14 Black-owned spots in L.A. from the 101 Best Restaurants guide

Los Angeles Times

13-02-2025

In Jefferson Park, Harold & Belle's has been a destination for Creole and Cajun cuisine since 1969. Feb. 13, 2025 3 AM PT
The contributions made by Black-owned restaurants and bars in Los Angeles are immeasurable. Institutions like Harold and Belle's in Jefferson Park, Dulan's on Crenshaw in Hyde Park and Lalibela in Carthay have a long-standing presence in neighborhoods across the city. These are places that hold deep meaning for their communities, creating neighborhood hubs for locals and sought-after destinations for everyone else.
These 14 restaurants and bars were featured in the most recent edition of The Times' 101 Best Restaurants in L.A. written by critic Bill Addison and me. They were also pulled from our Hall of Fame, a collection of businesses whose importance exceeds any year's list, as well as from the list of our favorite places to drink.
In writing about Post & Beam for the most recent 101 list, I described John and Roni Cleveland's Baldwin Hill's restaurant as one of the beating hearts of our city. The same could be said for many of the businesses featured here. A colleague, assistant food editor Danielle Dorsey, recently reported on the planned closure of Post & Beam. It's a reminder of the fragility of our favorite restaurants, how vital their presence is in the city and how important it is to continue to support them.
This list is a great place to start. — Jenn Harris
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Watts Soul Food $
By Jenn Harris
What is the purpose of a restaurant? Is it purely sustenance? Does it exist to serve the people of its neighborhood? These are questions I find myself pondering while digging into a piece of fried chicken at Keith Corbin and Daniel Patterson's Watts restaurant. Patterson, who founded the Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant Coi, and Roy Choi originally opened Locol in 2016 with a menu full of reimagined fast-food favorites and a mission to create employment opportunities for the surrounding community. It closed in 2018 but recently was reopened by Patterson and Corbin, a former Locol kitchen manager who is now the executive chef and co-owner with Patterson of Alta Adams. Locol operates under their nonprofit, Alta Community, and aims to employ Watts residents and trainees from a nearby youth center. This means that service is always youthful and friendly, and you'll likely spy a patient manager training team members during your visit. The two chefs have said that economic empowerment, not food, is the highest purpose of the business. But the new menu, which may not always reflect the day's offerings (they may be out of a few things), still satisfies with smoked brisket and ribs, oxtails and fried chicken sandwiches. Corbin is making dishes inspired by the food he's now known for at his California soul destination Alta Adams, but at a lower price point. The sentiment behind Locol can best be described in a quote featured above the front doorway: 'We are here!' And that is a very good thing, since the foldies, the stuffed tortillas the original Locol was known for, are still griddled to toasty, cheesy perfection. Route 1950 E. 103rd St., Los Angeles, California 90002
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Little Ethiopia Ethiopian $$
By Bill Addison
Tenagne Belachew's quiet haven is one of the places I most consistently bring out-of-towners for lunch. We build our meal around the 11-dish 'veggie utopia,' uplifting in its chromatics of salads, simmered vegetables and thick lentil purees spiced to profound, molecular levels. Sometimes I veer to bozena shiro, a bubbling chickpea stew laced with a bit of minced meat, or yebeg alicha wot, a mild and creamy lamb sauté. Always, though, I return to the 'special kitfo,' beef tartare glossed in butter infused with mitmita (a rounded, cardamom-forward spice blend) and matched with fluffy curds of fresh cheese and pureed collards. Little Ethiopia, in general, is a treasure. Meals by Genet, reopened in early 2024 for weekend dinner hours, has ascended to the 101 Hall of Fame. I sometimes can't decide between the dulet (raw minced beef liver, tripe and other cuts in spiced butter) at Messob; a vegetarian platter followed by a cup of fortifying, freshly roasted coffee at Rahel Ethiopian Vegan Cuisine; or turmeric-stained alicha tibs at Awash, just technically outside the neighborhood. Most often, I return to Lalibela.
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Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw Californian Southern $$
By Jenn Harris
I think of Post & Beam as one of the beating hearts of the city, a sort of central hub where the biscuits and the shrimp and grits possess a gravitational pull that directs people straight to the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall. It's been this way since Brad Johnson opened the restaurant in 2011, then handed the keys over to John and Roni Cleveland in 2019. The food celebrates the flavors and spirit of Southern cooking, where black-eyed peas share real estate on the table with catfish rubbed with jerk spice over a mound of dirty rice. The shrimp and grits, a dish most emblematic of Lowcountry cuisine, is long-cooked into something luxurious. The coarsely ground corn transforms into a smooth, creamy porridge studded with tiny squares of sweet red peppers. The way I feel about the braised oxtail grilled cheese borders on obsession. Brunch here is cheery. Parties merge and mingle over bottomless mimosas and plates of pecan pie French toast. It's worth noting that the best seats in the house are at the bar, opposite the pizza oven, where you can watch trays of biscuits rise and turn a pale golden. These are the biscuits against which I judge all others, with flaky layers you can peel away and a tender crumb. With two to an order, you can eat one for brunch and one on the drive home. Post & Beam announced that it will close at the end of February.
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Mid-Wilshire Soul Food Californian $$
By Jenn Harris
When I think of the dishes integral to this city's taco identity, Alisa Reynolds' oxtail tacos at her California soul restaurant are some of the first that come to mind. The velvety strands of oxtail are braised for six hours until the meat is slack, succulent and nearly spreadable. Reynolds places a heap in a warm corn tortilla with roasted tomatoes and showers the taco with wisps of curly kale and slivers of raw red onion. The meat juices run wild and mix with a drizzle of whiskey reduction, the two creating a heady dressing for the taco and anything else on your table. Regardless of how you feel about meat pressed into a loaf (lifelong stan here), the turkey meatloaf burger here is ingenious. Reynolds coats the slab in panko, then fries it until a crisp crust forms. Nestled between two slices of Texas toast with fresh shaved apple, it's one of Los Angeles' great sandwiches. Reynolds' sister Theresa Fountain, with whom she opened the restaurant in 2013, is responsible for all the desserts. I typically find myself with little room for something sweet after lunch, but I never leave without a slice of her vegan sweet potato pound cake. Reynolds has called My 2 Cents a gift to the city. I couldn't agree more.
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Hermosa Beach Middle Eastern cuisine $$
By Jenn Harris
I had my first brik a decade ago, at a long-shuttered restaurant in downtown L.A. appropriately named the Briks, a melting pot of Middle Eastern and Spanish influences with a focus on the phyllo-wrapped pastry ubiquitous across Tunisia. The savory fillings vary, but the exterior should be fried and golden, and you'll typically find an egg in the center. At Barsha, chef Lenora Marouani's brik is closer to a triangular egg roll, with a bubbly wonton wrapper shell that encases soft potato, chopped tuna and capers. The filling is bunched into the center, with long, crisp shards of pastry at all three corners. To dip, there's a smoky harissa aioli smeared on half the plate. It's the preferred way to begin a meal at Marouani and husband Adnen's Hermosa Beach restaurant. Inspired by Adnen's Tunisian roots, the menu encompasses chickpea stew, shakshuka and turmeric-stained chicken mosli. The couscous that accompanies the lamb meatballs is about triple the size of the Moroccan variety, submerged in a savory tomato stew and served with a spoonful of cool labneh. A true neighborhood staple as well as a citywide destination, it's just the sort of place where I'd be lucky to be a regular.
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Hyde Park Southern $$
By Jenn Harris
Greg Dulan remembers his father, Adolf, teaching him to make fried chicken with a brown paper bag and a cast-iron skillet. The method creates a golden, rugged landscape of well-seasoned crunch and meat that drips when you take a bite. The Dulans have been serving that same fried chicken, and an array of soul food dishes, since Adolf and his wife, Mary, opened Aunt Kizzy's Back Porch in Marina del Rey in 1985. The family expanded its soul food empire with restaurants in Inglewood, Gramercy Park and Crenshaw. Greg, who runs the Dulan's on Crenshaw, reopened the restaurant earlier this year after a substantial remodel. A large kitchen absorbed the old hot bar, where patrons used to line up at the counter to watch their plates being assembled. The macaroni and cheese is some of the best in the city, the noodles completely engulfed in cheese. Once the collard greens are long gone, you'll want to gulp, not sip, the pot likker. I appreciate the new space, especially the blown-up picture of Greg's grandparents, Zady and Silas, who watch over you while you eat your fried chicken.
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East Hollywood Caribbean $
By Bill Addison
Free the shrimp roti from its wrapper paper and you notice the bundle has already been cut in half. Its colors and patterns mesmerize for a few seconds: The flaky folds of paratha seem to barely contain spice-crusted shrimp, a saucy aloo (potato) sofrito, streaks of bright green herb-chile sauce and purple veins of turmeric-tinged cabbage slaw. The flavors are as blinding as the colors; crunchy textures bump against smooth ones. Fans of Rashida Holmes' Caribbean American cooking have waited nearly three years for moments like this — when her breakthrough pop-up finally transitioned to a permanent location. Bridgetown Roti debuted in July in a cheering East Hollywood storefront, with Joy Clarke-Holmes (Rashida's mother) and Malique Smith as partners. Holmes channels the richness of Bajan and Trinidadian cultures in not only rotis but also delicate cod fish cakes dabbed with garlic aioli, callaloo simmered to melting surrender in coconut broth with peppers and her inimitable savory patties (curried oxtail for the win). Oh, and hands down the creamiest, crustiest, most superlative baked macaroni and cheese in Los Angeles.
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Inglewood West African Southern $$
By Jenn Harris
It's difficult to put a finger on the cuisine at Two Hommés, Abdoulaye Balde and Marcus Yaw Johnson's Inglewood restaurant. Though the two describe it as 'an Afro-centric eatery,' the menu actually circles the globe. Honey berbere chicken bites are all juice and crunch, glowing with the Ethiopian spice blend. The crudo, regardless of the day's fish, is fresh and tart, vibrant with pickled onion and the flavor of passion fruit alongside nicely fried tostadas. Lamb dibi, a mustardy grilled lamb found throughout Senegal, is used as a filling for quesadillas. The shredded, smoked lamb shoulder mimics strands of birria between the toasted tortillas with bits of sweet fried plantain and Oaxacan cheese. Mountains of garlic noodles are springy, garlicky and a tad sweet. You can order the noodles or jollof rice as the base for a platter with a number of proteins, including short ribs braised in root beer until the glaze resembles caramel and hulking filets of fried catfish. The jollof platter, served with appropriately named 'bomb azz black beans,' arugula salad and plantains, is quite the feast.
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West Adams Californian Soul Food $$
By Jenn Harris
What makes a pancake a really good pancake? I found myself mulling that very important question during a recent brunch at Keith Corbin and Daniel Patterson's West Adams restaurant. Before then, I'd thought that Corbin's biggest flex was his oxtails, a supremely satisfying dish with an undercurrent of umami that comes from braising the meat in a liquid fortified with miso and soy. Or was it his fried chicken, magnificently crisp, juicy and well seasoned? My cornmeal pancakes arrived as big and wide as my car's spare tire, impossibly fluffy and with lacy edges that resembled the crunchy parts of a really good cookie. The accompanying brown butter maple caramel sauce gleefully transformed breakfast into dessert. Brunch has quickly become my favorite meal here, mostly due to that short stack of pancakes. But also because you can order the fried chicken as three or six pieces, with a buttermilk waffle or in a biscuit sandwich dripping with honey. And those oxtails come heaped over a bowl of creamy grits.
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Jefferson Park Creole Cajun Soul Food $$
By Jenn Harris
2024 Hall of Fame
The gumbo at Harold & Belle's is an ambush of heat and smoke, the spice of the andouille sausage leaching into the umber stew. Crowded with shrimp and blue crab legs and woodsy with sassafras, it's a hearty bowl that evokes the Creole roots of the restaurant. For 55 years, Angelenos have frequented this corner in Jefferson Park for a taste of New Orleans. Harold Legaux Sr. and wife Mary Belle, the real Harold and Belle, opened the restaurant in the fall of 1969 as a place for fellow New Orleans transplants to gather over familiar po'boy sandwiches and gumbo. Now, third-generation owners Ryan and Jessica Legaux run the restaurant, expanding the family's footprint in the community with catering, a takeout operation called To-Geaux and a vegan menu. Fried chicken is encased in a craggy coating like armor. Po'boys overflow with golden fried shrimp and oysters. Each grain of rice in the jambalaya seethes with a hot mixture of paprika and cayenne. There's a warmth to the staff not easily duplicated elsewhere, and meals tend to feel like visits to a friend's house.
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Leimert Park American $
By Bill Addison
2023 Hall of Fame
With nearly 20 options for hot dog toppings, it might take several trips to Earle's to nail down your go-to order. Make mine a classic chili-cheese dog with raw onions. Generations of Angelenos know brothers Cary and Duane Earle, who began selling hot dogs in 1984 and opened their first stand-alone restaurant in 1992. Several locations later, settled on a well-trafficked stretch of Crenshaw Boulevard in Leimert Park, their storefront is a citywide favorite — including for vegans, with plant-based versions of Earle's signature hot dogs, burgers and cheese fries. Who is that ray of sunshine radiating from behind the counter? The brothers' mom, Hildred Earle-Brown, who as community grandmother seems to never forget a face.
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Little Ethiopia Ethiopian $$
By Bill Addison
2023 Hall of Fame
In her semi-retirement, Genet Agonafer prepares meals for takeout from her Little Ethiopia stalwart from Thursday through Sunday and opens her once-bustling dining room for private events. The care in her food is as palpable as ever. Let's never imagine a day without the restaurant's doro wat, an indivisible sum of chicken, onions and profound berbere spices. Agonafer, who is vegan, creates a beautifully ordered landscape with her vegetarian platter: forest-green collards border earth tones of spiced lentils and split peas and marigold shades of turmeric-stained cabbage. Follow a similar path by adding an order of long-simmered foul warmed with green chile, or diverge with yebegsisga alitcha, a buttery and gently garlicky lamb stew.
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Willowbrook
| 2020
By Bill Addison
2022 Hall of Fame
Hawkins' burgers are thick brutes with charred edges. The toppings that complete them recall park barbecues on holiday weekends. Some lofty creations at this Watts stalwart — run by Cynthia Hawkins, whose father began the business as a stand in 1939 — have become signatures over the years, including the Leaning Tower of Watts: 1½ pounds of burger impaled on a skewer with hot links, pastrami and bacon, dressed with egg and chili. No ornate trimmings needed, though: A single-patty model more than holds its own.
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Inglewood Wine Bars $
By Jenn Harris
Wedding planner Leslie Jones and attorney Le Jones turned an auto body garage into the first and only wine bar in Inglewood. The siblings live in the area and were tired of driving elsewhere for a night out. Now, every day at 1010 Wine Bar feels like the entire room is one big party. There are meet-and-greet nights with a winemaker. Or Black-Out Game Night, when a group that aims to amplify Black game designers brings dozens of board and card games to play at your table. The bar boasts the largest selection of wines from Black-owned wineries in California. And you can be as nerdy as you'd like, with wine flight tasting sheets you can fill out as you sip. On a recent visit, my bartender introduced me to a Kumusha Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa, bright with melon and passion fruit, and Aslina Umsasane, a Bordeaux-style red blend that was the perfect match for my suya-spice-rubbed beef skewers. I appreciate the extensive knowledge of the bartenders, but what keeps me at the bar for another round is their real eagerness to share their favorites.
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