Restaurants in Los Angeles
IF YOU KNOW | OCT 22, 2020
Victoire Loup
WHO
Restaurants
WHAT
Los Angeles
WHERE
About
Victoire Loup is a French-born restaurant critic, cookbook writer and F&B consultant based in Los Angeles. Since 2013, she’s been working for Le Fooding / Michelin Guide, initially as their Marketing Director in Paris, and now as a remote freelance food writer. She has appeared as a judge on several TV shows and also worked in production for Mind of a Chef. She has been featured as a food expert in the Los Angeles Times, Bon Appetit Magazine, Vogue, the Sunday Times, among others.
She is currently consulting with brands and chefs such as Pommery, Ludo Lefebvre or Airbnb. During her time off, she eats (up to five times a day) at all the old and new restaurants around Los Angeles, reviewing them on her website intheloup.la and Instagram at @victoire_loup. She’s an enthusiast for the perfect tadhig, hand-written recipes, and finding an undiscovered restaurant on a strip mall.
PHOTO BY REMY TORTOSA
They have a perfectly laminated croissant and the best strawberry tart you’ll ever find outside of Paris. Their coffee and tea selection make for a lovely Tuesday afternoon break and there are enough sandwiches options to keep you hungry all week: pork katsu, eggplant katsu, omelet, and egg salad. No spot at the ten-seat counter? Grab your sandwiches to-go in their beautiful takeaway boxes, along with a couple of sides: pickled cucumbers, shiitake mushrooms and kombu, roasted sunchokes with pistachio dip and nori, turnips with Meyer lemon, sesame and toasted rice, etc. On the weekends you’ll want to have their pain au chocolat – the chef/owner duo Akira Akuto and Nick Montgomery did some obsessive R&D to get chocolate in every bite.
This authentic bistrot makes you feel French from noon to night. Behind a marble bar, the waitresses will say merci and s’il vous plait. Do not leave without trying the omelet made with Boursin cheese and make sure you also try a bite of the burger (dubbed Big Mec) and its succulent brioche bun, which was voted best burger in LA Weekly for a good reason. The soundtrack of patriotic Chef Ludo oscillates between old gallic tunes and rap à la mode. The wine list is brief and the menu is gluten-full. Petit Trois will certainly comfort any homesick Frenchies.
Order as many small plates as you can fit on your wobbly sidewalk table. Order the lamb ragooo, the grilled cauliflower à la Miznon, peas with stracciatella and green garlic; a mayocoba bean ful; and a crowd-pleasing dish of grilled beets covered in roasted hazelnuts, all served with a large loaf of Bub and Grandma’s bread. Unfortunately, one of the best things about MhZh was its casual BYOB policy, which is no longer in service thanks to a jealous neighbor.
Porridge & Puffs will strike you with its peaceful atmosphere, absence of signs, white walls and taped dried flowers. Let’s start with dessert, as their brown butter mochi is the best thing on their menu. For your main course choose between the seasonal porridges (I highly recommend the five-spice braised short rib with pickles.) Add a puff (hybrid of two Vietnamese doughnuts: banh cam and banh tieu) and a veggie dish to fully comprehend the various talents of Chef Minh Phan.
Run by two former high-end kitchen veterans, Kali is a perfect example of Hollywood bistronomie. The signature dish is beet tartare, served with preserved lemon curd in lieu of egg yolk. The barley risotto with black garlic and burnt cheese is to die for, and same goes for the for the carrot-lavender duck breast or the cavatelli with crème fraîche. My favorite item on the menu is the meringue gelato with shaved cured yolk, perhaps one of the best desserts in Los Angeles. Prices are softer for lunch, and during dinner the restaurant puts on its sophisticated hat back on… keeping only the best details of fine dining.
Dune has some of the best falafels in LA, and they are curled up in soft thick pita which has just come out from the grill, with a little za’atar and some turmeric yogurt. For the meat-eaters, there’s a pasture-raised lamb sandwich with Lebanese toum and pickled onions. The beet sandwich bread is a ciabatta from Bub & Grandma’s. The hummus and tabbouleh plate are also worth the trip to Atwater Village. For dessert, Dune has dates with rose water and sea salt, as well as baklava.
If you’re going to Malibu Seafood during their rush hour (Saturday lunch, holiday weekend…), don’t hesitate to call in your order to avoid the long lines. Almost everything is excellent at this fishermen’s hut, half-fishmonger and half-restaurant: divine steamed mussels, clam chowder served in a sourdough bread, the crispiest fried calamari (erroneously called “squid and fries”), and the robbery of the century: a whole fish, simply grilled and served with two sides (choose rice pilaf and housemade coleslaw) — for only 15 bucks! A picnic table, the view of the ocean and a bottle of BYO white wine… Isn’t life beautiful?
With the exception of the six-week wait to get a table, Felix has everything of an Italian trattoria. At the heart of the dining room, you’ll find the highlight of the show: a temperature-controlled pasta laboratory where you can admire Evan Funke and his chefs work the pasta dough by hand. My go-tos include: the well-oiled sfincione focaccia, pesto trofie from Cinque Terre, zucchini flowers stuffed with unctuous fior di latte mozzarella, cacio e pepe tonnarelli and parmesan-covered polpette, swimming in a delicious salsa verde.
The menu is pretty much the same at all three locations: notorious crispy rice salad, mind-blowing khao soi, deliciously rich panang curry in which you’ll want to soak sticky rice, and a gaeng pa nok saap. However, some differences are worth noting: the West Hollywood one is terribly noisy, but has the advantage of allowing reservations and having a patio. The newcomer in Venice is probably the only decent Thai restaurant West of the 405. And the one in Silverlake is for the cool kids, who have a passion for orange wine and know how to pair pet’nat with pork toro.
Loupiotte Kitchen is a French all-day bistro in the heart of Los Feliz, serving vegetable-driven dishes inspired by the Farmers’ Market. Co-owners Sarah Bessade and Antoine Blandin’s ethos is to respect the environment by using as much organic, local and plant-based ingredients as possible. Expect quiches, Fregola Sarda risotto, or strawberry pain perdu — and a ton of pastries! Fun fact: a portion of every single pastry purchased at Loupiotte Kitchen will be distributed every month to a different LA-based charity.
Each dish at Destroyer deserves applause for the quality of its presentation. Jordan Kahn (whose pedigree includes Alinea, French Laundry and Per Se) decided to open Destroyer for breakfast and lunch — to make it feel more like a neighborhood joint. It’s certainly an excellent spot for tea or coffee and delicately presented in Japanese-inspired ceramics. The food itself is adventurous: raw porridge with Icelandic yogurt, English peas and almond milk custard, beef tartar hidden under radish scales… a true R&D laboratory for his next-door restaurant Vespertine.
Ready, steady, go. You’ll have to show up promptly as soon as Sushi Gen opens its glass doors, or else an hour-long line may prevent you from getting in in time for lunch. It’s the sushi and sashimi lunch specials ($17) that draws everyone and their mother to these thick cuts of toro, yellowtail, tuna, squid and all the fixings. These are not available at the sushi bar, where it’s only omakase — a fabulous experience, which will end up more costly.
Don’t be fooled by the pale imitations of Mariscos Jalisco food trucks in Boyle Heights: this is the only old school taco truck (aka lonchero) from San Juan de Los Lagos. You’ll taste the difference with their unbeatable taco de camaron: a deep-fried shell stuffed with shrimps, homemade red salsa and divine avocados. Save room for the Poseidon tostada with shrimp ceviche, octopus and aguachile. This red aguachile also comes on its own tostada, and you can appease the fire by adding some avocados on top.
In this narrow and tall East-Coast inspired seafood shack which used to be a church, chef and co-owner Ari Kolender dazzles with a short and impeccable menu. Two types of oysters rotate on the chalkboard and they are served over ice with lemon, tartar sauce and an incredible mignonette. The albacore crudo is an homage to Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco, and is best enjoyed with Bub and Grandma’s spelt and polenta bread, seared to perfection, and Echiré butter with smoked Maldon salt. The wine list is curated by Molly Kelley and offers excellent by-the-glass options at bargain prices.
At Mashti Malone, you don’t want to order a vanilla and chocolate ice cream. It would be a shame to miss out on perfumes such as saffron, ginger, cucumber, lavender (organic and imported from France)… And the holy trinity: rose water, orange blossom and pistachio. Practice your farsi by tasting faloodeh (rose water sorbet with rice noodles) or a mashti (a scoop of rose and saffron ice cream dipped in fresh pistachios and sandwiched between two waffles). While forty years ago Mashti Shirvani was struggling to sell his Iranian sorbets in Los Angeles, he now sells a thousand gallons a day!
During the daytime they offer fantastic bento boxes for takeaway and at night the restaurant transforms into one of the finest kaiseki meals in the city for six lucky guests. With seafood specially ordered for each individual guest and the menu constantly changing with the seasons, no two dinners at Hayato will be alike. The almost entirely seafood menu, while incredibly light and clean, intensifies in flavor course by course. While a meal here is certainly pricey, it is without a doubt one of my favorite places for a special occasion.
Chef Jessica Koslow had originally rented this room tucked in Virgil Village in order to sell jams, but today both tourists and locals wait for hours to get a bite of Squirl’s brioche. The superstar brioche with ricotta and jam is not the only winner here, I also love the sorrel bowl for something more savory. Water it all down with their lemonade made with fresh vanilla, a horchata or a cold brew.
Don’t miss the baklava croissant and the raspberry rhubarb galette. Their whipped burrata needs to be devoured from the jar, with their homemade bread. The falafel sandwich is worthy of the Rue des Rosiers, while the pastrami rivals that of Russ & Daughters. If the small rickety tables on the patio intimidate you, Gjusta also excels on take-away – pick up traditional cheese, cured fish and meat – everything at Gjusta is incredibly good, the most difficult task is waiting in line.
After waiting in line for more than an hour in Chinatown, you’ll choose between white meat, dark meat, or the whole bird (guaranteed hormone-free and antibiotics-free), and your choice of heat: country, mild, medium, hot, x-hot, and howlin’. You’ll burn your fingers by even touching the chicken, and then burn your taste buds by swallowing it — Nashville-style. You can also get chef Johnny’s hot chicken in a sandwich filled with coleslaw, pickles, and packed between two brioche buns.
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