Global Insights Local Impact
Back in December, alcohol importer Raza Zaidi in San Francisco placed an order for a pallet of gins, liqueurs and bitters from a Mexican spirits producer. As the truck made its way north toward the border several weeks later, it was up against the clock: On Feb. 1, President Trump had announced plans to impose
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When is the last time a restaurant bread basket left a lasting impression? There was a moment when most Eurocentric restaurants in America offered complimentary bread. The basket or plate of sliced bread often acted as a first impression, an indication of the meal to follow and how far the business was willing to go
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Tasting wine can be hard work. Really. I’m not talking about a weekend with friends tooling around wine country in a fun bus. I am talking about the high-stakes analysis of hundreds of wines in a single sitting: 144 Chardonnay, 125 Cabernet Sauvignon, 80 Syrah and 45 Chenin Blanc. That’s 394 wines, to be exact.
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There are technological and biological wonders inside the sleek San Gabriel offices of Seamus Blackley, which are evasively named — intentionally so — Pacific Light & Hologram. Best known as the creator of Microsoft’s Xbox video game console, Blackley can’t talk about his latest computer work — he’ll discuss it only under a “Friend-D-A,” a
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Fast food customers might find themselves talking to an artificial intelligence voice the next time they order tacos or pizza at a drive-through. Yum Brands Inc., the parent company of Irvine-based Taco Bell and other popular fast food chains such as Pizza Hut, KFC and Habit Burger & Grill, has teamed up with tech juggernaut
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After an onslaught of recent restaurant closures, one of L.A.’s longest-running restaurants might join the ranks. Owners of Chili John’s, a Burbank institution since 1946, say they’ll have to close or sell the restaurant if business doesn’t increase. But a new, adjacent bar could help the legendary chili diner stay afloat. “People will tell me,
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Tomas Saldaña started his job as a line cook more than three years ago at Costa Mesa’s Paradise Dynasty, the Singapore-based restaurant group best known for its xiao long bao. But it wasn’t the restaurant’s famous soup dumplings that most captured his imagination. The restaurant’s golden radish pastries, also known as turnip puffs, are what
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A blaze severely damaged Westlake’s historic Pacific Dining Car restaurant Thursday morning, leading to demolition of much of the structure at the site later that afternoon. The blaze was the second fire reported at the shuttered eatery in less than a year. Roughly 100 Los Angeles firefighters responded to the fire in the 1300 block
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For most it’s a grind having to wash an assembly line of pots and pans first thing in the morning. For Sophia Velador, who helms the dish pit at the breakfast and lunch spot Alder & Sage in Long Beach, it’s therapeutic. A sink overflowing with unwashed dishes marks the start of her workday. It’s
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At Mexico City’s Pujol, Enrique Olvera makes what could be the world’s most famous mole, and next month, Angelenos can taste it at a pop-up he’s planning for the restaurant’s 25th anniversary. From April 22 to 30, Olvera and his mole madre will touch down in L.A. to take over a few of his West
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In the back kitchen of Chapter One, a neighborhood gastropub in downtown Santa Ana, the restaurant’s chief busser and utility worker, Alfonso Lira, is in constant motion. He takes out the trash. He cleans a prep station. He refills a customer’s water glass. Even standing at a sink to rinse dirty dishes, he shifts his
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At Pedroca’s Burguer in Lawndale, the burger pendulum has swung from the lacy, gossamer patties of the smashburger to a creation so thick, you’ll need to detach the lower half of your jaw to consume it. And it’s not just the patties. Each burger is a recumbent tower of meat, cheese and vegetables, some built
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Potato salad is one of the dishes taken from the Western canon that’s become an essential in Japanese home cooking. It’s also a regular izakaya and yoshoku restaurant dish, from cheap and cheerful to high-end. Chefs tend to have a signature house potato salad, and mine is usually made with iburi gakko — a smoked
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Make the soup: Cut the broccoli stems from the crowns. Cut the crowns into large florets and slice the stems about ½ inch thick. Set aside. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add the onion, fennel and 1 tablespoon of the salt and sauté
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MEXICO CITY — There’s a popular saying in Mexico, where corn is as central to national mythology as it is gastronomy. Sin maíz, no hay país. Without corn, there is no country. This week, Mexico’s leaders voted to enshrine that concept in the Constitution, declaring native corn “an element of national identity” and banning the planting of
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Pull the kale and chard leaves from the stems and set the leaves aside. Chop off and discard the woody ends of the stems. Slice the remaining stems ½-inch thick. Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the sliced stems, onion, celery, carrot and fennel bulb, sprinkle with 2 teaspoons
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You can smell the char of the Wagyu burgers from down the block, which is coincidentally how far the line often stretches. But at Melrose Avenue’s newest diner, the food isn’t the only draw. Marathon Burger is an ode to late community activist and rapper Nipsey Hussle, and his legacy continues with this new family
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Add the lentils, thyme sprigs, bay leaves, arbol chile and half of the broth (or water). Increase the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat so the soup is gently simmering and cook for 45 minutes, adding the remaining broth (or water) when the lentils have absorbed the liquid.
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Before the Michelin Guide publishes its annual compendium of the best California restaurants, the global dining authority inducts some of the region’s new and notable spots, inviting intrigue, celebration and speculation as to what these inclusions will mean once the full guide is released. On Wednesday morning Michelin added 15 restaurants to its California Guide.
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At the start of this year, I did some positive reframing of my self-flagellating resolutions and resolved to be nice to myself instead, by always having something healthy and comforting on hand to eat. That is: soup! This is only the second resolution I’ve ever kept for this long (the other was to return grocery
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Kibbeh, the improbably delicate union of bulgur and spiced ground meat, is a shape-shifter of a dish. Its name adapts to languages and dialects throughout southwestern Asian countries; in Turkey, it goes by içli köfte. Many of us know kibbeh best as football-shaped croquettes we crack open to reveal the fragrant, juicy-crumbly filling, but the
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Chef Okay Inak, who grew up in Turkey and spent time in New York cooking at fine-dining institutions Per Se and Eleven Madison Park as well as Mélisse in L.A., is alone in his tiny 16-seat restaurant on an industrial stretch of 12th Street in downtown L.A. It’s his “day off,” which he spends prepping
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Did social media videos of ranch pickles, chamoy pickles and glickles (pickles with edible glitter) make pickle lovers out of all of us during the pandemic? Or did TikTok just give the existing pickle heads a new outlet for our pickle flags to fly high and wide? Today’s collective pickle obsession was probably brought on
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Downtown Los Angeles on Sunday lost another iconic eatery with the closure of the Original Pantry Cafe, which had been serving up hot coffee, burgers and breakfast platters since 1924. News of the planned closure drew brisk business as patrons sought a farewell meal at the diner on the corner of 9th and South Figueroa
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How to make Bricia Lopez and T.J. Steele’s carrot and jalapeño escabeche.
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There are few better places in the world one might begin to self-identify as a martini drinker than at Musso & Frank Grill, the 106-year-old Hollywood statehouse for martini consumption. My conversion happened at the cusp of the restaurant’s 100th birthday, in early 2019, a couple of months after I moved to Los Angeles. Before
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This is a dish that chef-creator Sandy Ho always likes to keep stocked in her fridge. Bright, salty, funky and spicy, it’s a salad that runs the gamut and is worth roasting a chicken for, although it’s just as effective with a store-bought rotisserie chicken. It’s also a recipe that’s flexible when it comes to
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A fixture in L.A.’s dining scene since 1924, the Original Pantry Cafe closed on Sunday after a union contract dispute between the owners and staff, many of whom had worked at the Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument for decades. Fans came out in droves for the restaurant’s last day of service, lining up at dawn and
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Scarlett Kapella — a popular dancer at one of L.A.’s favorite strip bars, Jumbo’s Clown Room — included this Key lime pie recipe in her new cookbook, “Wine Me, Dine Me, 69 Me.” She describes it as “an ode to devoted regulars, stripper enthusiasts and perverts alike.” It’s easy, bright, sweet-tart and creamy. The graham
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Chef René Redzepi of famed restaurant Noma in Copenhagen and his flavor laboratory Noma Projects are launching a new coffee membership, available to be delivered around the world, starting today. Redzepi’s mission to distill elements of his surrounding landscape onto a plate has also been the backbone of the restaurant’s beverage selections. The goal with
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In another life, before she was a beloved veteran dancer at Jumbo’s Clown Room, Scarlett Kapella picked up a day shift at a sleazy yet notorious strip club in the Valley called the Candy Cat — well, notorious because it was once the strip club where Charles Manson’s girlfriends danced for wads of cash before
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Walking barefoot across the cool tile floor, her silver face gems twinkling in the sunlight, sound bath practitioner and energy healer Maya Andreeva distributed paper cups filled with brown liquid to the 20 mostly youngish adults seated on yoga mats and blankets on the ground. They had gathered this Saturday morning on Abbot Kinney Boulevard
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Making martinis at home is a pleasure that’s distinct from drinking them in the world. Restaurants and bars tend to stock only a handful of widely distributed gins, with maybe one or two boutique gins in the mix to support local distillers. Few among those will be the London dry-style gins, brisk with forward notes
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Oysters are a signature item for chef Sandy Ho, who regularly serves them at events and in her own home. The chef-founder of Sandita’s World, a culinary company known for its wild-hued dumplings, noodles, salads and other dishes, loves to dress up her oysters with a rainbow of ingredients and textures. “It’s such a treat
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That extra dab of guacamole on a burrito is likely to cost more in coming days. President Trump’s new tariffs, if they go into effect on Tuesday as scheduled, are expected to increase the price of Mexican avocados, beer and tequila — all very popular imports among Californians. The state’s business owners and consumers expect
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The Original Pantry Cafe closed on Sunday after 101 years of serving up homestyle breakfast platters, burgers and coffee on the corner of 9th and South Figueroa streets in downtown L.A. Fans of the iconic diner lined up around the building and down the street, even bringing lawn chairs to sit in as they waited
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Before the pandemic made people scrunch up their noses at the thought of communal serving ware, buffet restaurants in the United States made up a nearly $8-billion industry. It was an economical way to feed the entire family (or a particularly hungry diner), and most of the time, the sheer variety of food was its
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Eastside Italian Deli owner Giovanni “Johnny” Angiuli died at the age of 81, leaving behind one of the city’s oldest restaurants and a legion of fans. Along with his late brother Frank, he ran one of Los Angeles’ longest-running delis and was a stalwart of the city’s since-disappeared Little Italy. Described as loud, funny and
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Just as uncontrollable financial, demographic and other forces have wreaked havoc in Hollywood, California’s wine industry is now reeling from epochal stresses that are grinding down yet another mainstay of the state’s economy. The aging of baby boomers who long served as the industry’s mainstay, changing tastes among young consumers, a flood of cheaper foreign
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To set foot inside the Gallery, a new restaurant and bar in downtown, is to be whisked into a world fit for a theme park. Walk in via its bar, and gone are views of Olympic Boulevard. In the place of windows, you’ll find a fantastical, idealized take on a major city, a skyline vision
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The inventive pastas, vacation-inspired Italian cuisine and lengthy wine list of New York City’s Cucina Alba have landed in West Hollywood. At Alba, one of the city’s splashiest new Italian restaurants, chef-partner Adam Leonti and restaurateurs Will Makris, Cobi Levy and Julian Black reimagined their East Coast hot spot, with much of the team relocating
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The first thing a visitor might notice upon approaching the taco stand Tacos de Cabrito y Machitos El Lagunero is the remains of a whole baby goat roasting on a spit over simmering mesquite. The scent of the smoke upon the crisping meat is intoxicating. In a few moves, taquero Francisco Salinas whisks the goat
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A lot of stuff had to go very wrong for Noga Bread Co. to be a success. The bakery run by Lee Begim and Avi Sabag sets up shop in Torrance, at a pop-up morning market that appears twice a week. But before there were lines forming for their merguez-filled croissants, date-caramel sticky buns and
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• After years of pop-ups, San & Wolves opens a bakery in Long Beach. • Find plant-based pastries, doughnuts and pandesal sliders at the new 4th Street bakeshop. Some of the most sought-after pastries at San & Wolves Bakeshop are gushing with ube, slathered with fresh salted caramel or showered in shaved cheddar — they’re
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During his 25 years at the Original Pantry Cafe, Alejandro Ortiz worked his way from cleaner to prep cook and, most recently, server. Often, he pulled night shifts and double shifts. He worked so much, he missed the birth of one of his daughters. When the owners of the Original Pantry Cafe announced they would
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Servers at the newly reopened Panda Inn restaurant in Pasadena glide around the dining room with massive trays hoisted over their shoulders, each one overflowing with platters of orange chicken, bowls of hot and sour soup and orders of mu shu pork. If food running were an Olympic sport, I’d bet on team Panda Inn.
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The rising cost of eggs has left one of the most famous delis in Los Angeles scrambling to keep up. Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant in Westlake last week began charging customers 50 cents more per egg ordered. “I tried to wait and wait in hopes [the price] would go back down,” owner Norm Langer said. “But it’s
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The bright, tart-sweet citrus curd in this whipped-cream-topped grapefruit pie is made with lots of grapefruit juice from the sweetest variety you can find and a little lime and lemon juice. Pastry chef Hannah Ziskin of Quarter Sheets in Echo Park calls this pie “Heidi’s grapefruit tart,” named after the neighbor whose trees bear sweet,
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It was December of 1980, and Juan Valerio Garcia needed a job. The 17-year-old immigrant from Zacatecas, Mexico, didn’t have much work experience beyond a few landscaping gigs. He decided his best chance at landing a full-time job was to knock on some restaurant doors and hope for the best. One of those doors was
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Series Vanessa Anderson is the Grocery Goblin, on a mission to explore every grocery store in Southern California. Around the corner from the cavernous aisles — past the frozen hunks of galangal, tinned lychees in their syrupy baths and smooth plastic jugs of peanut oil — sits the sparsely stocked fish counter at LAX-C, the
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Most days the line for Liu’s Cafe stretches down a block of Koreatown, guests queuing for fresh dumplings, noodle bowls and pastries at the Taiwanese and Chinese restaurant and tea shop. But lately, a line’s been forming for something new next door: a Taiwanese-influenced ice cream parlor from the same team, where cilantro syrup helps
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One of L.A.’s favorite food festivals is back in action, and with more than a dozen new culinary vendors in its 2025 roster. Nearly every Sunday of the year Smorgasburg fills the Row DTLA complex with more than 70 stalls for dining and shopping. In late January the Arts District event returned from its annual
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On Tuesday morning one of the city’s most influential chefs stood on the steps of City Hall: Wes Avila, along with his business partner and a fellow small business owner, were there to appeal to local politicians and lawmakers. L.A.’s restaurants and other independent businesses say they are hurting and need the city’s help in
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The chilly first two months of the year are usually a peak business period for Teddy’s Red Tacos, where diners indulge in the restaurant’s specialty, birria — spicy, warm and deeply tender meat slowly braised in its own fat and served with a pool of flavorful broth. But this year, it’s different. The day after
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3 large Spanish yellow onions, diced 2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil 1 ½ tablespoons kosher salt, plus more to taste 3 red bell peppers, cored, seeded and diced 8 large garlic cloves, chopped or grated on a Microplane 1 tablespoon dried oregano (preferably Mexican oregano) 3 tablespoons double-concentrate tomato paste (or 1 6-ounce can
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Rou jia mo can be an unlovely thing, uncouth as a sloppy Joe and as decadent and satisfying as your favorite steakhouse burger. Sometimes called a Chinese hamburger, when done well, it’s one of the greatest meat-between-bread situations in the universe. It involves a split round bread bun with a meat filling that spills from
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BODEGA BAY, Calif. — It was a calm January morning, the waters off Bodega Bay unusually smooth, but crab fisherman Dick Ogg couldn’t shake a grim feeling that the day wouldn’t go his way. The Dungeness crab season had opened just a few weeks earlier — two months behind schedule — and was off to a slow
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These quesadillas are made with corn tortillas, folded in half, which is how they’re traditionally made in most parts of Mexico. They’re like slim, cheesy hand pies. They’re easy to make and a perfect accompaniment to a big pot of chili to feed a crowd. A cast-iron skillet or carbon steel comal is ideal for
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When it comes to chili, people feel the same way about their recipe as they do about their dog: Everyone thinks theirs is the best. I know I do. Mine started with Chasen’s chili. If you’re a longtime Angeleno, then you know the West Hollywood institution Chasen’s, which opened in 1936. For many years it
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Bar Chelou garnered local and national praise from a small corner of the century-old Pasadena Playhouse building when it opened in early 2023, but this month it will take a bow. Faced with renewing the restaurant’s lease and after seeing its business hurt by January’s Eaton fire, which decimated a large part of nearby Altadena,
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Guacamole is the ultimate side dish — one most of us will be eating atop tortilla chips come Super Bowl Sunday. Simple ingredients of avocado, tomato, onion and lime juice define the typical Mexican American approach. But Food editor Daniel Hernandez suggests stripping the recipe down further by ditching the tomato and onion, which both
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Yellow Paper Burger With items inspired by classic L.A. burger stands and bars, Yellow Paper Burger is serving a new take on nostalgic flavors at a walk-up counter in Eagle Rock. The former pop-up from husband-and-wife team Colin Fahrner and Katie Reid Fahrner is now a bricks-and-mortar that serves smash burgers merged with what Fahrner
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Four variations of guan tang bao — a style of soup dumplings popularized in Kaifeng, a city in north-central China’s Henan province — headline the menu at Good Alley in Rosemead. Pork anchors three of the fillings. The fourth, featuring chicken, surprised me as the standout. For each version, the restaurant’s kitchen staff shape consistently
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Post & Beam, a destination restaurant for California comfort food in Baldwin Hills for 13 years, will close permanently at the end of February. Post & Beam has been led since 2019 by chef John Cleveland and his wife, Roni Cleveland, and its closure comes as construction on the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw plaza moves forward, with
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Food editor Daniel Hernandez at the Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen says remove tomato and onion from guacamole and you’re on your way to ancient avocado nirvana. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Like many in Southern California, I grew up eating guacamole the way it is made almost everywhere in the United States,
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It’s time to drop the tomatoes and onion from your guacamole, America, for good. This super-simple but spicy recipe is inspired by years of lazy Sunday afternoons spent on friends’ rooftops or patios in Mexico City, grilling meat and cactus paddles, pouring micheladas. Lots of busy urban professionals who nurse hangovers on weekends swear by
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How to make Alyse Whitney’s Spicy California Roll Guacamole dip for the Super Bowl or your next party or dinner.
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The first week that Woon opened in Pasadena, lines stretched out the door and down the block every day, guests queuing for bowls of chewy beef noodles or tofu in hot-and-sour sauce. The family-run Chinese restaurant had just debuted its second location after two years of navigating regulations and preparing the space, and the loyal
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The Santa Cruz Mountain range — as far as its wines go — is shrouded in relative obscurity despite its rich history and undeniable potential. But there are signs that the region might finally be emerging from behind the shadows of its California redwoods, bay laurels and Douglas firs. In a late-’70s TV commercial, celebrity
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Next month, one of the most singular Asian restaurants in Los Angeles will close after nearly a decade in operation. Cassia — home of “sunbathing prawns,” bowls of creamy laksa and clay-oven flatbreads from chef Bryant Ng — will serve its blend of Chinese, Singaporean and Vietnamese dishes with French-brasserie flair until its final night
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When the city needed comfort, Little Fish and Chainsaw answered. These two restaurants joined forces to serve thousands of meals to first responders and evacuees after the 2025 L.A. wildfires, including a riff on a familiar favorite, congee. Little Fish in Echo Park regularly serves the simmered rice porridge made with either fish or mushrooms
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This creamy, punchy fresh carrot and ginger soup is vegan and bright, but it’s hearty — and it’s also got heart. When Little Fish co-owner Anna Sonenshein and Chainsaw owner Karla Subero Pittol received a donation of 1,000 pounds of carrots for their efforts in feeding first responders and evacuees during the 2025 L.A. wildfires,
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Three days after the Eaton fire devoured his Altadena home, Leo Bulgarini traveled through his leveled neighborhood, past scorched houses and gutted businesses, to check on his restaurant. As he approached the corner of Altadena Drive and Lake Avenue, about a half-mile from his incinerated house, he immediately noticed charred rubble where the quirky Bunny
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This morning some of the country’s top chefs, restaurants and beverage professionals garnered industry-wide recognition with the announcement of the 2025 James Beard Award’s semifinalists. The annual awards ceremony — widely regarded as some of the most prestigious accolades in the culinary field — celebrate a range of hospitality roles and businesses. This year, nearly
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Los Angeles is a resilient town. I don’t know that we’ve witnessed a disaster as catastrophic as these fires before, but I’m hopeful the city will eventually heal and rebuild. Even before the multiple wildfires, restaurants were struggling. The entertainment industry strikes, increased minimum wage, insurance costs and inflation are creating the perfect storm for
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called the Food and Drug Administration a “corrupt system” that is waging “war on public health.” He has pledged to eliminate “entire departments” at the agency charged with ensuring the safety of the foods Americans eat and the medicines we take, warning the more than 18,000 people who work there
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Over the past eight years, Dean and Pauline Yasharian built a life for their family in a quiet corner of northeast Altadena. They live near the top of an area known as Christmas Tree Lane. Their two children attend the school down the street. And the couple own and operate a small French restaurant called
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On Wednesday night, dozens of pizzaiolos crammed into the kitchen of La Sorted’s in Chinatown to make hundreds of meals for a newly formed food-relief coalition: the LA Pizza Alliance. More than 25 independent restaurants and over 90 volunteer drivers teamed up to send 245 pizzas to anyone affected by the multiple deadly fires that
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Unable to sleep around 2 a.m. last Wednesday, Sean St. John got out of bed and drove from his Pasadena home to check on his Altadena pizzeria, Pizza of Venice. He’d just been at the restaurant around 9 p.m., when the Eaton Canyon flames were visible on the mountain but still seemed a fair distance
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The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that the much-maligned red dye No. 3 will be banned in the United States because it has been shown to cause cancer in animals. The decision, lauded by consumer advocacy groups, comes a full 25 years after scientists at the agency determined that rats fed large amounts of
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Felipe Ortega has spent 38 years — more than half of his life — working at Gladstones in Pacific Palisades. He started as a busboy and worked his way to bartender and maintenance worker. But for the foreseeable future, the 64-year-old is out of a job. A week after flames damaged the restaurant and destroyed
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In the bleakest days of early 2021, when Courtney Kaplan and Charles Namba started believing that the pandemic would force the closure of Tsubaki, their modern izakaya in Echo Park, the couple would distract themselves with some hopeful fantasizing: If this place did close and they could eventually open another restaurant, what would they want
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Ongoing egg shortages in California due to the spread of bird flu among livestock are bringing another early 2025 challenge to local restaurants, especially brunch spots that rely heavily on eggs for menu items. It’s also unclear how the ongoing fire disasters that erupted Tuesday could affect eggs and other staple ingredients. But, in light
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Wide swaths of L.A. County lay scorched after devastating fires. Long-standing restaurants that once defined the coastline were partially or completely destroyed, including Gladstones, Moonshadows and Reel Inn in Malibu, as well as a growing number of Altadena restaurants. Some don’t know whether they’ll be able to reopen. Last month, a lease between the Reel
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On Wednesday, evacuees trickled into the Pasadena Convention Center in a steady stream, many holding only one or two bags containing belongings saved before the multiple fires in the region might claim their homes. Parked out front was the Yeastie Boys white-and-black food truck staffed by two employees handing off brown paper bags stuffed with
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“It’s like Armageddon,” Canyon Bakery owner Patrice Winter said. “That’s all I can say. What they’re showing on the news is really real; they’re not sensationalizing any of this. It’s what I saw with my own eyes. It rocks your world.” Winter was preparing pastries from the kitchen of her bakery for the weekly Topanga
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In a bid to minimize waste in his East Hollywood restaurant, Fountain Grains & Greens chef-owner Aric Attebery loves to cook beet greens. The leaves of the root vegetable often get discarded, but when cooked they make an excellent side dish or component for a grain bowl or salad. Beet greens can often be found
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Genre-bending Guerrilla Tacos and farm-focused Sage are among some of the city’s most influential restaurants of the last decade to announce their closures in the first days of 2025. A rash of shutterings in the early days of the year follows a grim 2024 for the restaurant industry, which saw more than 100 notable restaurants
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Chef-owner Aric Attebery highlights the freshest produce of the season at his East Hollywood restaurant Fountain Grains & Greens, which specializes in grain bowls and salads made with farmers market ingredients. His bright, lightly tart sauerkraut captures one of his favorite ingredients: Cone cabbages grown locally in fields flourish in cold temperatures and yield a
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In many ways, 2025 already feels like a dumpster fire. Not like the first few sparks of a blaze that’s about to ignite, but a raging fire fast engulfing anything and everything in its path. Maybe a few well-intentioned resolutions will help? According to a Pew Research Center survey, three in 10 Americans attempted at
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When Socorro Herrera saw the former shoeshine booth in a Los Feliz liquor store parking lot back in 1976, she said she thought to herself, “This is enough for me.” And it was. For 48 years, Herrera helmed Yuca’s Hut on Hillhurst Avenue with the help of her family and a few longtime employees. The
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Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Friday attempting to limit access to ultra-processed foods, a directive he cast as a continuation of California’s “nation leading” nutrition and health standards. “The food we eat shouldn’t make us sick with disease or lead to lifelong consequences,” Newsom said in a statement. “California has been a
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Alcoholic drinks are a leading cause of cancer and should carry a warning about that risk on their label, the U.S. surgeon general said Friday. Alcohol is a factor in nearly 100,000 newly diagnosed cancers each year and roughly 20,000 deaths from the disease, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in an advisory intended to
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The ads on podcasts and social media were tantalizing: over-the-counter probiotic supplements that could ward off the worst effects of a hangover if taken before drinking. As a bourbon reviewer who enjoys the flavor of spirits but has always been easily prone to hangovers, Eric Burke was intrigued. He ordered a few bottles of Pre-Alcohol,
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Beginning Wednesday, baby food makers that sell products in California will have to make a major shift toward transparency and provide a QR code on their packaging that takes consumers to test results for the presence in their product of four heavy metals: lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium. Even low levels of exposure to these
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Operating a restaurant in Southern California continues to be a difficult endeavor, with many establishments still struggling from pandemic losses. Food and labor costs increased in 2024, remaining by far the largest expenses of running a restaurant, according to the Independent Restaurant Coalition. And the minimum wage is set to increase again in California starting
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Cheese makes Lydia Clarke cry. The co-founder of DTLA Cheese Superette is cutting into a French-style goat cheese called Shabby Shoe, and tears well in her eyes as soon as she starts talking about its creamline (the extra gooey layer along the bloomy rind). Clarke, who co-owns the downtown store with her husband, chef Reed
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Terrific sparkling wine is produced across the globe, especially right here in California. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that we are in the midst of a golden era for Champagne. A movement that began a few decades ago, when droves of small grape farmers stopped selling their precious bounty to the big
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Sambals oscillate between sweet, salty, tart and funky. The rendang, rich and fatty, is made with Wagyu beef cheek. Satay, or grilled meat skewers, arrive with a blend of grated pineapple and peanut sauce. At Rasarumah, which translates to “flavor house” in Malay, chef Johnny Lee is putting his spin on Malaysian cuisine after years
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In 2012, Dan Person joined Schramsberg Winery, the esteemed sparkling-wine house in the Napa Valley, with the desire to learn about bubbles — not just to learn but to be part of the whole bubbles zeitgeist. “Like everyone else,” he says, “when I heard the pop of a cork, I had to turn my head
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It’s nearly the New Year and our wine fixations inevitably turn effervescent. Traditionally, that would mean Champagne, the world’s sparkling wine par excellence, synonymous with celebration, luxury, extravagance, etc. Champagne, both the wine and the region, has had few rivals in style and grandeur for generations. It has had market competitors, like Prosecco and Cava,
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This Caesar salad recipe is a family heirloom, passed down from father (who worked at the Hotel Caesar in Tijuana, where the salad was born) to daughter.
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Twenty years ago, when I first returned to my native California from New York City, I tapped out a letter to the Food editor of this newspaper instructing her in no uncertain terms what exactly was what when it came to a classic Caesar salad. The letter had to do with whether to chop the
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If you know anything about me, you know I bake cinnamon buns twice a year: the morning of Thanksgiving and the morning of Christmas. I grew up taking in the marvelous smell that is a warm cinnamon bun only at the local mall or airport terminal. So, as an adult, I became obsessed with figuring
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More than 70 years ago, my French Canadian mother made a road trip from Montreal to Fresno to work as a registered nurse. She didn’t know anything about Central California. She had never heard of Armenia or its people. But love can surprise you. She met my Armenian American father and settled into life on
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In an effort to improve American diets, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Thursday released a new definition of what it means for a food to qualify as “healthy.” Products like fruit-flavored yogurt, fortified white bread and sweetened energy bars will no longer be allowed to label themselves as healthy if they exceed certain limits
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My earliest memories of food are of family barbecues. My late father grew up on a cattle ranch in Uruguay, where there are three times as many cows as people. It’s one of the world’s top consumers of beef per capita; Uruguayans eat an average of 200 pounds of meat a year. Meanwhile, my mother
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This summer an old high school friend of mine decided to quit drinking entirely. She didn’t want to, but she felt she had no choice. “All of a sudden my body decided that alcohol is poison,” she told me recently over a bitter grapefruit mocktail at an Italian restaurant. “I can have as little as
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When I was 24, standing in the kitchen of the house where I grew up in San Diego, I got the only Christmas present my dad would ever give me. It reflected his very essence, and I carry it with me to this day: He taught me how to make an authentic Caesar salad. The
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Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Once risen, bake the babka until deeply burnished, 40 to 45 minutes. When you tap on the surface of the loaf, it should sound hollow. Remove from the pan and set aside. Meanwhile, make the glaze: In a medium heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, melt
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Make the glaze: Sift the powdered sugar into a medium bowl. Add the malted milk powder, lemon juice, milk, corn syrup, vanilla paste and salt. Whisk until smooth. The glaze should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If it’s too runny, add a tablespoon more of powdered sugar at a time
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I love that babka translates to “little grandma” in Yiddish, because the sweet braided bread — with swirls of filling reminiscent of Bubbe’s pleated skirt — is always as comforting as one. My grandmother didn’t teach me to fill and braid this beloved pastry. My passion for babka was sparked by shopping the aisles of
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Turn the dough lengthwise so that one end of the log is toward you. Using a sharp knife, cut about an inch off either end to reveal your swirl of filling. Then cut the log vertically down the center. (Catherine Dzilenski/For The Times) (Catherine Dzilenski/For The Times) (Catherine Dzilenski/For The Times) Cross the two halves
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Health officials are investigating a possible norovirus outbreak after dozens of people became sick after eating raw oysters at the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants event. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed that more than 80 people who attended the annual event — which features some of the area’s most celebrated and
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Groundbreaking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have understandably generated a lot of excitement, bringing hope to the hundreds of millions of people grappling with obesity. When combined with a healthier diet and exercise, these drugs, which suppress appetite, deliver an average 10% reduction in body weight that can be sustained for years. With more
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I covered my empty wine glass as the Italian waitress made her rounds, a bottle of Chianti in hand. “I’m not drinking right now,” I said, even though I was on my honeymoon in Tuscany. Earlier this year, I decided to take a break from alcohol, which also happened to be around the same time
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Every December in Southern California, the days get shorter yet brighter — and it’s not Christmas lights or the shifting sun that make the region shine. I’m talking about citrus. Trees heavy with fruits that ripen through the color spectrum as winter progresses are as much a Southern California holiday tradition as tamales and the
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On a good night, Chris Lopez, a bartender and server in Southern California for eight years, can make $200 to $400 in tips. So when the 31-year-old, who lives in Orange, first heard the news about President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise of “no tax on tips,” he got excited. “That’s a great idea,” he thought
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Kismet chefs Sarah Hymanson and Sara Kramer riff on a steakhouse side of creamed-spinach-meets-spinach-dip. The two whip up a lavish dip packed with cheese, greens and pickles, which add tang to cut through the indulgent creaminess. “Serve it as a side (to steak or anything at all) or as an epic snack for chip dipping,”
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Is it a chicken tender, finger or strip? Whatever you call your breaded and fried belts of boneless chicken, there are entire restaurants devoted to them. Once relegated to the kid’s menu, chicken tenders are behind some of the most successful restaurant chains in the world. This year, revenue at fast food chicken restaurants is
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For two brief years in-the-know L.A. diners gathered around a small U-shaped counter hidden within Jose Andres’ now-closed restaurant the Bazaar to witness chef Aitor Zabala craft whimsical, avant-garde creations at Somni, one of the country’s most notable fine dining experiences. Caviar bumps came served on mannequin hands. “Tunahawk” fastened the fish to the edge
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A pandemic-era outdoor dining program credited with helping Los Angeles restaurants survive at a time when so many have shuttered or are struggling was set to expire at the end of the year, possibly leaving hundreds of restaurateurs in limbo. On Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced a one-year extension of the Al Fresco
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Crudo e Nudo chef Brian Bornemann makes an aromatic shrimp stock to bolster the seafood flavor of pasta sauces, soups and more. But home cooks can also make this flavorful, shrimpy stock; simply remove and freeze shrimp shells when cooking with shrimp at home, or inquire about purchasing them from your local fishmonger. At Crudo
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For tuna tartare, Crudo E Nudo chef-owner Brian Bornemann utilizes shrimp stock, onion confit and white soy sauce, which give it rich umami flavor. You can make the stock and confit in advance. The tartare tops slices of toasted country loaf and is garnished with fragrant yuzu oil, black sesame and scallions. This is no
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For three years Cara Haltiwanger lowered foil-wrapped breakfast sandwiches down to customers from her apartment window, carefully distributing them to customers via red plastic bucket. Faced with moving out of her East Hollywood “bucket drop” apartment and growing the business to support a burgeoning hot-sauce retail line, in November she gave the sandwiches a bricks-and-mortar
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The condiment shelf in my refrigerator is a chaotic place. I am no Marie Kondo, but I could argue that each jar, squeeze bottle and tube sparks real joy. My bottle of Kewpie shares real estate with a 64-ounce jar of Best Foods. There are about eight bottles of chili crisp at any given time,
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One of the bestselling seasonal drinks to ever hit the menu of world-famous cocktail bar Death & Co., the Vintage Eggnog made its debut around the holiday season in 2015 — and each year, the staff makes thousands of servings. Filled with premium spirits and fresh eggs, it’s a vast improvement on the ready-made varieties
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Molly Baz ended up in Los Angeles by chance. In March 2020, she was vacationing in L.A. with her family when government officials issued a stay-at-home order due to COVID. She didn’t feel comfortable going back to her crowded apartment building in New York. In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their
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For 12 years, The Times has released an annual guide to the 101 most remarkable restaurants in Los Angeles. The ranked list provides a snapshot of the the most vital places in our city’s dining scene, from newcomers to stalwarts and every cuisine you can imagine at a variety of price points. Restaurant critic Bill
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No restaurant in the history of Los Angeles has been dissected, derided and defended like Vespertine, the modernistic experiment housed in the four-story Culver City building called “Waffle” by its architect, Eric Owen Moss. From the outset in 2017, chef Jordan Kahn approached food as abstraction: a procession of dishes shaped in alien, sculptural forms,
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It’s a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule that most Americans know little about, yet gives corporations the license to add potentially harmful ingredients to foods without regulatory oversight or public notice. For decades, the FDA’s “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, designation has allowed food makers to decide for themselves whether certain novel ingredients
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After two limited recalls, all raw milk and cream from a Fresno-based dairy farm must be removed from store shelves. The cows at Raw Farm are infected with H5N1 bird flu, state officials say. The recall, which is voluntary, encompasses all milk and cream products not included in the recalls announced last month, officials said
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Dec. 3, 2024 9:24 PM PT For decades, this paper has entrusted its restaurant critics with the job of deciding the city’s best restaurants. In the 1990s, critic Ruth Reichl, followed by S. Irene Virbila, put together Top 40 Restaurants, an unranked list of the year’s best “special occasion places,” as Reichl wrote in 1990.
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This month a local landmark is expected to close in Venice: The Rose, né the Rose Café, lived a few culinary lives during its 45-year run. It opened as a charming cafe boasting neighborhood art nights, and it’s closing as one of the city’s most high-profile day-to-night eateries — helmed by multiple celebrity chefs. “Forty-five
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The year 2024 had us hugging our cookbooks. They brought us solace, nostalgia, inspiration, delight, reclamation, beauty and deliciousness when much of the rest of the world seemed to induce fear and uncertainty. Our list of favorites for 2024 includes something for every kind of food book lover. Recipes came from a tiny creek in
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Gradually pour your slurry into the pot, stirring to incorporate. Cook, uncovered, for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring a few times, until the potatoes are tender, the onion is crisp-tender and the hash is nicely thickened and bubbling. Taste and season with salt and/or pepper, as needed. If you have warm biscuits, spoon the hash
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Chapati is a staple flatbread in Kenya, where you’ll often see it made with mashed vegetables such as pumpkin or squash. It’s one of the first dishes that Kiano Moju learned to make as a toddler, and it’s featured throughout her cookbook “AfriCali,” which blends the Kenyan and Nigerian flavors she grew up with at
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Mexico City — Each day, an army of trucks delivers tens of thousands of pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables to Mexico City’s Central de Abasto, one of the world’s largest wholesale food markets. Most of the produce finds its way to people’s kitchens, and eventually their stomachs. But around 420 tons goes bad each day
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Thanksgiving, our national harvest celebration, is a good day to remember our collective food history, and an even better one to taste it. Teparies are native to the Sonoran Desert in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico, where they were first domesticated at least 4,000 years ago. Twenty-two Indigenous cultures, as well as Mexicans and Anglos,
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SAN JACINTO, Calif. — A paradox has settled across California’s velvet green fields and orchards. California farmers, who are some of the most ardent supporters of Donald Trump, would seem to be on a collision course with one of the president-elect’s most important campaign promises. Trump has pledged to carry out mass deportations of undocumented
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Who makes the best Hainanese chicken rice? It depends on who you ask. The poached chicken and rice dish was invented on Hainan island, China’s southernmost province, but it appears on menus all over Southeast Asia. In Singapore, it’s the national dish, and there’s an ongoing debate over whether Ah Tai or Tian Tian, both
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Go to your kitchen, grab your black spatula and throw it in the trash. Immediately. That’s the alarming message from a new study published in the journal Chemosphere. Cooking with any plastic utensil has long been seen as worrisome because heat can cause chemicals in the plastic to migrate into the food you’re about to
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Enter Cipriani through the main entrance but head straight for the staircase toward the back of the dining room. Walk past the guests tucking into pastas and truffle-laced risotto, and up the staircase with the lacquered-wood walls, a signature design element of the world-famous, Venice-founded restaurant and bar that debuted in Beverly Hills earlier this
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Fifty years ago my great-grandfather Carlo Portolan hauled down from the roof of his Lincoln Heights home a glass jug full of fragrant black booze, warm from 40 days in the sun. He decanted it into smaller bottles, affixed to each a masking tape label inscribed with the year — 1974 — and passed them
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Crisp, cobbler or crumble? Choose your own topping adventure — just make sure your base is apple. The Classic Crisp Topping recipe below has all the delicious flavor of an oatmeal cookie, and even more texture. It’s a variation of Nancy Silverton’s crisp topping from “The Cookie That Changed My Life” (which I co-wrote), with
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When my brother and I decided to re-create our family’s century old recipe for nocino, an Italian walnut liqueur, we found ourselves with a pleasant problem: what to do with roughly four gallons of a fragrant amaro with a rich, powerful flavor profile. Both our households are big on Negronis, and we each began tinkering
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SOMIS — Thousands of Hass avocados littered the soil in Sergio Acevedo’s orchard Saturday in this community northeast of Camarillo. The Mountain fire had scorched some of the fruit, leaving it shriveled or in ashes. But the ferocious winds that followed the blaze ripped through the area and tore more than half of the remaining
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When I was 16 and got my driver’s license, I’d often pile friends into my silver VW bug for Sunday road trips. Our destination: Julian, to sit in a pine-paneled diner and eat apple pie. Julian, a historic gold mining town known for its apples and apple pie, is about 60 miles northeast of San
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The walls are painted black and decorated with Slayer posters and live concert photos, while a set of faux human skulls hangs over the grill and a five-seat counter. The trompo-cooked meats are rich with black marinades, the fountain on the patio cries “blood” and the “goth” taco comes served in an inky tortilla, tinged
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One Los Angeles County senior has died amid a national recall on carrots found to be contaminated with E. coli. Two additional local cases are under investigation, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Across the U.S., at least 39 people were sickened, and 18 people were hospitalized in 15 states as
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In a year marred by tragedy and continuing financial difficulties, one of L.A.’s most creative neighborhood restaurants is closing. All Day Baby, the innovative dinette-leaning restaurant inspired by Southern cuisine, Mexican flavor and more, will close on Dec. 15 after five years in Silver Lake. At the end of the day, the reason was simple:
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A restaurant can look and feel like an entirely new space bathed in the warm glow of sunlight. The energy shifts when you flood a once-dim dining room with pastries and caffeinated people. Margarita and Walter Manzke have managed to create the perfect daytime atmosphere at République, the couple’s Hancock Park restaurant, due in no
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For John Cleveland, who with wife Roni Cleveland runs Post & Beam, a California-soul restaurant in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, the Thanksgiving season begins when he makes the first batch of mincemeat cookies. Based on a recipe that his family has been making every holiday since his grandmother’s childhood, the cookies are fluffy, crumbly,
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Heat ¼ cup of the reserved shallot oil in a wide braising dish or Dutch oven over medium heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, until darkened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add half the sliced chiles and all the diced tomatoes. Cover with a lid and cook until
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Tariffs are on the horizon for many imported products when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. They’re likely to include wine and spirits, products that are staples of restaurant and retail industries and in many cases are vital to their revenue streams. On Monday, the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance held a Zoom meeting for its members.
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This carrot cake recipe was shared with culinary artist Nia Lee by her mother, who originally took it from Patti LaBelle’s “LaBelle Cuisine: Recipes to Sing About” cookbook. Over the years, Lee, who uses food as a tool for building community, adapted the recipe in homage to early LGBTQ+ activist Marsha P. Johnson. The name
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A few key components differentiate the macaroni and cheese pie that chef Rashida Holmes serves at Bridgetown Roti, the vibrant Caribbean restaurant in East Hollywood that she owns with her mother, Joy Clarke-Holmes, and business partner Malique Smith, from the versions that are common on Thanksgiving dinner spreads. It’s not just the standard cheddar cheese
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On a Friday afternoon in late October at the Echo Park Farmers Market, activity among multiple vendors in the sparsely populated parking lot just off of Sunset Boulevard is feeling a bit slow. Fall is usually slow, several vendors said, but lately it’s felt almost like each season is slower than the last. “I wish
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Golden sunlight that cascades through open windows. A hot oven and the friction of bodies moving in the kitchen. The earthy-sweet aroma of curry, cinnamon and cloves in the air. When I think of Black holiday gatherings, I recall warmth in all its iterations. With a diaspora that touches every corner of the globe, there
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In Swahili, sukuma means “to push” and wiki “the week,” as in the day of the week. The name of this dish is a commentary on how cheap it is to prepare — cheap enough to push you through the week until you get paid. In Kenya, sukuma leaves can be purchased whole or precut.
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The flavors of the African Diaspora are wide-ranging, touching every corner of the globe. This Thanksgiving, we were welcomed into the homes and one restaurant of four Black chefs in Los Angeles, who introduced us to their families and friends and shared the dishes that define celebrations year after year. Their recipes and traditions are
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On a late August night in Silver Lake, a crush of people filled the sidewalk just south of Sunset Junction. Guests have started bringing their own stools. Some tailgate in the backs of their trucks parked at the curb. They’re there to get a taste of Barr Seco, the neighborhood’s newest wine bar. They spill
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This bright, citrus-y ceviche has been on the menu at Damian in downtown L.A.’s Arts District since the restaurant opened, but the fish and accompanying vegetables change seasonally. Chef de cuisine Chuy Cervantes uses whatever is available at the market — “what’s seasonal, what’s beautiful,” he says — to mix with local fish and citrus
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When it comes to making ceviche, “It’s meant to be a lot of fun,” says Jesus “Chuy” Cervantes, chef de cuisine of Damian in downtown L.A.’s Arts District. It’s a dish that the Mexican fine-dining restaurant has had on its menu since its opening in fall 2020, though the ingredients shift with the seasons. “It’s
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Crunchy-soft, warm-chilled, sweet-spicy, this is a salad that has it all. Matty Matheson’s throwback to the Brussels sprouts dishes of the 2010s — ubiquitous in just about every gastropub of that era — gets an upgrade with a chile-packed fish sauce caramel and a snowy showering of fresh mint, lime and shaved Brussels sprouts in
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We’re lucky to live in a place with dozens of cultural hubs. There’s Cambodia Town in Long Beach, Little Ethiopia on Fairfax Avenue or Little Saigon in Westminster. Part of what makes Southern California great is the establishment of deep-rooted communities, where someone can connect with the home they may have left thousands of miles
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Few things scream comfort more than grilled cheese and tomato soup, and chef-author and “The Bear” star Matty Matheson knows this. It’s why in his cookbook “Soups, Salads, Sandwiches” he’s serving up a dose of both, combined. This recipe, slightly adapted here for thickness, provides a just-charred, roasted edge to the classic tomato soup due
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A tangy, porky spin on a classic, Matty Matheson’s grilled cheese is stacked with thick, hearty slices of Spam and a heap of tangy kimchi in a recipe from his cookbook “Soups, Salads, Sandwiches.” When using a half can of Spam per sandwich by slicing the whole thing into four meaty steaks, the ground-pork product
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After growing his homespun bakery into one of L.A.’s most prolific bread operations — and then launching a wildly popular sandwich-focused Glassell Park restaurant — Andy Kadin is ready for what’s next. The Bub and Grandma’s baker and founder is opening a pizzeria in Highland Park, taking over the former home of long-running pizzeria Town.
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Erika Patricia Deluque Barros said she was working in a tomato field in Yolo County when she first started feeling shaky and nauseous. An immigrant from Colombia with little experience working in the fields, she said she didn’t know at the time that the summer heat could make her sick. “I didn’t know the sun
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In a few months, Swedish chef Marcus Jernmark plans to open his first restaurant in Los Angeles, celebrating Nordic food with fine dining flourishes that could mark a splashy return for the cuisine in L.A. Then he’ll follow it with a second restaurant, located above the first one. Jernmark was raised in Sweden but spent
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From an early age, Christina Najjar, better known by her moniker Tinx, recalls the grip that “Sunday scaries” had on her household. “I remember my dad being kind of stressed out, and it was the day that everybody went to bed early because we were getting ready for the week,” she says. Now that she’s
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Actor and comedian Kevin Hart’s venture into fast food has been cut short with the closure of his plant-based restaurant chain Hart House just two years after it began. The first location in the vegan fast-casual venture opened near Los Angeles International Airport in August 2022. The idea for the restaurants came about after Hart
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For the michelada mix: Blend the Clamato, horseradish, hot sauce, red wine vinegar, adobo sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Salty Angeleno, celery salt and sea salt in a blender until smooth. You can taste and adjust any seasoning as you like. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to five days, or use immediately.
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L.A. Asada refers to every summertime outdoor-grilling situation that takes place at so many backyards, beaches and parks across the city. The days are filled with family, friends, music, cold drinks, smoke and spice. Of course L.A. Asada Backyard Grill Seasoning, a spice blend collaboration between L.A. Times Food and Burlap & Barrel, is fantastic
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Lyndon Johnson herded goats. Richard Nixon plucked chickens. And Bill Clinton stocked groceries. Many presidents have had humble jobs early in their working lives. If Kamala Harris is elected in November, she’d join that list with one of her own: McDonald’s server. The vice president has said over the last several years that she worked
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Early on a Sunday evening in July, a long line of smartly dressed guests wraps around the outside of Josiah Citrin’s California-French fine-dining restaurants Mélisse and Citrin in Santa Monica. Friends, family and fans are there to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mélisse. As the line balloons, Citrin appears in his chef whites and iconic
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One of my favorite new places for pizza in Los Angeles is a wooden table in a corner of the back patio of a coffee shop off Pico Boulevard started by a former management consultant who was briefly a vegan. Talking about pop-ups in L.A. can invoke a sort of ridiculous but all-too-familiar discussion particular
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The American casual restaurant chain TGI Fridays filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Saturday, citing a flawed capital structure and joining a host of its peers that have struggled this year in the face of rising everyday prices and changing consumer trends. The chain — recognized by its red-and-white striped logo and kitschy interior
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I’ve driven by the Helms Bakery complex in Culver City hundreds of times. The sign boasting the official bread of the 1932 Olympics still stands tall over the building. But for the first time since the bakery shut its doors in 1969, loaves of bread are rising again at Helms. Sang Yoon, the chef behind
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This buttery, toasty, crispy, melty grilled cheese sandwich — it might be the best grilled cheese you ever make — features layers of nutty Gruyère, caramelized onions, thinly sliced cured ham and creamy Mornay sauce (a béchamel studded with cheese). The onions are slowly, slowly caramelized and can take up to several hours, stirring every
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Credits Creative Director: Amy KingFeatures Editor: Brittany Levine BeckmanLead Gift Guide editor: Marques HarperProject editors: Jen Doll, Philip Gray (books), Betty Hallock (food), Michelle WooWriters: Lisa Boone, Stephanie Breijo, Kailyn Brown, Cindy Carcamo, Jaclyn Cosgrove, Danielle Dorsey, Betty Hallock, Jenn Harris, Jeanette Marantos, Todd Martens, Deborah Netburn, Bethanne Patrick, Christopher Reynolds, Jessie Schiewe, Adam Tschorn,
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Robots that fully flesh out avocados and build burrito bowls are now making food for customers at two Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants in Southern California, as automation and artificial intelligence continue to enter the fast-food industry and raise fears about the supplanting of workers. Chipotle earlier this week announced the debut of the robots at
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For decades Stir Crazy was a coffee shop, a business squeezed among Melrose Avenue’s endless buildings of connected restaurants and shops and offices interrupted only by cross streets. Dino Trucco took over the place in 1994, tore out the Formica-tile decor from the previous occupant, called Java Man, and installed thick wood panels to surround
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This is a sandwich that made me fall in love with the “stacked” genre at an early age. It is actually the first chicken sandwich I ever posted on social media, when, by chance, I decided to film one of my go-to lunches. It is inspired by a sandwich I used to order at a
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In this recipe from Owen Han’s cookbook, “Stacked,” these extra-tender meatballs are simmered in tomato sauce and make for delicious sandwiches.
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Owen Han didn’t know how much the internet loves sandwiches when he posted a TikTok video of grilled chicken, bacon, smashed avocado and chipotle mayo between two slices of sourdough bread one day in the summer of 2021. But he soon found out. “It was my first video to break a million views,” says Han
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Sept. 20, 2024 3:25 PM PT What’s the difference between a chef and a home cook? That’s a question that is obvious on one level but more complicated when you give it more than a passing thought. Over the past few months we’ve had several Los Angeles chefs in our Times Test Kitchen for a
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Miso Robotics’ lab in downtown Pasadena is filled with robots of the past and present. There’s Sippy, Chippy and Drippy. The star of the lab: an updated robot named Flippy that can fry French fries and chicken nuggets much faster than humans. Miso Robotics has a lot riding on its ability to convince fast-food chains
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For me it’s when the sun starts setting lower. Once the sun starts merging closer to the southern horizon, I finally get that cozy fall feeling. I know that my favorite harvests are underway as shadows grow longer and a tad chillier. It also signals that Day of the Dead is near. Here at Food,
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Orla At Michael Mina’s newest restaurant the meal begins with a wooden box, wherein nine spices provide a hint of what’s to come: At Orla, the celebrity chef’s interpretation of his Egyptian heritage weaves these and other aromatics into kebab platters, tableside baklava sundaes, charcoal-grilled octopus, caviar-topped fateer and chicken-stuffed dolmas with an ocean view
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Angel Cortez was ready for a change. Cortez, 43, is a Mexican immigrant who has worked in agriculture, landscaping and restaurants since he arrived in California more than 25 years ago. But he said a workplace injury nearly a decade ago has made physical labor — jobs requiring him to stand or walk for long
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MXO One of L.A.’s most celebrated chefs is playing with fire. Wes Avila, founder of Guerrilla Tacos and the now-shuttered Angry Egret Dinette, just opened Mexican steakhouse MXO in Beverly Grove, where steaks and seafood are singed over mesquite and peach wood, salsas and tortillas hit the tables along with ceviches and sides such as
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As a diabetes specialist, I’ve treated thousands of patients, some in Beverly Hills and some in East Los Angeles. My Beverly Hills patients live to become healthy 80- and 90-year-olds. I can’t remember when my last patient from this community lost their vision, had an amputation or started dialysis. Almost none have heart attacks or
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Norm Langer doesn’t have any favorites. Serving what many have called the country’s best pastrami sandwiches — and even “the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world,” according to Nora Ephron — Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant, a nearly 80-year-old institution at the southern corner of MacArthur Park, whips up rapid-fire orders of thick-cut, cured and steamed meats
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Most Americans don’t think twice about leaving half a glass of water on the table as they leave a restaurant. It’s only when we pay for it that we tend to leave no drop behind. Cost drives alcohol decisions too — ditch the cheap beer to beat traffic home but finish a $20 pour even
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Sandwiches abound in Los Angeles. It’s home to the French dip originator (whether Philippe’s or Cole’s — they both claim the title is theirs) and what might be the best pastrami sandwiches in the world (Langer’s No. 19, right?). It’s headquarters for TikTok’s king of sandwiches and a nexus for trend setters, from Italian schiacciata
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It’s taken our beloved Dodgers reaching the World Series against the Yankees today for me to finally write these words: When it comes to old rivalries in America, Los Angeles has always been the better food city than New York. Many New Yorkers remain suspended in an echo chamber of superiority that claims the best
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The New York versus Los Angeles, Yankees against Dodgers, Judge versus Ohtani rivalry baked in a new element Friday. Hours before the opening pitch of the World Series, L.A. Archbishop José H. Gomez and New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan — leaders of the nation’s two largest Roman Catholic archdioceses — placed their own bicoastal bet
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We judge presidential candidates on so many extraneous criteria: the style and color of their clothes, their hair, their height; whether they laugh or smile or scowl. The legendary food writer M.F.K. Fisher wrote, “First we eat. Then we do everything else.” In that spirit, I think it’s our patriotic duty to add how and
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