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Los Angeles Times
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
12 things you probably haven't done in San Francisco — but should ASAP
Maybe you've heard about San Francisco's doom loop. But have you met its jumbo nude? As just about any San Franciscan could tell you, 'doom loop' is shorthand for the city's post-pandemic troubles. Many of those worries stem from dwindling demand for office space, but would-be visitors have also been nervous about crime and withering retail energy. That brings us to the jumbo nude. It's a 45-foot, semi-translucent sculpture of a woman now standing at the foot of Market Street, officially named R-Evolution. Not everyone loves her, but she is one among many new or improved elements attracting locals and visitors these days. Even with San Francisco's office vacancy rate hovering around 35%, the sun keeps rising and visitors keep smiling, most of them, much of the time. Make your way to the city and you can see major park upgrades at the Presidio and Ocean Beach. Or you can frolic among massive balloon installations, vintage photo booths and '60s artifacts in permanent and pop-up places that bill themselves as museums. There's also the prospect of a new 'bay lights' show with 50,000 illumination points on the Bay Bridge. (Those lights were supposed to be on by now, but installation snags led to a delay; organizers say they're hoping to be ready 'sometime this fall .') Also, the food doesn't hurt. When our critic Bill Addison chose 101 of his favorite California restaurants recently, 35 of them were in San Francisco. Meanwhile, crime has been falling since early 2023, especially this year. Tourist arrivals are 11% behind 2019 but have grown steadily since 2021. As this list attests, there's plenty to see. But first, we should talk about a few places not on this list. One is Fisherman's Wharf. It has added a SkyStar Ferris wheel (which migrated from Golden Gate Park in 2023) and the Port of San Francisco says it will soon begin a big redevelopment, but the area remains dominated by T-shirt shops and multiple old-school restaurants that have been shuttered since the pandemic. The neighborhood was to have added a Museum of Failure this year but, not kidding, the enterprise collapsed amid an intellectual property dispute before opening. The storefront 'failure' sign was still up in June, creating the snarkiest photo op ever. Another mixed bag is Union Square , whose hotels, department stores and passing cable cars have made it the starting point for legions of tourists through the decades. The square is still pleasant by day, with young visitors drawn to assorted free games (ping-pong, badminton, cornhole) while cable cars pass, tourists line up for Big Bus tours and guests at the adjacent Beacon Grand Hotel (formerly the Sir Francis Drake) explore the neighborhood. But many key retailers have shuttered, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom, and Macy's will follow. (The company has said it will close as soon as it finds a buyer for the property.) 'We feel safe here. But kind of disappointed by all the closures,' said Melinda Parker, visiting San Francisco with her husband from Boise. Also, Parker said, 'a city should be judged on the quality of its public toilets. They have one here, and it's closed.' Still, there are more than enough bright spots to light up a San Francisco visit. Let's go back for a second to Tunnel Tops, one of the city's recently improved park spaces. You grab a snack, commandeer a patio table and gaze upon the Presidio and Golden Gate. A family debate erupts over whether to hit a museum next or try an urban hike. This is a sort of problem, but a nice choice to have. And San Francisco now offers plenty like that.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
THE DISH: Wool Growers makes LA Times list of best restaurants in state
Bakersfield is back in the spotlight this week thanks to Wool Growers Restaurant. The longtime Basque eatery was named to the Los Angeles Times' 101 Best California Restaurants list. Restaurant critic Bill Addison doesn't mince words in reducing Bakersfield down culinarily to its rich Basque history. He writes that he passes through the area at least once a year, hitting up a couple of Basque spots to debate which sets the bar since the original Noriega Hotel, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant, closed in 2020. Addison gives the edge to the East 19th Street restaurant that has been in operation since 1954. He notes the fried chicken is a little juicier and more roundly garlicky, that meat tumbles off the bone in the hearty oxtail stew and the vinegar of the sliced pickled tongue "twangs like Parker Posey's North Carolina accent in 'The White Lotus.'" Salt is needed on the fries to make them great by his standards. (The hot salsa served with the opening courses also works well with the potatoes with fewer health concerns for diners, in my opinion.) Atmosphere and staff also earn his praise:" ... The beige floral wallpaper and the plastic table coverings over white tablecloths woozily blur the time-space continuum. I don't know quite where or when I am, but the friendly, fast-moving staff always seems glad I'm here." The critic also briefly acknowledges Pyrenees Cafe and The Sinking Ship for providing "outlandish, pirate-themed bliss." Two other Central Valley restaurants made the list: the new American-style spot Saizon in Fresno and Mi Ranchito Cafe in Stockton. Visit for the complete list. Additions for Father's Day Special offers and menus continue to be announced right up until the holiday. Here are a few that didn't make the list shared earlier this week. At C Fresh (920 California Ave., Suite A): Dads can enjoy $2 beers along with a seafood boil or other entree at the central Bakersfield spot. Bangkok Street Food (6300 White Lane,Suite F): Diners will receive a free tiramisu cake with a dine-in purchase of $35 or more on Sunday. BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse (10750 Stockdale Highway): All dads get a free limited-edition pint glass. Rewards members will receive a 20% VIP card when dining at the restaurant on Sunday. The card is good for a discount on food, merchandise and nonalcoholic beverages once per day from June 17 to July 7. Del Taco (multiple locations): Take advantage of a buy one, get one free deal on epic burritos now through Sunday via the Del Yeah! Rewards app. Those who buy $40 worth of e-gift cards will receive a free regular size meal (choice of combos 1 to 14) and those who purchase $100 worth will receive three free regular-size meals. Free meal offer redeemable through July 31. Eureka! (10520 Stockdale Highway): Treat Dad to an Russell's Reserve Old Fashioned, made with the Kentucky bourbon, for $10. Guests can also enjoy a Father's Day prix fixe menu ($40) that includes a choice of appetizer (Caesar salad, nachos, fried pickles or Dorito-crusted shishito peppers), entree (choice of chilaquiles, breakfast sandwich or French toast until 3 p.m. or Eureka! American cheeseburger, spicy fried chicken sandwich or steak salad all day) and dessert (chocolate cake or carrot cake). California Pizza Kitchen (10150 Stockdale Highway): Purchase a $50 gift card and receive a $10 bonus card valid from July 1 to 29. El Patron Bar and Grill (4803 Panama Lane): All shrimp dishes will be $20.99 and the restaurant will also have drink specials all day. Headquarters Bar and Eatery (3015 Calloway Drive): This spot will have a $20.99 dinner with a 10-ounce rib-eye, cheese enchiladas, eggs and country potatoes with the option of a discounted beer or michelada. Huevo House (3939 Ming Ave.): Dads can enjoy a rib-eye plate ($20.99), served with two eggs, potatoes and two cheese enchiladas, as well as a $3 beer or $6 micheladas on Sunday. Legends (7900 Downing Ave.): Enjoy a rib-eye and grilled shrimp plate ($36.99) with choice of red wine mushroom sauce or peppercorn sauce , served with mashed potatoes and grilled squash. Call 661-218-9789 for reservations.
Los Angeles Times
17-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
20 stellar lunch spots from the 2024 101 Best Restaurants guide
Open for lunch daily in Culver City, Sobar specializes in buckwheat soba noodles served with a variety of dipping sauces. March 17, 2025 3 AM PT Lunch in Los Angeles can be as simple as tacos eaten on the hood of your car, or as elaborate as a 14-course omakase at a celebrated sushi bar. 'Let's do lunch' is an invitation to explore the city's diverse culinary landscape, regardless of the length of your lunch break. These 20 recommendations were drawn from the most recent guide to the 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles, written by me and restaurant critic Bill Addison. Whether you're ducking in for a quick bite or looking for somewhere to linger over a meeting, there's something to fit nearly every occasion. You'll find a French restaurant in Hollywood with first-rate pastries alongside one of the city's most decadent burgers, a full spread of vegetarian dishes in Koreatown, Laos crispy rice salads in Orange County and fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and collard greens from one of the country's premier soul food destinations. — Jenn Harris No matching places! Try changing or resetting your filters Showing Places Long Beach Middle Eastern $$ By Bill Addison The calming, sun-drenched corner restaurant in downtown Long Beach, run by chef Dima Habibeh and her family, continues to grow in dimensions and ambitions. In her cooking, Habibeh — born to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother and raised in Jordan — poignantly evinces her origins. Solo diners will be happy at the plant-draped bar, rapt by garlicky chicken shawarma at lunch or sea bass over spiced rice with caramelized onions and nuts, with perhaps a glass of white wine from Lebanon's Bekka Valley, at dinner. Even better is gathering a crowd for a spread that begins with too much mezze: hummus with pine nuts, yielding grape leaves, labneh dyed fuchsia from pureed beets, fried kibbeh stuffed with ground beef or spinach, fattoush sharpened with sumac, a mix of the savory hand pies called fatayer. Kebabs and rotisserie chicken on a bed of subtly smoky freekeh might arrive next, followed by crunchy-cheesy knafeh scented with orange blossom syrup and date cake for dessert. To that end, the Habibehs recently debuted a third room, all white walls and curving ceramics, designed for group dining. I don't know of a more gracious setting for consummate Levantine cooking in Southern California. Route Details Inglewood Mexican $ Earlier this year, I described the carne deshebrada with refried beans from the East Los Angeles Asadero Chikali stand for our guide to the 101 Best Tacos in the city. It was the taco I was handed when I asked the taquero to surprise me with his go-to order. It's still the taco that comes to mind when someone asks for my favorite in all of Los Angeles. The meat is tangled with stewed tomato, onion and peppers. It's my preferred filling for the exemplary flour tortillas, rolled by hand and cooked on a flat-top until mottled with toasty brown bubbles. They're buttery, slender and surprisingly sturdy; I could eat a stack on their own. Asadero Chikali (Chikali is the locals-only nickname for the border city of Mexicali) recently opened its first bricks-and-mortar restaurant in a small strip mall in Inglewood, not far from SoFi Stadium. There, the tacos come with a tray of salsas and pickled onions. Though I can't seem to quit the deshebrada, I always get at least one carne asada 'Chikali style,' with the bits of smoky meat served under a dollop of guacamole and beans. And I never leave without a dozen tortillas to go. Route Details Silver Lake Persian $ By Bill Addison The cooking of Iran has historically been a cuisine with distinct expressions inside and outside the home. Family settings often involve dishes that can be exceptionally labor-intensive or stews so nuanced and subtle they defy professional kitchen standardization. Most restaurant menus are purposefully designed around crowd-pleasing, fire-kissed kebabs, creamy dips and snowdrifts of seasoned rice heaped on platters. Cody Ma and Misha Sesar have poignantly narrowed the divide at the Silver Lake cafe they opened in March. The star among their concise mix of mazeh (cold small plates), sandwiches and mains is the kofteh Tabrizi, a giant beef-and-rice meatball riddled with herbs and steeped in a tomato-based sauce electric with Persian dried lime. Your spoon soon finds its sweet, secret heart: a filling of dried apricots, prunes, barberries and walnuts. Look to turmeric-marinated chicken over rice for sheer comfort. In the several years that Azizam previously ran as a pop-up, Ma and Sesar mined an exploratory streak in their cooking, finding the similarities and differences in their individual families' regional recipes. I'm betting as they settle into the restaurant's early success, we'll see more intricate khoresht (seasonal stew) specials like a brothy June stunner of lamb neck with apricots. Route Details Koreatown Korean Barbecue $$ By Bill Addison 'Set menu with barley rice,' reads the modest description for the centerpiece meal at this two-year-old Koreatown breakout hit. For $30 per person, the staff delivers a near-overwhelming deluge of dishes to the table. Soups, mild pumpkin porridge, salad with bouncy cubes of acorn jelly and a few crunchy mung bean pancakes precede a spread of banchan-style seasoned vegetables (among them tea leaf, spinach, various mushrooms and an evolving selection of kimchi) arrayed on a woven basket. Bowls of barley rice also arrive, in which you assemble your lunch or dinner from the many elements, similarly to bibimbap, finishing with sesame oil and gochujang to taste. This is one of the most nourishing dining experiences in Los Angeles, and for gilding you can order extra meat options such as deeply savory grilled short rib patties. 'Borit gogae' translates as 'barley hump' and refers to a time of food scarcity in mid-20th century Korea. Owners Bu Gweon Ju and Sung Hee Jung, who are siblings, have reclaimed the phrase as a celebration of abundance, and the local community keeps the dining room full throughout the day. Route 3464 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, California 90005 Route Details 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. Route Details Alhambra Uyghur By Bill Addison Among the constellation of cuisines that light up the San Gabriel Valley, Bugra Arkin's restaurants in Alhambra and Rowland Heights (with a third location in Irvine) illuminate a culture specific to the autonomous Xinjiang territory in northwest China. The cooking of the Uyghurs, the region's Turkic-speaking Muslims, culls centuries of spice trade influences, including from modern-day India, Tibet, Afghanistan and Iran. Most tables hold orders of the 'big plate chicken' heaped with potatoes, chopped red and green peppers, slivers of garlic and dried chiles. Wide, looping noodles hide underneath. Currents of Sichuan peppercorns and star anise flow through the broth. It's superb, as are stir-fried lamb freckled with cumin seeds; manta (plump pleated dumplings) filled with earthy diced pumpkin and minced onion; and laghman, long noodles nearly as thick as taffy, buried under stir-fried vegetables and tender beef strips. For fun, throw in quyash qatlima, a pinwheel-shaped savory pie full of spiced meat and oozing mozzarella. With murals of Uyghur life and details like globe-shaped glass lamps patterned in starbursts and other geometries, Arkin evokes his culture as much in the dining room's aesthetics as in the food he serves. Route Details Hyde Park American $$ 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. Route Details North Hollywood Dominican $ By Bill Addison Siblings Deany Santana and Jonathan Santana worked together years ago in their family-run Dominican restaurant in Anchorage; in summer 2023 they reunited to serve their mother's and grandmother's recipes from a 16-seat storefront in a North Hollywood strip mall. They unlock their doors at noon but plate a quintessential Dominican breakfast that greatly comforts at any time of day: mangú (mashed plantains) with los tres golpes, or 'the three hits' — two fried eggs, slices of griddled salami and thin rectangles of queso frito. A staffer will ask if you prefer the plantains green or ripe, and my answer is the one the Santanas recommend: a smooth yet textured mixture of the two. Deany often can be viewed through the kitchen window tending pots of various meats infused with lime juice, onions, garlic, oregano and other spices. I'm especially partial to Santana's chicken, Jonathan's renaming of the classic Dominican pollo guisado. The bird is richly browned and simmered with thinly sliced peppers in a bit of liquid that forms a brothy, potent gravy. Start with an empanada, its half-moon shape shattering into flakes to unleash a lava flow of yellow cheese and diced salami. Route Details Atwater Village Thai $ Since 2020, food obsessives have been converging at the window in downtown's Santee Passage food hall from which Wedchayan 'Deau' Arpapornnopparat serves visceral, full-throttle interpretations of Bangkok street food. His pad see ew huffs with smokiness from the wok. The fluffy-crackly skin of moo krob pops and gives way to satiny pork belly underneath. Now comes the blockbuster sequel, which Arpapornnopparat opened with his wife, Tongkamal 'Joy' Yuon, early this year. The space might be small, with much of the seating against a wall between two buildings, but the cooking is tremendous: Arpapornnopparat leaps ahead, rendering a short, revolving menu of noodles, curries, chicken wings, fried rice and vegetable dishes that is more experimental, weaving in elements of his father's Chinese heritage, his time growing up in India and the Mexican and Japanese flavors he loves in Los Angeles. One creation I've thought about all year: fried soft-shell crab and shrimp set in a thrilling, confounding sauce centered around salted egg yolk, browned butter, shrimp paste and scallion oil. In its sharp left turns of salt and acid and sultry funk, the brain longs to consult a GPS. But there is no map. These are flavors from an interior land. Route Details Historic South-Central Mexican $ By Jenn Harris The tortillas at Fátima Júarez's new restaurant and molino in the Mercado La Paloma are a revelation. Delicate but supple, they taste of the sun and soil, earthy and bursting with the sweetness of summer corn. Júarez sources, nixtamalizes and grinds different heirloom Mexican corn varieties to make fresh masa for a short menu of antojitos. Chalqueño corn from the state of Mexico and Oaxacan blue bolita are featured in tlacoyos, griddled corn cakes stuffed with ayocote beans and generously garnished with nopales and salty crumbles of queso fresco. The best way to appreciate Júarez's fresh masa (besides a stack of tortillas you can order by the dozen) may be the flor de calabaza quesadilla. The folded tortilla is brimming with Oaxacan cheese and a corn sofrito. Júarez's mole, the culmination of a childhood spent in Oaxaca, is dusky and intricately spiced, noticeably sweet and redolent with toasted chiles. After I finished my molotes de platano, I took a warm tortilla, rolled it into a loose cigar and dipped it into the leftover mole for dessert. There's already talk of a weekly tasting menu. But for now, sampling all the antojitos is a great way to spend a lunch break. Route 3655 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, California 90007 Route Details Hollywood Filipino $$ By Bill Addison Behold the behemoth 'Kuya Tray,' the fastest and most comprehensive introduction to the cooking at Lord Maynard Llera's 28-seat Melrose Hill restaurant. Sized for two, each platter contains canary-yellow spiced rice, sauteed vegetables, achara (pickled green papaya) and a choice of six meats or seafood. I'll point you to a hypnotically spiral slice of 'lucenachon,' Llera's nickname for his version of Filipino-style pork belly stuffed with lemongrass stalks and fennel fronds, or to blue prawns simmered in garlicky crab paste. In the afterglow of last decade, which witnessed the brightest-ever spotlight turned on modern Filipino cuisine, Llera, who won the James Beard Foundation award this year for Best Chef: California, stepped into the arena as a gripping new expressionist. He keeps the menu restaurant concise, but it still harbors two relative sleepers: mami, a sustaining egg noodle soup with pork belly and garlic-chile oil; and laing, a delicious mulch of taro leaves braised in coconut milk and shrimp paste for nine hours. Llera, true to his individualism, adds smoky katsuobushi with pickled chile as an umami bump at the end. Route 5003 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, California 90038 Route Details 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. Route Details Hollywood Restaurant and lounge By Jenn Harris Angelenos are fickle creatures. Restaurants from around the world have attempted moves here, only to find that we're unfazed by their popularity elsewhere. Mr. T, the two-year-old location of the Paris bistro with the same name, has carved a niche for itself in the middle of the buzzy Sycamore District. At the bottom of the glass tower that houses Jay-Z's Roc Nation, smartly dressed patrons flood the patio during breakfast and lunch. An impressive case boasts François Daubinet's pastries. You can taste the butter in his croissants, and they shatter on contact. A few of the Paris restaurant's dishes make appearances for dinner, like the mac and cheese with mimolette flambé set aflame at the table, but chef Alisa Vannah, who previously cooked at République, has made the restaurant her own. Vannah's cooking is a quiet luxury, demure but powerful in its intention and flavors. Mackerel and yellowtail are dressed in a tomato water seasoned like dashi, with bonito, white soy and a shiver of yuzu. Lumpia are plump with chicken and shrimp. Treat Daubinet's desserts as mandatory caps to the evening. His custard is nearly deliquescent, flooded with the sharp tang of passion fruit. Chocolate mousse is rich and fleeting, impossibly smooth before it vanishes on the tongue. Route Details Westminster Laotian $$ By Jenn Harris Nokmaniphone Sayavong's Laotian-style grilled sausages are brute links of pork with a pronounced texture, intense spice and sour zing. Each bite is its own adventure. One piece may surprise with a quarter clove of garlic while another might be embedded with a whole piece of diced scallion. The bitter, floral sharpness of lemongrass is ever-present. The former restaurant server started selling sausages during the pandemic and opened her small restaurant in a Westminster strip mall in 2022. She coarsely grinds pork butt and aromatics for the sausages, building on recipes her mother taught her when she was a child in Laos. Dishes spark with acid and heat, whether it be the fish sauce and Thai chiles in the larb rib-eye or the lime-and-chile-intensive dipping sauce that accompanies the skewers or bits of fried pork belly marinated in coconut milk and ginger. She makes a version of the crispy rice salad you can find at many Thai restaurants, served with nuggets of cured sour pork and peanuts. Only Sayavong's rice is arranged in crunchy clumps that are soft in the middle and with a faint coconut flavor. It encourages an even more zealous appreciation for carbohydrate-intensive salads. Route Details Chinatown Korean $ By Bill Addison If you could eat lunch from only one Los Angeles restaurant for the rest of your life, where would it be? My answer comes easily: Perilla LA. Jihee Kim's banchan, so full of geometries and colors and so urgent in flavor, brings this class of Korean dishes center-stage. Eaten collectively, they land in the Venn diagram linking light, nourishing and compelling. Expect straight-from-the-farmers-market produce prepared in intuitive variations of freshness and fermentation — garlicky eggplant, sesame-speckled green beans, complex kimchi made from collard greens or daikon — and perennials like her stunning seaweed-rolled omelet cut into circles with hypnotic, spiraling centers. Small portions of the day's banchan selection also come over rice as part of a compartmented dosirak tray, served with warm doenjang-marinated chicken or cod. My dream hack: Swing by on a Monday, enjoy a dosirak at one of the shaded tables outside Perilla's tiny gabled home in a converted garage, then take home four or five banchan to eat midday for the remainder of the week. Route Details Downtown L.A. Taiwanese $$ By Bill Addison Vivian Ku's three Taiwanese restaurants — the original Pine & Crane in Silver Lake, its second location in downtown L.A. and her slightly more casual spinoff Joy in Highland Park — can be, and usually are, mobbed at any given time of day. Each has a slightly different fast-casual menu that quells cravings for shrimp wontons with satisfying snap, dan dan noodles plunged in peanut-sesame sauce and comforts like minced pork over rice gently revved with soy-braised egg and daikon pickles. Her connection to the Taiwanese dining culture in the San Gabriel Valley, where she gathered with relatives growing up, animates the spirit of her cooking. She credits her penchant for light, clean flavors to her grandmother, who immigrated to Taiwan from China in 1949 before the family moved to America. The DTLA outpost holds special appeal because it also serves riffs on Taipei-style breakfast dishes every morning, including crunchy-soft fan tuan wrapped tightly with soy egg and pork floss, savory 'thousand-layer' pancake wraps that make great on-the-go meals and dan bing (rolled egg crepe crunching with corn kernels and shaved cabbage). An extensive beverage program centered around but not limited to Taiwanese whiskies draws me back downtown in the evenings. Route Details East Hollywood Middle Eastern $$$ By Bill Addison Labels settle easily onto restaurants, and it would be understandable to think of Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis' East Hollywood blockbuster as 'the fancy kebab place.' It's true there is nowhere else where meat on sticks is imagined quite like Saffy's ground veal and Ibérico pork seasoned with floral-sweet baharat, lime and poppy seeds, or its lamb shashlik marinated in labneh and sparked with paprika and cumin. But the dozen-plus appetizers are equal portraits of technique and outside-the-box combinations. Roasted celery root set on a fluffy ring of allium cream, for example, is forested with curry leaves, strands of sauerkraut, spicy-sweet apple harissa and dried rose petals. The flavors and fragrances leap between India, Africa and Eastern Europe. Saffy's also has quietly become a daytime restaurant: Breakfasts of shakshuka or smoked salmon tartine jump-start the day and, returning to the kebab theme, chicken shashlik zinged with herb chutney and tahini in a pita makes for fortifying lunch-meeting fuel. Route Details Culver City Japanese $$ By Jenn Harris At Sobar, Masato Midorikawa's Culver City restaurant, your bamboo sieve of noodles comes with a set of instructions. First, taste the noodles bare. Next, sprinkle some yuzu salt onto one bite. Then try matcha salt on another. Only then should you dip your noodles in the provided bowl of cold or hot broth. This is the way to fully appreciate ju-wari, a style of soba made from only buckwheat flour and water. Each morning, Midorikawa mixes the flour and water, then uses a machine he developed with a partner in Japan to make every tray of noodles to order. The earthy flavors are deeper and more intense than soba made with the addition of wheat flour, and the speckled gray noodles are denser and more brittle. The yuzu salt heightens the nuttiness of the buckwheat, while the matcha salt is more subtle and grassy. There's a small menu of appetizers and sashimi to help round out the meal. The kakiage, served as a tangled cylinder of fried onions and shrimp, is the preferred soba sidekick, but there's karaage, agedashi tofu and assorted Japanese pickles too. Route Details Mid-Wilshire Mexican $ By Bill Addison Jennifer Feltham and Teodoro Díaz-Rodriguez Jr. shifted their phenomenal Sonoran-style taquerias into expansion mode over the last year. Crowds never let up at the tiny eight-year-old original in downtown. This summer, they debuted a michelada bar at their Mid-City outpost, where you can also snack on loaded nachos alongside your tacos and quesadillas. They opened a third location in Long Beach in September. What hasn't changed is their attention to quality and consistency. Julia Guerrero ensures the excellence of Sonoratown's flour tortillas: thin, flaky, durable yet delicate, almost buttery with lard. My order usually involves the famous Burrito 2.0 and at least one chivichanga, a mini-bundle swaddling shredded chicken or beef cooked down with tomatoes, Anaheim chiles and cheese into a dense, gooey guisado. Another prize on the concise menu: the caramelo, elsewhere sometimes fashioned from two tortillas bound by cheese. In this case, a large-format taco engulfs Monterey Jack, pintos and cabbage for crunch, plus avocado and spicy red salsas. Meat options make for the toughest decision: Classics include costilla (short rib and chuck robed in mesquite smoke), grilled chicken, tripe and chorizo. Cabeza, a new entrant, simmers to such tenderness that the clove-scented molecules transform into beefy custard. Route Details Arcadia Japanese $$ By Jenn Harris Kisen, tucked into the corner of a crowded Arcadia strip mall, feels like two restaurants in one. The main dining area is a raucous room where you can order grilled chicken and plates of vegetable tempura for the kids who can't seem to stay in their seats and cucumber rolls for your sister who doesn't eat raw fish. The sushi bar is a serene omakase experience where the chef will design a personalized procession of nigiri and small bites based on your appetite and penchant for stronger or milder fish. It's on par with some of the most compelling sushi bars in the city, without the sticker shock at the end. I like sitting at the bar during lunch, where I can marvel at how the chefs manage overflowing bowls of chirashi for the dining room while simultaneously creating a semblance of calm, focused attention for patrons at the bar. My chef nods approvingly when I tell him I favor kohada, sardines and all kinds of mackerel. He rewards me with a Japanese sardine scored with a million knife cuts, which melts on my tongue, and a slab of silver-skinned kohada tucked into a sleeve of crisp seaweed. I appreciate the excellence without a smidge of stuffiness. Route Details
Los Angeles Times
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The best L.A. spots to sip a classic martini in style
March 4, 2025 3 AM PT A martini is a martini, and a martini is more than a martini. No cocktail commands greater cultural status. Blinking on neon signs outside corner bars and perching in the hands of a century's worth of Hollywood characters, its image lives in our heads. The martini is a badge of power and world-weariness, in real life and fiction, the stuff of American life. In the new millennium's drinking renaissance, the name and stemware have been co-opted as conduits for restless, relentless reinvention. Who among us guzzles espresso Manhattans with the same fervor? I'm a martini purist (London dry gin and vermouth, stirred, twist or olives depending on the day's disposition) but not an ideologue. I'm more interested in a conversation about details — I also favor two dashes of orange bitters, an addition with historical precedent — than I am in an argument about absolutes. When the thirst for a proper martini arises, the setting matters. Cities like New York and London nurture establishments that emphasize the ritual: carts, tableside stagecraft, solemnity and wit in equal servings. In Los Angeles, though, the finest places for martini drinking tend to center vibes, the seats of glamour that come in many guises: old, new, shiny, noir. Plenty of my favorite restaurants serve wonderful martinis — Camélia , Greekman's , Camphor and Si! Mon are four that come to mind — and the pros at serious bars like Thunderbolt and Death & Co. understand that a great martini usually begins with a conversation between customer and bartender. The following 13 places, though, exude martini-ness. The moods they conjure, as much or more than the menus or hospitality, make sipping the clear, searing elixir from a frosty glass feel somehow predetermined. No matching places! Try changing or resetting your filters Showing Places Hollywood American Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison The oak paneling, the patina'd murals, the booth favored by Charlie Chaplin, the still-relevant Hollywood crowd (a few famous faces but mostly the creatives and executives who make Tinseltown tick): Musso & Frank, approaching its 106th year in business, remains one of America's archetypal settings for the imbibing of martinis. Be it at a cloistered table, the mirrored bar in the 'new room' or along the endless counter on the restaurant's opposite side, servers in candy-red tuxedo jackets deliver your drink in a 2 ½-ounce glass. It arrives accompanied by an iconic sidecar nestled in crushed ice in a hammered metal carafe. I knew, after my first Musso's martini years ago, that its taste was a Platonic ideal: searing, intense, pure. What I didn't yet grasp was the recipe: straight gin (Gilbey's, a now lesser-seen brand, has long been the well), stirred, garnished with Spanish olives brined in the kitchen. No vermouth. I tried not long ago to impose my personal martini preferences on the bartender; something strange appeared, an aberration. Lesson learned: Don't mess with the Musso's intangibles. Route Details Santa Monica American $$$ By Bill Addison On a recent Friday, Dylan Meek was playing the Steinway & Sons piano in the Georgian Room, singing a silky cover of Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy.' My friends and I occupied the three seats nearest him at the curving bar anchoring the room — a subterranean den of swank restored as part of the overall renovation of the Georgian Hotel, an Art Deco landmark originally opened in 1933. Black leather booths line the opposite ruby-red wall, hung with rectangular mirrors and vintage posters. The menu leans Italian steakhouse; I'm happiest with fried olives and chunks of balsamic-drizzled Parmesan as snacks and starters like grilled prawns and oysters Rockefeller, all of which happen to pair nicely with martinis. Route Details West Hollywood Cocktails By Bill Addison What a welcome sight to see the ebullient whirlwind of Dimitri Dimitrov — Tower Bar's maître d', who left for six years to help Sunset Tower Hotel owner Jeff Klein run members-only San Vicente Bungalows — returned to his rightful kingdom as of last September. Shiny new hot spots come and go, but Klein has helped Tower Bar retain its position as a Hollywood seat of power since he purchased the building in 2005. During awards season, tables in the dining room, many strategically positioned behind discrete partitions, can be especially hot currency. 'Ah, no,' said Dimitrov to me with friendly gravity when I had the nerve to show up without a reservation recently. The short, unreserved bar has its own pleasures, though. It's a fine roost amid the center of action to nurse a potent martini alongside a shrimp cocktail, a chopped salad or the abiding hors d'oeuvres of entertainment industry hangouts, pigs in a blanket. Route Details Koreatown New American $$ By Bill Addison A favorite L.A. martini memory: Early last year, at the end of a draining workweek, a colleague and I met up for a meal at a restaurant that didn't quite meet its mark that night. We had an idea: Let's regroup at Here's Looking at You, where the restaurant serves a late happy hour menu from 8:30 to 10 p.m., during which the kitchen cranks out thick, dry-aged cheeseburgers embellished with peppery mayo and the sweet sting of fried onions. That night, Damián Diaz, who co-founded the nonprofit No Us Without You L.A. during the pandemic, was behind the bar. That night he stirred one of the most perfectly textured martinis I've had; those ingredients were emulsified. The care in his craft lightened our worries for a calming hour or so. Diaz moved on, but bar director Danny Rubenstein has long overseen one of the city's freest-thinking, stick-the-landing cocktail programs — while always respecting an elemental martini order. Route Details Beverly Hills Italian $$$ By Bill Addison Under new owners, Caffe Dante — originally opened in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 1915, and so ingrained in the neighborhood it's a registered New York City landmark — dropped to a single name and expanded westward two years ago to the top floor of the Maybourne Beverly Hills. Dante's bartenders back east regularly teach classes in the art of the perfect martini; the craft is taken seriously on both coasts. The restaurant's signature martini mixes gin and vodka with a duet of vermouths, lemon bitters and a garnish of three olives, each different colors, plunged directly into the glass. If it's a two-martini night for me, amid a Cal-Ital meal of arancini and spaghetti alla chitarra or lemony branzino, I'll start with that house creation and then ask for a steelier drink (hold the vodka), which the bar staff skillfully accommodates. Dirty martini lovers will appreciate the piercingly briny rendition smoothed with an olive oil float. Route Details Culver City Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison Fans know the story now by heart: In 2019, two years before the scheduled demolition of a Culver City restaurant opened in 1962 by a pal of Frank Sinatra, power couple Hans and Patti Röckenwagner toured the space and felt called to resuscitate its swinging past. With partner Josiah Citrin, they landed on a hit: a 50-seat, time-capsule romp featuring tuxedoed servers preparing tableside Caesars; walls of portraits, abstracts and landscapes painted in the 1950s and '60s; and Continental steakhouse classics that are far better than they need to be. On any given night I watch customers sipping martinis out of large coupe glasses on every other table. For tasteful variation, the cocktail menu lists a Vesper made with impeccable balance. In 2023, after landlord negotiations appeared to stall, the trio's lease on the space was extended for five years: We have Dear John's until 2028. Another round to celebrate, please. Route Details Beverly Hills Californian $$$$ By Bill Addison The front bar at Wolfgang Puck's Beverly Hills flagship is the restaurant's most underrated nook. Most diners only breeze past the bar's dark walls and over its handsomely scruffy hardwoods on their way to the comfortably modernist dining rooms. But treat the space as a destination in its own right and its enveloping charms reveal themselves: leather-padded stools, buttery lighting, an engaging corps of cocktail pros. The cocktail menu revisits popular drinks through Spago's four-plus decades: a 1980s-era Harvey Wallbanger dressed up with a splash of sherry, a Paper Plane tweaked with Japanese whisky for the 2010s. A selection of current trends includes a Tiny-'Tini Trio with busy interpretations like a nonalcoholic version that combines Earl Grey tea, juniper, rosemary, oyster leaf, yuzu, cinnamon, kombu and brine. Ask any bartender instead for a classic dry martini and they oblige, bringing some very good blue cheese-studded olives to try on the side. Route Details Fairfax American $$ By Bill Addison An ode to cinematic Hollywood poshness and the first restaurant by the Hundreds streetwear co-founder Ben Shenassafar, the Benjamin takes a broad view of the martini with nearly a dozen variations. There's a riff with tequila and a nod to the martini's sweeter first cousin, the Martinez, fashioned here with Plymouth gin, Torino vermouth, Luxardo Maraschino and an orange twist. Circling back to a truer iteration, Ben's Martini comprises Monkey 47, Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth and a spritz of lemon oil, served with stacked waffle chips as Shenassafar favors. Bar director Nathan Oliver stirs an even drier martini if you ask nicely. The booths, in tufted sage-colored mohair fabric, have obvious allure, though I'm drawn to sip my drink at the bar, demolishing a wedge salad and chef Johnny Cirelle's precision-engineered cheeseburger. Route Details Atwater Village Eastern European $$ By Bill Addison Atwater Village restaurant veterans Scott Zwiezen and Anne O'Malley, who own long-running Dune, opened Bar Sinizki with Alexander Mirecki Tavitian, who previously ran Kaldi Coffee in the same space. It operates as a coffeehouse, cocktail haven and restaurant daily from 7 a.m. to midnight, some ambitiously long hours. Yet after less than a year in operation, Sinizki feels like an entrenched and useful part of the community. The Euro-chic cafe — checkered floors, marble counters, glinting tiled ceiling — sits only 16 inside, so evenings at the curving bar have an intimate aura, even if servers are rushing past from the kitchen, balancing plates on their arms. Plump, crisp-edged pierogi filled with mashed potato, cheese and caramelized onions; tartines overlaid with salami with good butter and mustard or trout rillettes; and a burger of mid-thickness with griddled onions and a lacquer of American cheese all complement a martini. A splash of sour-tart-sweet Leopold Bros. lime cordial gives an otherwise classic Vesper (vodka, gin, Lillet blanc) a respectful twist. Route Details Studio City Italian $$ Scott Warren is a character among characters. He blurs through his small dominion, a speakeasy with a hidden entrance in the back of Vitello's, a Studio City institution since 1964. Warren speeds from bar to table, delivering cocktails and food (delivered to him from a window connected to the kitchen), shouting conversations with regulars across the room, addressing the men as 'brother.' He has a list of two dozen smart, intricate cocktails that he mixes in a fury. Mention 'martini' and he may start pulling bottles of artisanal gin he recommends, though he'll ultimately defer to your tastes with graciousness. Vitello's also has an upstairs lounge called the Velvet Martini, but I prefer the namesake cocktail in Warren's company, tempered with a straightforward Caesar and a plate of lasagna big enough to feed two. Route Details Beverly Grove New American Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison Suzanne Tracht opened her Beverly Grove restaurant in 2002, but it was built to feel timeless. No surprise that its ever-stunning dining room — a set piece of chic wood paneling, flying-saucer-shaped lighting fixtures and other Midcentury Modern adornments — has been a filming location for numerous television shows, including, yes, 'Mad Men.' I thirst for a stinglingly cold martini upon entering, and I am never disappointed. The longtime star of her menu, which broadly follows a steakhouse format, is the pot roast, which transcends any clichés with its nuanced textures and faint sherry perfume. That said, it is also deeply comforting, as are crabmeat-laced deviled eggs, char siu-style pork chop and the silken chocolate pudding for dessert. Route Details Manhattan Beach Steakhouse $$$ By Bill Addison Steakhouses tend to flourish as high-end chains, as de facto corporate boardrooms and as slick dens of vice. I favor another model: the steakhouse as swank supper club. The Arthur J delivers Midcentury Modern plushness in Manhattan Beach — tongue-and-groove ceilings, horseshoe-shaped booths and curvy Eames-style chairs, geometrically patterned wooden room dividers — when there's no time to get away to Palm Springs. Chef and partner David LeFevre updates the chophouse blueprint with tweaks that give the classics renewed life. This is the place to savor shrimp cocktail, fresh and bouncy rather than rubbery; dry-aged, bone-in Kansas City strip steak; creamed corn sparked with Aleppo pepper; and thick fries cooked in beef fat, with malt vinegar and Dijon aioli. The foods favor a martini, as does the chophouse-style burger (combining cuts of ground chuck, brisket and short rib,, grilled over oak and crowned with Nueske's applewood-smoked bacon, shredded Emmental and caramelized onions), served only in the front lounge. The service is appropriately debonair, particularly when distinguished L.A. food writer Patric Kuh, who charms guests these days as the restaurant's assistant manager, circulates among tables. Route Details Bel-Air Cocktails By Bill Addison In the name of research, I sidled up to several of L.A.'s tonier hotel bars in the last couple of months. None match the opulence of the Bel-Air, singular in its surroundings of lush grounds and its unmistakable air of celebrity. In the bar, everyone jockeys for seats in the front space, or a table in the larger back room where musicians play jazz nightly. There's also a far quieter area across the walkway billed as the Living Room, where one can order the 'coldest martini in town' for $30, served tableside. I'm more drawn to the proper bar, for the energy of the crowd and most compellingly for Norman Seeff's photographs of icons that fill the walls. The images of Cher, Steve Jobs and Ray Charles are rightly famous … but I'll be over in the corner with my martini studying the 1990-era portrait of Whitney Houston, shown glancing over her shoulder playfully, looking like she's about to break into bouts of laughter. Route Details
