Curious as to what Los Angeles Magazine thinks are this year's crop of the best restaurants in L.A.? They sent their food critic, Patrick Fuh, on a gut-busting journey sampling a good portion of Los Angeles’s 20,000 or so bistros, gastropubs, and fine dining restaurants and asked him to come up with a list of the 75 best. In the last decade the culinary scene in L.A. has gone from being known for basically Mexican food and Sushi to, as this list highlights, becoming a full blown foodie destination ranking with any major city on the planet for variety, quality and overall dining experience. Below are the magazine's top 10 picks. Be sure to click on the restaurant name link to get a feel of just how exceptional these places are.
1.A.O.C. Beverly Grove ZAGAT praises star chef Suzanne Goin's "splendid" Cal-French small plates (including "top-notch" cheese and charcuterie), while Pulitzer-prize winning L.A. Times critic Jonathan Gold singled out her adventurous cooking and the restaurant's wine list and atmosphere. 2.Trois Mec Hollywood This is pioneering chef Ludovic Lefebvre (arguably the king of the "pop-up" restaurants) at his best. Along with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo ("trois mec" translates to "three guys"), Lefebvre has created another fantastic dining experience. The draw is the $75 multi-course tasting menu, which is less than half what you'd pay for a comparable experience in Paris or New York, that looks beyond mind-blowing. 3.Providence Hollywood The Michelin two-star restaurant can barely contain owner/chef Michael Cimarusti's passion for fish and he serves only sustainable seafood. Jonathan Gold's pick for the best restaurant in L.A., Providence has been praised for many of its classic virtues: crisp, white tablecloths, a lovely but understated dining room, and a staff intimately acquainted with Cimarusti's supremely creative cuisine. 4.Orsa & Winston Downtown Another prix-fixe format with exceptional value, a group of four can eat family-style (and well) for $50 each. And for those modest prices, you will experience chef Josef Centeno's wide-ranging palate as he experiments with spices, fruits and vegetables from the most exotic spots around the globe. 5.Spago Beverly Hills Named the most iconic restaurant in Los Angeles by ZAGAT, Spago has not lost a step since its opening in 1982. The modest prices (for such a high-end establishment), recent remodels, and seasonal menu changes keep Wolfgang Puck's first Los Angeles restaurant in the limelight more than 3 decades after it first opened. 6.Mozza Hancock Park This is the restaurant that started the "back to basics" pizza trend with Pizzeria Mozza and then redefined the way Angelenos eat real Italian food with Osteria Mozza. Superstars Mario Batali, Nancy Silverton (the West Coast's premiere bread baker) and Joe Bastianich are the forces behind this dining hot spot. 7.Sqirl East Hollywood Sqirl is an ultra hip, inexpensive diner in Silver Lake that specializes in organic jams and healthy vegetable dishes, but where you can also get a roasted salmon dinner with chick peas and charmoula (a Moroccan spread consisting of herbs, oil, lemon juice, pickled lemons, paprika, garlic, cumin, and salt). 8.Angelini Osteria Beverly Grove This is another Italian place, like Mozza, that serves excellent food and doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. The menu is short and sweet, the food is very traditional and most people who have eaten there swear it is the best Italian restaurant in L.A. 9.Animal Beverly Grove Animal is definitely for serious carnivores. The menu includes everything from quail to guinea fowl to pork ribs to rib-eye. But while known for its proteins, Animal has a serious flare for vegetables so don't skip the seasonal salads and avocado and beet dishes alongside your plate of smoked turkey legs. 10. Night + Market West Hollywood The tiny Thai joint has one of the most esoteric wine lists in the city. Chef/owner Kris Yenbamroong is as enthusiastic about oenology as he is about chiles, and his inexpensive wine pairings go well with his low-priced, super flavorful street food like catfish tamales and crispy rice salad with ginger. The rest of the list is here. What do you think about LAMag's picks and have you eaten at any of the restaurants on the list? I would love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to let me know what you think here or on my Facebook page.
The details of the topsy-turvy path the negotiations of this ultra prime piece of real estate have taken are probably somewhat familiar to many Westside agents. Basically, a Hong Kong private equity firm, Joint Treasure International, bought the 8-acre parcel near the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards in 2010 for $148 million. They bought it from Carlos Slim, the Mexican Magnate and richest man in the world, who took control of the property after foreclosure proceedings were brought against jet-setting British developers Nicholas and Christian Candy. The Candys made headlines in 2007 when they bought the parcel for $500 million in one of the largest transactions in the history of Los Angeles County.
The top selling point of the property is that previous owners successfully navigated Beverly Hills' arduous city planning process and secured approvals to build the condo complex designed by Meier, and the high-end condo supply is severely lacking in Beverly Hills. As the Times reported, "upon transfer of ownership, the incoming buyer will leverage the value already created and be able to immediately commence construction"...so, this will definitely be a fascinating story to keep an eye out for as things progress!
Did you know that Earth Day is the largest non-secular holiday on Earth? Celebrating its 44th anniversary tomorrow, over a billion people around the world are expected to take part in some sort of activity related to improving the environment this week, according to the Earth Day Network.
The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 was instrumental in leading to many of the environmental protections we enjoy today. Senator Gaylord Nelson, considered one of the leaders of the modern environmental cause, picked April 22 in order to maximize participation on college campuses for what he conceived as an "environmental teach-in". He determined the week of April 19–25 was the best bet as it did not fall during exams or spring breaks (also, it did not conflict with religious holidays such as Easter or Passover). Expecting to reach hundreds of thousands of students in college towns across the U.S., the event drew 20 million people in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Support for major change to environmental policy was so overwhelming, Congress ratified the EPA which began operation on December 2, 1970. In 1990, Earth Day truly went global, with 200 million people in over 140 nations participating. While the debate rages over climate change and greenhouse gasses, there is no question, especially in Los Angeles, that our air and water is markedly better than it was in 1970.
Did you know the tradition of Easter eggs goes back thousands of years? The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, and Hindus all believed the world began with an enormous egg, thus the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for eons.
Easter falls in the spring, the yearly time of renewal, when the earth renews itself after a long, cold winter. The word Easter comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring, Eostre, who presided over the season of the growing sun and new birth. The Easter Bunnyarose originally as a symbol of fertility, due to the rapid reproduction habits of the hare and rabbit. In the legend of Eostre, a rabbit was her companion and sacred animal. Easter is the second best-selling candy holiday in America, after Halloween.
The jelly bean became associated with Easter in the 1930s (although the jelly bean’s origins reportedly date all the way back to a centuries-old concoction called a Turkish Delight).
The Easter Parade tradition dates back to the mid-1800s Manhatan, when the upper crust of New York society would attend Easter services at various Fifth Avenue churches then stroll outside afterward, showing off their new spring outfits and hats.
Since 1878, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, American presidents and their families have celebrated Easter Monday by hosting an egg roll. Held on the South Lawn, it is one of the oldest annual events in White House history.
The largest Easter egg ever made was just over 25 feet high, weighed around 8,968 lbs and was made of chocolate and marshmallow according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
