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Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- General
- Los Angeles Times
10 top mariscos spots for Sinaloan-style aguachile in L.A.
A good plate of Sinaloa-style aguachile starts with liquid hot peppers, lots of lime, and freshly butterflied, raw shrimp. The flavor and heat build like a strong corrido: dramatic and full of contrast, tension and release. The chiles, the lime, the crunch of cucumber, the bite of red onion — it's all deliberate. Bold, loud and alive. Just like Sinaloa. In 'Mexico: The Cookbook,' author Margarita Carrillo Arronte asserts that aguachile began in the sun-baked ranchlands of inland Sinaloa, not the coast. She says the original version was made with carne seca (sun-dried beef), rehydrated in water and jolted awake with chiltepín peppers. Picture ranchers grinding the chiles by hand, mixing them with lime and water, and pouring it over dehydrated meat to revive it like a delicious Frankenstein's monster. Francisco Leal, chef-owner of Mariscos Chiltepín in Vernon and Del Mar Ostioneria in Mid-City, shares a slightly different origin story. 'According to legend, aguachile was invented in the hills of Los Mochis [Sinaloa],' he said. 'The poor would mix tomatoes, onions and hot water with ground chiltepín. That's why it's called aguachile — chile water. They'd dip tortillas in it because that's all they had. Naturally, when it reached the cities, people added protein.' In both stories, aguachile migrated west to the coast — in particular, Mazatlán — where shrimp replaced carne seca. From there, it crossed borders and eventually took root in cities like Los Angeles, where it now thrives as both a beloved mariscos staple and a canvas for regional creativity. Despite the comparisons, aguachile is not ceviche. The fish or shrimp in ceviche may marinate in citrus for hours. Traditional Sinaloa aguachile shrimp stay translucent, kissed but not cooked by the spicy lime juice. The dish is popular across L.A.'s broader Mexican food scene, thanks to the city's deeply rooted Sinaloan community. Many families hail from Mazatlán, Culiacán and Los Mochis and have been living in areas such as South Gate, Huntington Park, Paramount and East L.A. for decades. With them came a seafood-first sensibility that prioritizes freshness, balance and bold flavors in everyday cooking. That foundation helped aguachile thrive across generations and zip codes. Chefs like Leal have expanded on the dish while staying true to its roots. At his Vernon restaurant, aguachile is more than a menu item — it's a form of expression. Leal experiments with ingredients like passion fruit and tropical chiles but maintains an obsessive commitment to sourcing, texture and balance. You'll now find aguachile made with scallops at Gilberto Cetina's Michelin-rated marisqueria Holbox or carrots at Enrique Olvera's restaurant Damian in downtown L.A., but the rise of these variations is less about fleeting trends and more about the dish's adaptability — its ability to hold complexity and evolve. Many chefs are drawing inspiration from seasonal California produce and veggie-forward palates, pairing traditional heat with a lighter, fresher profile. But sometimes I crave the aguachile I grew up with. My Sinaloan mom Elvia and my Sinaloan-American nephew Angel make the best aguachile I've ever had. They do it with high-quality shrimp that's cleaned and butterflied just before serving, fresh-squeezed lime juice and chiles blended to order. Cold, sharp and so spicy it makes you sweat. Whether they make the dish as a quick snack with tortilla chips or an appetizer for a weekend asada, the goal is always to feed their family food from the heart. As I explored L.A.'s aguachile scene, I was moved by how many places carried that same spirit. From front-yard mariscos stands to neighborhood institutions, here are 10 Sinaloan-style aguachiles to snack on all summer long.
Time Out
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Michelin adds three new L.A. restaurants to the 2025 California guide
The official Michelin Guide ceremony won't happen in Sacramento until June 25, but the multinational tire company just added another three notable L.A. County restaurants to the guide. All additions are considered 'recommended' and could go on to receive either a Michelin star or Bib Gourmand (the guide's budget-friendly category) later this year. In greater Los Angeles, three restaurants made the guide: Komal, a masa-focused street stall in South L.A.'s Mercado La Paloma from two Holbox alums. The second is Somni in West Hollywood, the most expensive restaurant in Los Angeles. Founded by Jose Andrés in 2018, the Spanish-leaning modernist tasting menu held two Michelin stars in its previous iteration. Last fall, former day-to-day lead Aitor Zabala revived Somni as an independent project. The third is Vin Folk, a tiny South Bay bistro run by two Somni alums serving casual bistro dishes with fine dining flare and an impeccable wine list. Elsewhere across the state, Michelin recognized restaurants like Sungho, a homey Korean spot in San Francisco and Atelier Manna in Encinitas, which the guide describes as a 'hipster haven' with a focus on locally sourced ingredients. Three more restaurants down in San Diego County made the cut: Tanner's Prime Burger and 24 Suns in Oceanside, as well as Lilo in Carlsbad. Two months ago, Michelin added seven other L.A. restaurants to the guide. Among them were East Hollywood's Bar Etoile, West L.A. omakase counter Mori Nozomi and Westchester's Tomat. In alphabetical order, the ten L.A. area restaurants added to the Michelin guide this year are as follows, with full inspector notes available via the Michelin website. All restaurants are within city limits unless otherwise specified; we've noted which are new additions and linked to Time Out's write-ups for each. We have also included our own star designations, where applicable, with brackets.
Los Angeles Times
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Festooned with LACMA rubble, 7th Ave Garden is L.A.'s most unlikely arts oasis
The work of L.A.-based conceptual artist David Horvitz has never been easy to categorize. For the last two decades he's worked across media, from video to sculpture to found materials. His latest project, 7th Ave Garden, also defies easy categorization. On a vacant lot in Arlington Heights, he's created a small but verdant oasis that hosts exhibitions, poetry readings and performances. On a formerly fallow lot off Washington Boulevard where a house had burned down, Horvitz has worked with landscape architecture firm Terremoto to build a secret garden that also acts as a living ecological lab and art project. Horvitz has a handshake deal with the property owner, who gave him permission to build a garden with the knowledge that the lot could be developed or sold in the future. Undeterred by its potential ephemerality, Horvitz began planning the garden. When friends questioned the wisdom of planting a garden that may be destroyed to make way for real estate development, Horvitz brushed concerns aside. 'If I have [the garden] in five years, this tree will be five years older and it'll be 25 feet tall, right? But if I hesitate, then nothing will happen. It's a very hopeful act,' Horvitz says. Terremoto senior project manager Kasey Toomey, who worked on the garden, considers the site's temporariness part of its appeal. 'It forces you to be actively present in the moment. You have to enjoy it while it's there,' he explains. Work on the garden started at the same time as demolition of Los Angeles County Museum of Art buildings for its new Peter Zumthor-designed campus, creating an opportunity to use the rubble of the museum to create a new artwork. Tipped off by art world connections, Horvitz collected concrete detritus to serve as garden hardscape. Other found materials include pieces of flat concrete pulled from Ballona Creek to make a walkway, rubble from the site of the former South Central Farm, and sand from the historically Black-owned oceanfront site of Bruce's Beach in the South Bay. Some of the shells peppered throughout the garden come from Horvitz's beachcombing excursions, others are from oyster tasting parties held in the garden, but most were collected from local restaurants such as Michelin-starred Mexican seafood restaurant Holbox in South L.A.'s Mercado de Paloma. The shells serve a dual purpose — one that is functional, as they decompose to improve the soil quality, and another formal, reflecting moonlight in the evening. Horvitz is acutely aware the garden has a dual existence. 'There are two gardens here,' he explains. 'There's the garden that has plants and there's the garden that's my artwork. It has a different way to articulate and discuss it.' Working with Terremoto's team, Horvitz planted about 100 native plants, including elderberry, sage, brittlebrush and manzanitas. The heavy rains of the last few winters helped nurture scattered wildflower seeds, creating a dazzling burst of flowers in the spring that attracts butterflies and bees to the vivid petals. Horvitz also left some of the original inhabitants of the garden intact, including a rose bush, juniper and four o'clocks. Plumeria cuttings from his grandmother's house in the neighborhood were also added to the plot. The design of the garden isn't the result of a formal process and plan. Rather, it was built intuitively on site. 'It emerged rather than was pre-designed,' explains Terremoto principal David Godshall. After purchasing the native plants, Horvitz and the team at Terremoto hosted a plant layout day guided mostly by instinct. 'Our design intent was to not make a plan,' Godshall says. A wooden platform and benches in the center of the garden serve as a focal point for performances and events. Horvitz invites other friends, artists and curators to produce exhibits, events and readings and collaborate with him, taking a relaxed approach to programming: He intentionally keeps the garden's programming relatively casual and free form. There is no official website or newsletter or Instagram handle for the garden. 'What I don't want to have happen is this to become a full-time job and become professionalized,' Horvitz insists. Instead, Horvitz relies primarily on word of mouth for events, and will sometimes post to his personal Instagram a day or two before an event. He recently hosted a March 30 book launch party for 'The World's Largest Cherry Pie,' a collection of poetry by his friend Sophie Appel, that featured a harpist and tea tasting. And on Saturday at 4 p.m., there will be a reading of Cecilia Vicũna's poetry at the garden. While the garden is rooted in local culture, built bit by bit from the flotsam and jetsam of Los Angeles locations and plants native to the ecology, the programming is more global in approach. Interdisciplinary artists Martine Syms and Sophia Cleary partnered on a poetry reading in the garden. L.A.-based public arts nonprofit Active Cultures hosted a traditional Chinese tea service and cooked mushrooms in a ground oven for a community barbecue with artists Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez and Shanhuan Manton. Dance company Volta Collective has choreographed and performed in the garden. During this year's Frieze Los Angeles art fair in February, Horvitz partnered with French contemporary art museum Frac Lorraine. The Frac Lorraine prominently features a garden as a living artwork at its location in Metz, France. Horvitz and Fanny Gonella, director of the Frac, collaborated on an exhibition that included work from the Frac Lorraine collection including Rosemary Mayer, Lotty Rosenfeld and Mario García Torres. The artwork is primarily conceptual and performance, avoiding some of the stickier issues of transport, storage and insurance most museum loans entail. While the Frac inhabited the 7th Ave Garden temporarily, Horvitz has contributed a more permanent artifact to the Frac's collection through his work 'Fleur de Corbeau.' The piece, a frangipani branch from his grandmother's former garden in the neighborhood, will be planted in the museum's garden, crossing temporal and spatial boundaries between the institution and the artist. The exhibit, titled 'Conversations With Ghosts,' included a mural reproducing a detail from a piece by Corita Kent currently in the Frac Lorraine collection. The bold black and yellow painted Kent aphorism on an adjacent wall, 'Hope Arouses as Nothing Else Can Arouse a Passion for the Possible,' still overlooks the garden, serving as a trenchant visual reminder of the garden's purpose.
CBS News
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
South LA restaurant named number one on Yelp's Top 100 U.S. Restaurants 2025 list
A casual-style Mexican restaurant in South Los Angeles has been given the top spot on Yelp's Top 100 U.S. Restaurants list for 2025. Holbox, located inside the Historic South Central L.A.'s Mercado La Paloma, is the leader of this list. Ten LA restaurants made Yelp's list. Its name is from the Mayan-named island off Mexico's northern Yucatán Peninsula. The Mexican seafood restaurant focuses on fresh local ingredients that create vibrant flavors paired with unpretentious presentation, its website said. Holbox offers expansive menus including hot and cold dishes that can be ordered a la carte. Some of the dishes Yelp mentioned in its list include ceviches, agua chiles, mesquite-grilled octopus and applewood-smoked fish heads. "The 'amazing' coastal fare has received multiple other honors, including a Michelin star and James Beard Award finalist nod for Chef Gilberto," the Yelp list said. The restaurant opened in 2017 and quickly gained recognition earning Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2019, 2021, and 2022. It has also been previously named the Los Angeles Times Restaurant of the Year 2023 and ranked number five on the 2023 LA Times 101 Best Restaurant list. "100% worth the hype! In case you've been under a rock and haven't tried this amazing Mexican seafood counter, go now. Everything from the scallops and ceviche to the octopus and tacos will just blow your mind. Love seeing a local fast-casual place being recognized for the absolute gem it is," Yelp Elite Tiffany T. wrote. Following the devastating wildfires that decimated communities in LA, Holbox provided meals to victims and first responders. "We donated a portion of our proceeds from the menu to World Central Kitchen, who have been instrumental in relief efforts across LA, which resulted in a $10K donation," a Holbox spokesperson said. Southern California restaurants on Yelp's Top 100 U.S. Restaurants 2025: Holbox - Los Angeles, CA Shlap Muan Wings - Long Beach, CA Berry Brand - Tustin, CA West Coast Cheesesteaks - Glendora, CA Sunbliss Café - Anaheim, CA Tai He Ju - El Monte, CA Lord Empanada - Monrovia, CA Cardelli's Italian Market Deli and Catering - Riverside, CA North Shore Plate Lunch - Norco, CA Daddy Ji - Claremont, CA La Copine - Yucca Valley, CA Heritage Barbecue - San Juan Capistrano, CA Use this link to see Yelp's full list.
