On Repeat: my go-to L.A. restaurants
Plus, the vegetable of the moment, and the hottest new restaurants are actually several years old
Everything old is new again, L.A. restaurant edition: I had an excellent, refreshingly grown-up meal at Broken Spanish Comedor in Culver City, the resurrection of Alta California master chef Ray Garcia’s Downtown institution, a pandemic casualty in 2020. (Shoutout to the refried lentils, an unsexy-sounding but in fact very delicious starter!) Garcia isn’t the only trailblazing L.A. chef to breathe new life into their old favorite as of late: Fellow DTLA pioneer Josef Centeno has revived his dearly departed Bäco Mercat, Bar Amá, and Takoria menus (plus some new ideas) at his new restaurant, Le DräQ, in the former Bar Amá space. The long-awaited addition of dinner at Sqirl isn’t quite the same, given that the original never went away, but it exists on a similarly nostalgia-tinged spectrum, as influential L.A. chefs continue to nurture and expand their original concepts—which, given the challenges of modern-day restaurant ownership—seems quite smart.
The new it vegetable: Cauliflower steaks are played out—the vegetable of the moment is cabbage, per Vogue and seemingly every chef in town (in fairness, the NYT called it two years ago, but who’s counting). My favorite dish at the new Sqirl after dark was an elaborately constructed chunk of green cabbage, layers separated and stuffed with mushroom duxelles, charred on the edges and topped with black garlic toum and a yuzu butter sauce—heady stuff for a humble crucifer. Against all odds, Little Fish in Melrose Hill’s most photogenic (and delicious) dish is arguably its stuffed cabbage, two perfect green cylinders containing abalone rice and plated over a rich tomato beurre blanc. Anajak Thai has been smothering hefty grilled wedges of the stuff with garlic chutney and chili crisp for a few years now. And Emily just told me about a grilled conehead cabbage dish, torn into pieces and drizzled with curry leaf aioli and yuzu shichimi at RVR, though I’m still mentally replaying the silky sheafs of Hispi cabbage they were steaming in a citrusy dashi a few months ago. I get the appeal: cabbage is visually arresting, vaguely healthy, and adapts well to virtually any cooking technique. And while some may complain about paying upwards of $20 for a brassica, free your mind—a well-considered vegetable dish is always worth it, IMO.
SushiSamba just opened in a massive rooftop space in West Hollywood, and while global fusion-cuisine juggernauts are not our usual beat, both Emily and I must admit to a certain degree of nostalgia for the Seventh Avenue South location circa 2005, at its Sex & The City-fueled peak. SushiSamba was one of the first chains to take Nikkei cuisine mainstream, and it will be interesting to see how the Japanese-Peruvian-Brazilian dinner and show concept is received here, in a neighborhood with plenty of competing clubstraunts, particularly among diners who may not be old enough to remember the chain in its heyday. It could succeed if it leans into its inherent flamboyance, and positions itself as an alternative to the in-house restaurants at the more exclusive members-only clubs like the nearby San Vicente Bungalows and Soho House. Long live the yellowtail taquitos!
I avoid making New Year’s resolutions, but the one goal I set for myself each year is to become a regular, somewhere, anywhere. I proceed to fail every year, because the nature of my job is such that I am constantly chasing after bright shiny new objects, and also because when I have a night off, I usually like to stay in and eat my lentil mush. That said, there are a few places I return to time and again, usually for specific dishes or an atmosphere I crave but will never be able to recreate at home. There are a few more that filter in and out of this list on a regular basis, but here’s the current lineup:
