Savory City: A Food and Drink Guide to Los Angeles
This is my town.
I moved to Los Angeles believing it to be the veneered, cliché-ridden city portrayed by many a reality show: an alienating urban sprawl bathed in sunshine’s constant glow by day and the near-blinding glare of Sunset Boulevard’s LED lights by night; overrun by opportunists, It-Girls and Boys in the making; and justly spoken of with contempt by my Northern Californian counterparts. In short, I moved there expecting to hate it.
Surprisingly, the opposite proved true. I fell completely, disgustingly in love with the city, which transcended every stereotype unfairly slapped onto it and gave me a lovely life during my two-and-a-half year living stint. If you are looking for a culturally and morally vacuous Los Angeles it is easy enough to find, but you would be doing yourself a great disservice by believing that L.A. begins at X Hollywood hotspot and ends at Toast. Not that there’s anything wrong with eating at Toast. (See below.)
My departure from L.A. was the impetus for me writing this guide to some of the city’s best restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, a list that is by no means exhaustive. The city is wont to rapid and trend-driven turnaround, where a restaurant may be anointed “Must Eat/See-and-be-Seen At” one moment then unceremoniously fall off the radar once something newer and trendier opens. (Remember Dolce? No? It’s probably better that way.) This may not be the definitive L.A. handbook, but “this is my town” and these are some of my favorite things about it.