Raku ❏ Gjusta ❏ Manhattan Beach Post ❏ Rice Bar
❏ Adana ❏ Golden Deli ❏ Mantee Café ❏ Rosaliné
❏ Alimento ❏ Grand Central Market ❏ Marché Moderne ❏ Rossoblu
❏ Angelini Osteria ❏ Grill on the Alley ❏ Mariscos Jalisco ❏ Rustic Canyon
❏ Animal ❏ Guelaguetza ❏ Marouch ❏ Salazar
❏ Apple Pan ❏ Guerrilla Tacos ❏ Matsuhisa ❏ Salt’s Cure
❏ Aqui es Texcoco ❏ Guisados ❏ Maude ❏ Sapp Coffee Shop
❏ Asanebo ❏ Gwang Yang BBQ ❏ Mayura ❏ Scratch Bar & Kitchen
❏ Attari Sandwich Shop ❏ Gwen ❏ Meals by Genet ❏ Sea Harbour
❏ Bäco Mercat ❏ Hannosuke ❏ Mélisse ❏ Shanghai No. 1 Seafood
❏ The Bazaar ❏ The Hart & the Hunter ❏ Mexicali Taco & Co. Village
❏ Bellwether ❏ Here’s Looking at You ❏ Mian ❏ Shibumi
❏ Bestia ❏ Hinoki & the Bird ❏ Michael’s ❏ Shunji
❏ Bludso’s ❏ Holbox ❏ Mozzaplex (Osteria ❏ Soban
❏ Border Grill ❏ Howlin’ Ray’s Mozza, Pizzeria Mozza, ❏ Son of a Gun
❏ Brodard Chateau ❏ Hunan Mao Mozza2Go, Chi Spacca) ❏ Sotto
❏ Broken Spanish ❏ The Hungry Cat ❏ The Musso & Frank ❏ Spago
❏ B.S. Taqueria ❏ Irenia Grill ❏ Sqirl
❏ Bulgarini Gelato ❏ Jar ❏ Newport Tan Cang ❏ Sun Nong Dan
❏ Cacao Mexicatessen ❏ Jitlada Seafood ❏ The Sycamore Kitchen
❏ Cassia ❏ Kang Ho-dong ❏ Nickel Diner ❏ Taco María
❏ Chichén Itzá Baekjeong ❏ Night + Market ❏ Tar and Roses
❏ Church & State ❏ Kinjiro ❏ n/naka ❏ Tasting Kitchen
❏ Colonia Publica ❏ Kiriko ❏ Odys + Penelope ❏ Trois Mec
❏ Coni’Seafood ❏ Kismet ❏ Officine Brera ❏ Tsujita
❏ Connie & Ted’s ❏ Kobawoo ❏ Orsa & Winston ❏ Tumanyan Khinkali
❏ Craft ❏ Kobee Factory & Syrian ❏ Otium Factory
❏ Cut Kitchen ❏ Park’s BBQ ❏ Union
❏ Destroyer ❏ Kogi BBQ ❏ Patina ❏ Urasawa
❏ Din Tai Fung ❏ Krua Thai ❏ Petit Trois ❏ Valentino
❏ Drago Centro ❏ La Casita Mexicana ❏ Pizzana ❏ Vespertine
❏ El Parian ❏ Langer’s ❏ Plan Check ❏ Vincenti
❏ Fab Hot Dogs ❏ Lasa ❏ Playground
Jonathan Gold.
❏ Factory Kitchen ❏ Le Comptoir ❏ Providence
❏ Far East Plaza ❏ Little Dom’s ❏ P.Y.T.
MARIE ASTRID GONZALEZ

74 | LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES TIMES | 75

 Insight is always on the itinerary.

Relax Your Mind and

Stimulate Your Taste Buds
Journalist-led L.A. Times Expeditions take you deeper into your destination.

FOOD & WELLBEING

A Taste of Mexico
Itinerary 8 Days
Departs May 26, 2019
Departs Sept 22, 2019
Travelers 25

Mexico’s culinary landscape is more complex than most

Southern Californians realize. On this extraordinary
Expedition, Bill Esparza, a James Beard Award-winning writer
and renowned expert on Latin American cuisines, leads you
through the best flavors South of the Border. Your trip starts in
the open air markets of Mexico City before winding through
the Central Valley and Oaxaca. Along the way, you’ll become
an expert in chocolate, learn about the pre-Columbian alcoholic
beverage called pulque and gain hands-on skills in cooking
classes taught by local chefs.

FOOD & WELLBEING

Savoring Argentina
Itinerary 8 Days
Departs April 7, 2019
Departs Sept. 22, 2019
Travelers 25

Los Angeles Times wine writer Patrick Comiskey takes

you on a tour of the country’s most iconic experiences,
beginning with a culinary tour of Buenos Aires with a stop at
the famed Recoleta Cemetery, one of the world’s most
extraordinary graveyards. At a late-colonial-style estancia (ranch)
you’ll be treated to a typical Argentine barbecue of fine beef
— asado — and wines in the gaucho (cowboy) tradition. A stop
in Mendoza highlight’s the region’s best winemakers before
your cooking class in Uco Valley, where you’ll prepare empanadas
and other regional specialties.

BOOK NOW | 855.890.5298 (7 a.m.-5 p.m. PT M-F) View all our expeditions at LATexpeditions.com