Leading LA chefs talk about the past year's best moments and biggest challenges, and also share their goals and predictions for the new year ahead.
Nyesha Arrington is the Executive Chef at Wilshire Restaurant. Wiil the Top Chef: Texas contestant have another title to go along with her new gig?
In one of her final interviews, Amy Pressman talks about Short Order, her specialty burger spot in the Original Farmers Market. She's joined by longtime friend and business partner Nancy Silverton. In a separate interview, Julian Cox talks about the Short Order cocktail program.
A small contingent of Los Angeles chefs have taken sourcing to another level, collaborating with foragers who travel to distant locales to reach off-the-grid farms and forests.
A Baker’s Dozen: Meet the toques behind the TV show up close and personal in Los Angeles, and find out what’s cooking with your favorites.
After a 17-year career in advertising, Jimmy Shaw got back to his first love when he opened a modest restaurant called Loteria Grill at the Original Farmers Market. Later this year, he will open his fourth Loteria in Santa Monica.
Mario Alberto has cooked with a lot of good chefs, including Ricardo Zarate and Josef Centeno. Now he’s stepped into the spotlight, with sophisticated Peruvian cuisine at Chimu Downtown. Next stop? Echo Park.
There is one upside to the lousy economy, says Ben Ford. The slowdown in business gave him a chance to realize his vision for his Culver City restaurant, Ford’s Filling Station. Bring on the Berkshire pigs.
Ludovic Lefebvre headed up the kitchens at two of Los Angeles’ swankiest dining rooms, Bastide and the dearly departed L’Orangerie. Now he has a fried chicken truck and is the king of the pop-up restaurant. What’s up with that?
Jordan Kahn, chef and partner at Red Medicine in Beverly Hills, would much rather discuss food than the S. Irene Virbila incident.
Is fine dining going the way of the dodo bird? Not according to Tony Esnault, the celebrated chef at one of Los Angeles’ most esteemed dining establishments, Patina.
Anyone who has ever been to Porto’s, whether the Glendale, Burbank or newest Downey location, knows it is a phenom. It all started in 1976, when Rosa Porto opened a small bakery in Echo Park.
Introducing ten of the chefs we have great expectations for in the coming year and beyond.
When a big time New York chef comes west, you may expect a certain amount of attitude. But Scott Conant, owner of the new Scarpetta in Beverly Hills, may be the most modest chef in the biz.
If Ricardo Zarate, chef-owner of Mo-Chica and part of the team behind the sensation known as Test Kitchen, has his way, in the not too distant future, a lot more Angelenos will know and love Peruvian cuisine.
Take one enormously talented chef, ex-Blue Velvet, and put him in charge of one haute sandwich shop and a modern bistro with a menu that spans the globe. What you get is some distinct and delicious eats. Meet The Mercantile and District’s Kris Morningstar.
Dining at the Downtown fashion district eatery feels like eating in someone’s home, which is just how chef owner Natalia Pereira likes it.
Adam Fleischman is not Japanese. Nor does he have a Japanese wife or girlfriend. He just likes umami.
When former software engineer Lou Amdur found himself thinking and reading about wine just a tad too much on the job, he decided to embrace the obsession.
Starry Kitchen started as an underground restaurant in the North Hollywood apartment of Nguyen and Thi Tran. Now it’s a bopping pan Asian café in downtown Los Angeles. Nguyen Tran tells us about opening a restaurant anything but by the book.
Chef Walter Manzke made Church & State the talk of town. Then he left. Why abandon such a good thing? Manzke opens up and tells us what’s next.
Ray Garcia, the chef at Santa Monica’s Fig, hadn’t planned on a career in the kitchen. But a funny thing happened on the way to law school.
Diana Stavaridis may not be a household name, yet. But just wait. The chef de cuisine at BLD has come a long way since her first restaurant gig (at Domino’s… shhhh!). She was recently named a Rising Star by StarChefs.com.
After working at some of the best restaurants in town, Kazuto Matsusaka opened a smart Asian restaurant in Culver City called Beacon. This was in 2004, well before the neighborhood became the hot dining destination it is today.
Three years ago, Betty Fraser was a Los Angeles chef and restaurateur with a popular neighborhood spot called Grub. Then the San Francisco native became a contestant on season two of Bravo’s Top Chef.
Alan Jackson's name might not be familiar. But the original Lemonade, which the veteran LA chef opened on Beverly Boulevard in Spring of 2008, and the three that followed, are some of the most popular eateries in town.
Expectations are high for the new Hatfield’s. After a six month hiatus, Karen and Quinn Hatfield seem as excited as anyone, and ready to get back to work in their new, bigger space on Melrose Avenue.
Genet Agonafer is one of several Ethiopian restaurateurs with businesses on a stretch of Fairfax just off Olympic Boulevard, otherwise known as Little Ethiopia.
Want your burger bunless? Ketchup with those fries? At Father’s Office in Santa Monica and Culver City, you’re outta luck.
You don’t have to be in the restaurant biz to know how rough it is out there. But a few places seem to be operating in an alternate universe.
Forget Match.com, eHarmony or meeting your true love on the next reality show. If you’re looking for a serious relationship, get a job, at a restaurant.
Brooke Williamson, half of the team behind Beechwood and the new Hudson House, dishes on workplace romance, the Redondo Beach dining scene, motherhood and where she gets her weekly sushi fix.
At the end of July, after more than 14 years, Jean Francois Meteigner and his wife, Allie Ko, are closing La Cachette.
Feeling peckish at 3 p.m. or 3 a.m.? Where you gonna go? Canter’s of course, the Fairfax Avenue delicatessen equally beloved by club kids and the grey haired set. Jacqueline Canter talks turkey and more with us.
Second generation restaurateur Sal Marino, the man who brought crudo to Los Angeles, muses on his dad, reminds us that Caesar salad is not Italian, and tells us why his kitchen has gotta be quiet. Shhhhh.
Over the course of 30 plus years, Bruce Marder, the man behind Capo, Brentwood, Cora’s and the Broadway Deli, has proven he has a knack for creating restaurants and food that Angelenos crave. So why isn’t he a household name?
And you think you’re busy? Chef Jason Travi operates one of this town’s most celebrated and beloved restaurants.
José Andrés, a native of Asturias, Spain.
We asked 10 of our favorite restaurant owners, chefs and managers to tell us what’s going to be hot in 2009.
If you’re into food and you’ve been in Los Angeles long enough, you know the name John Sedlar.
Don’t let the boyish looks and easygoing personality fool you. Chef Michael Cimarusti can cook.
Akasha Richmond was a caterer to the stars before opening her eponymous restaurant, Akasha, in Culver City early this year.
When your very first restaurant job is at Chasen’s, the storied Beverly Hills haunt famous for its chili and celebrity clientele, you’re bound for greatness.
At the tender age of 13, Govind Armstrong, who grew up in Encino, started an apprenticeship at the original Spago on Sunset Strip.
Los Angeles native Evan Kleiman opened Angeli Caffe on Melrose Avenue an impressive 23 years ago.
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