Today's
New York Times Food Section has an article discussing the current restaurant scene in Los Angeles.
From the description in the
California Today newsletter:
So it is with a little bit of trepidation that we present an article taking a look at the tremendous energy and churn in the Los Angeles restaurant world these days. This region is well known for pioneering food trucks and strip-mall restaurants — hold those emails, all you New Yorkers — but every year, the scene here becomes increasingly nuanced and interesting.
It’s not only what kind of food is being served, but where. You can now have a Sonoran dinner at Salazar, a year-round outdoor restaurant (try that, New York!) on a patio surrounded by a nightscape of power lines and palm trees in Frogtown. That neighborhood wouldn’t have been on any culinary list a few years ago.
The restaurant scenes in Los Angeles and New York are as different as the two cities. Chefs here talk about the year-round fresh produce, ample space to store the bounty from a farmer’s market and the ethnic mash-up food that boils up in such a diverse community. And those top-quality fruit and vegetables make it easier to cook here. It’s more challenging in New York, often resulting in more creativity and perseverance.
And from the article itself:
Los Angeles Restaurant Scene Is on the Move and Mixing It Up (this is a permalink, so there is no paywall)
Excerpts
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Put aside the perennial (and tiresome) arguments about whether New York or Los Angeles has the better food scene. There are few cities displaying as much restaurant churn and change these days as this one. Los Angeles is once again showing the trait that has always been fundamental to its identity: relentless reinvention.
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Chefs are hunting for places with cheap — well, relatively cheap — rents in up-and-coming neighborhoods, away from communities like Santa Monica, Venice, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, which offer established, thriving and satisfying restaurants.
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“It’s an inevitable cycle where restaurateurs try to go into places and find low rent, the crowds come, and the buildings get more expensive and you have to move on,” said Brad Johnson, the owner of Post & Beam in Baldwin Hills, who came here from New York to run restaurants 26 years ago. “I’ve watched the cycle happen a lot. But it’s sped up by social media, and people’s attention spans are so fast.”
“I can’t remember the last 10 places I’ve gone to here because there are 10 more places I want to go,” he added. “L.A. is very much a what’s-next town. People used to tell me, ‘You’re in the restaurant business, that’s really hard.’ I’d say, ‘It’s not that hard.’ But I feel it now.”
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Specifically mentioned are: B.S. Taqueria, Gwen, Here’s Looking at You, Kali, Kismet, Salazar, Shanghai No. 1 Seafood Village, Spago and Sqirl.