The best dishes of 2024, according to our food writers
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The year 2024 has flown by, and in retrospect, individual weeks and months can blend together. But the region’s remarkable dining scene helps us keep time, with shared meals and notable openings representing some of our core memories from the past year.
This year kept us busy. Our writers spent months researching our inaugural guide to the 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles. We shared lists with our favorite sandwiches and cookies, as well as a comprehensive dining and drinking guide to Koreatown. We tracked restaurant openings and closings, with insight from chefs and restaurateurs on the current challenges in their industry.
We celebrated local culinary talent with our annual guide to the 101 Best Restaurants in L.A., this year co-written by restaurant critic Bill Addison and columnist Jenn Harris. We also explored beyond the city, providing destination dining guides to Palm Springs, San Diego, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
As we reflect on the past 12 months, countless meals stand out as worthy of celebration. Whether it’s an oxtail smashburger from a fast-casual spot in Redlands, a prized Peking duck at a Las Vegas resort or al pastor street tacos shaved directly from the spit, these are the best dishes our writers ate this year, and ones we’re eager to revisit in 2025.
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Sesame green onion pie at Ahgoo's Kitchen
Temple City Taiwanese $
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
At Ahgoo’s, Thomas and Lily Yeh’s three-year-old restaurant in Temple City, there’s a green onion sesame pie on every table. The bread triangles are as thick as bookends and crowded with green onion. The outer crust is delicate and crisp, golden in color, speckled with tiny bubbles and coated in sesame seeds. The middle is like another bread entirely, with a soft, spongy center that’s similar to good focaccia. Lily learned to make the dough from her grandfather and mother in northern China and prepares about 50 orders for the restaurant a day. I like to eat at least one slice on its own, savoring the 1-to-1 onion-to-dough ratio of the bread. And then another dunked into the restaurant’s chile oil. One basket of bread is enough for a crowd, but sometimes I hoard the leftovers for tomorrow’s breakfast.
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Saturday musakhan from Al Baraka
Palestinian Middle Eastern $$
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Owners Aref and Magida Shatarah offer musakhan only on Saturdays, so I plan my visits accordingly. It’s a classic Palestinian dish of roasted chicken perfumed with sumac. It’s served over a blanket of flatbread and caramelized onions cooked down until the sugars run wild and they resemble a paste. The bread is both crisp and chewy, saturated in the chicken juices and the sweet and tart purple mash of onions and sumac. You tear away chunks of bread and use it to cradle the chicken, which slips easily from the bone. Split between a group of family and friends, it’s the best way to spend a few hours on a Saturday afternoon.
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Tortilla española at Asador Bastian pop-up
Hancock Park Italian $$$
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Asador Bastian, a Basque-influenced chophouse in Chicago helmed by chef Doug Psaltis, took over the kitchen at Chi Spacca earlier this year, with a family-style menu that showcased the restaurant’s intentional sourcing and grilling methods honed from the Basque region. Between courses of piquant anchovy matrimonio and five- and 10-year-aged beef, I wouldn’t blame fellow diners who might have forgotten the simple magnificence of the Spanish tortilla, one of the first dishes to arrive on our table. Topped with glistening slivers of acorn-fed jamon, the tortilla was whipped into a light and pillowy texture, with the egg and potato almost indistinguishable from each other. Each pie was sliced into four pieces, but as platters of spotted sardines topped with salsa verde and bone marrow potato puree arrived right behind them, nobody noticed or cared that I, uninterested in saving any appetite for heavier courses, took two portions of the fluffy omelet.
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Lamb neck koresht at Azizam
Silver Lake Persian $
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
In her 640-page masterwork “Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies,” Najmieh Batmanglij describes the class of dishes called khoresht as “delicate and refined braises” and “a combination of meat, poultry or fish with vegetables, herbs, fruits, beans, grains and sometimes nuts.” The words don’t quite capture their mingled fragrances and elaborate harmonies, but the possibilities necessitate a broad definition. In Persian restaurants, one usually finds only a few examples of khoresht, including fesenjoon, a recipe that can be traced back at least 2,500 years in which pomegranate juice and pomegranate molasses simmer for hours with ground walnuts; chicken or duck are classic pairings. At their Silver Lake cafe Azizam, which opened in March, Cody Ma and Misha Sesar brilliantly blur the line between Persian home and restaurant cooking. An occasional standout special over the restaurant’s first year is a khoresht of lamb-neck meat, cooked to collapsing tenderness and paired with the season’s fruits: apricots in early summer, quinces and prunes at the onset of fall. Even better, they’ve recently served the braise with tahchin, its golden exterior giving way to soft, saffron-stained rice tangled with yogurt.
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Steak tartare at Bar Etoile
East Hollywood Wine Bars $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
In a citywide sea of steak tartares, there’s one I think about with frequency. It began in Virgil Village, where chef Travis Hayden first cubed thick slices of bread, smeared them with a rich, anchovy-heavy Caesar dressing and piled them with a small mountain of beef tartare. He’s since left Voodoo Vin, where the dish made its debut (and which continues on as a stellar wine bar now serving Persian cuisine), and when he departed it wasn’t clear whether his tartare toast would ever return. But in his latest project, Bar Etoile — a new wine bar in Melrose Hill from the team that brought us bottle shop Domaine LA — thankfully it graced the opening menu, and long may it reign.
This is a deeply savory rendition of raw hand-chopped steak, which currently tosses the meat with shallots, parsley and pear-and-persimmon vinegar. Sometimes the Caesar dressing might involve vinegars and brines from the kitchen’s house ferments, or it might involve buttermilk; whatever the day’s ingredients, it’s creamy and unctuous and slides down the sides of the thick slice of Bub and Grandma’s country loaf, and it all gets buried in shaved sheep’s milk cheese and cured egg yolk. The dish is filling enough as its own meal, though the cubed toast beneath it all certainly makes for easy sharing. Enjoy this with a batched martini or one of Julian Kurland and Jill Bernheimer’s myriad suggestions for wine.
This is a deeply savory rendition of raw hand-chopped steak, which currently tosses the meat with shallots, parsley and pear-and-persimmon vinegar. Sometimes the Caesar dressing might involve vinegars and brines from the kitchen’s house ferments, or it might involve buttermilk; whatever the day’s ingredients, it’s creamy and unctuous and slides down the sides of the thick slice of Bub and Grandma’s country loaf, and it all gets buried in shaved sheep’s milk cheese and cured egg yolk. The dish is filling enough as its own meal, though the cubed toast beneath it all certainly makes for easy sharing. Enjoy this with a batched martini or one of Julian Kurland and Jill Bernheimer’s myriad suggestions for wine.
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Savory cheesecake at Bar Le Côte
Santa Barbara County Seafood Restaurant
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
It began as dessert, but Brad Mathews wanted to get weird with it. Up the winding roads and in the hills of Santa Ynez Valley, the Bar Le Côte chef-partner was brainstorming a signature dish for his Los Olivos seafood restaurant tucked into wine country. Inspired by the now-iconic uni crêpe cakes served at sibling restaurant Bell’s, he thought of caviar: What if his little dessert cheesecakes could also become a vessel for something salty, something savory?
He and chef de cuisine Jose Gomez tinkered with their ratios of sugar to salt, adding more and more lemon juice and zest for a bright burst of near puckering flavor. They concocted the perfect balance of a dense but still-fluffy base of goat cheese and cream cheese in the cake itself, then grated shallots into crème fraîche “frosting” to play on classic caviar flavor pairings. Crowned with a hearty helping of caviar and even more lemon zest, it’s a refreshing take on cheesecake in more ways than one. It’s a bite that’s more than worth a stop during a drive up the coast, or arguably a destination in and of itself.
He and chef de cuisine Jose Gomez tinkered with their ratios of sugar to salt, adding more and more lemon juice and zest for a bright burst of near puckering flavor. They concocted the perfect balance of a dense but still-fluffy base of goat cheese and cream cheese in the cake itself, then grated shallots into crème fraîche “frosting” to play on classic caviar flavor pairings. Crowned with a hearty helping of caviar and even more lemon zest, it’s a refreshing take on cheesecake in more ways than one. It’s a bite that’s more than worth a stop during a drive up the coast, or arguably a destination in and of itself.
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Bansang at Baroo
Downtown L.A. Korean $$$
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Kwang Uh and Mina Park introduced the tasting-menu reincarnation of Baroo in late summer of 2023, but Uh spent months more fine-tuning his vision for a vegan option of the meal, which finally debuted in March. Bansang, the main course, arrives on a round wooden tray full of bowls in different sizes. Something about the geometries settles the mind. Rice has been seasoned with things like dried shepherd’s purse (a plant in the mustard family). The soup may be a distillation of seaweeds, mushrooms and other flora; minerally and profound, it reflects Uh’s talent for accessing unseen worlds of flavor. Vegetable banchan changes with the seasons and the kitchen’s inspirations; their freshness will be deepened with herb oils and variations on jang, the fermented building blocks of Korean cuisine. The meal’s sum is nourishing and filling, and easily the most exhilarating plant-based cooking in Los Angeles. An important note: It’s laborious enough that the restaurant requires 24 hours’ notice for ordering it. A little planning reaps a rewarding return.
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Goat roti at Bridgetown Roti
East Hollywood Caribbean $
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Chef Rashida Holmes’ cooking, largely inspired by her Bajan heritage with hints of broader Caribbean influence, boggles the mind. Her macaroni pie is crispy on all sides with a cheesy middle and a golden-yellow hue thanks to five cheeses and a house curry powder blend. The patties break apart effortlessly to reveal tender shreds of oxtail, bouncy bits of curried shrimp or spicy slow-roasted eggplant. But it’s the goat roti that I ponder most often. How does Holmes achieve the goat’s tender, juicy texture while chunks of Weiser potatoes remain so crispy and firm? How does she balance the heat of red pepper-flecked goat with the spice of turmeric slaw with the crisp freshness of cilantro and scallions, all wrapped together in chewy paratha that holds firm against the generous portions? These questions keep swirling in my mind long after my meal is finished. Now that Holmes has upgraded from a commissary kitchen to an East Hollywood storefront, the menu at Bridgetown Roti has expanded, leading to even more burning questions about the brilliance of Holmes’ approach.
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Rice porridge at Destroyer
Culver City Breakfast/Lunch $$
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
It was a big comeback year for Jordan Kahn, the L.A. chef behind ultra-modern dining temple Vespertine, Meteora on Melrose and day cafe Destroyer. This year I ate at all three, dining along with the work of critic Bill Addison. While wowed by the entire mind-blowing wonders of a Vespertine experience, I was left most impressed by the sustained standards of excellence at Destroyer and, especially, Khan’s Koshihikari rice porridge. Perfect for chillier months, it arrives in a deep stone bowl like a microscopic moon landscape, composed of puffed rice with caramelized broccoli, shaved raw broccoli buds, roasted leeks, black garlic and a dusting of burnt onion that is pulverized into a fine powder. I found myself studying the top of the dish as though it were a painting, not wanting to disturb a single detail. Once you break the top blackened layer, an ocean of comforting flavors is composed below, taking the journey even further. Led by chef de cuisine Pauline Zancanaro, previously at Bicyclette, Destroyer is taking the assertive ambitions of modern dining and making it accessible to L.A. eaters looking for a daylight meal that both gets the job done and floats toward the extraordinary.
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Cabbage at Dunsmoor
Glassell Park American $$$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
There are platter-sized planks of tender steaks, shells brimming with succulent creamy oysters and scene-stealing cast irons of sour-milk cornbread coated in melting butter and honey, but in Brian Dunsmoor’s hearth-powered Glassell Park restaurant dedicated to American cookery, the most humble of dishes felt the most captivating. A side of simple cabbage, simmered long and flecked with fresh dill, a dollop of yogurt and a sprinkle of toasted caraway seeds, hasn’t left my mind since spring. I’ve tried to re-create it at home. I dream of Dunsmoor’s cabbage, all silken but still textured, a stewy side dish that’s almost a meal in its own right.
Often it’s cooked vegetarian — boiled in water — but occasionally it’s made with bacon lardons, which caramelize before they’re added to the cabbage and water, and which punctuate the little bowl with chewy, salty pops. The dish is nostalgic for Dunsmoor, whose mother cooked cabbage in this fashion but without the cheffy adornments of yogurt, dill and caraway. He likes to serve it both in spring and in late autumn/winter, and once it’s on the menu it remains there for months due simply to its popularity with guests. Look for its return in January, when a hearty, comforting bowl of buttery cabbage goes best with a romantic wintry dining room that’s lit by candlelight.
Often it’s cooked vegetarian — boiled in water — but occasionally it’s made with bacon lardons, which caramelize before they’re added to the cabbage and water, and which punctuate the little bowl with chewy, salty pops. The dish is nostalgic for Dunsmoor, whose mother cooked cabbage in this fashion but without the cheffy adornments of yogurt, dill and caraway. He likes to serve it both in spring and in late autumn/winter, and once it’s on the menu it remains there for months due simply to its popularity with guests. Look for its return in January, when a hearty, comforting bowl of buttery cabbage goes best with a romantic wintry dining room that’s lit by candlelight.
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Latin American sashimi at Hacienda Guadalupe
Mexican $$$
(Cindy Carcamo / Los Angeles Times)
Hacienda Guadalupe is a Valle de Guadalupe destination for its luxury accommodations and on-site winery, but the kitchen on the premises is equally formidable. Arturo Huerta, chef de cuisine, and Gabby Melchum, executive chef and the winery’s co-owner, prepare an impressive Latin American sashimi made from seasonal white fish dressed in a serrano chile, olive oil and lemon sauce. When I dined there in November, Melchum made the dish with jurel — yellow tail — caught off the coast of Baja California. The buttery fish played beautifully with the acid from the sauce, which is ground together with a mortar and pestle. The dish paired exceptionally well with Gigi — a crisp Sauvignon Blanc named after Melchum’s Pomeranian, the winery’s official pet. The entire three-course meal — each paired with a Hacienda Guadalupe wine — hit the mark, including the incredibly tender partridge and the addictive pavlova with berries and mint. But the most memorable bite was the delightful jurel.
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Garlic soy fried pork back ribs at Haemaru
Koreatown Korean $$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
Dishes that stand out over a whole year sometimes pop up on an unexpected evening, an aimless night out looking for dinner. One early weeknight I found myself on my favorite culinary strip in L.A., 8th Street in Koreatown, and tucked into this diner that specializes in savory soups like salkogi suyuk and budae jjigae. It’s never crowded. Instead of my usuals, I went to a corner of the menu that’s usually glossed over, where I found what was described as garlic soy fried pork back ribs. What arrived was a memorable comfort dish that hit the reassuring and familiar notes of garlic, soy and fry over juicy ribs in perfect balance. Dressed with sesame seeds, with a cabbage salad side, these modest fried ribs left me shaking my head in pleasure. I actually ordered two. And in 2025, whenever I can’t get a quick table at one of the more thumping restaurants nearby, I’ll just pop in here for one of my new go-tos.
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A turnip at Hayato
Downtown L.A. Japanese $$$$
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
There are many rare and wonderful things to eat at Hayato, most harvested from the sea. So why is it that months after I had the chance to eat at Brandon Hayato Go’s elegant seven-seat counter the food of his I think about most is a turnip?
This turnip, served unadorned next to two slices of steamed and grilled duck, was in its own way as luscious as the meat.
Go cooks turnips in water reserved from washing his sushi rice to remove some of the vegetable’s natural bitterness. Then he cooks the turnips again in seasoned kombu dashi. “It comes out pretty soft,” Go told his guests. “You should be able to split it with your chopsticks.”
Indeed, our chopsticks easily went through the turnip.
“When it’s good,” Go added, “it’s like a soup dumpling inside. It’s very juicy with a little bit of kombu taste.”
As I ate the last bit of the root vegetable, it occurred to me that great chefs should not be judged by how they serve lobster or caviar but on what they can do with a humble turnip.
This turnip, served unadorned next to two slices of steamed and grilled duck, was in its own way as luscious as the meat.
Go cooks turnips in water reserved from washing his sushi rice to remove some of the vegetable’s natural bitterness. Then he cooks the turnips again in seasoned kombu dashi. “It comes out pretty soft,” Go told his guests. “You should be able to split it with your chopsticks.”
Indeed, our chopsticks easily went through the turnip.
“When it’s good,” Go added, “it’s like a soup dumpling inside. It’s very juicy with a little bit of kombu taste.”
As I ate the last bit of the root vegetable, it occurred to me that great chefs should not be judged by how they serve lobster or caviar but on what they can do with a humble turnip.
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'K.F.C.' hamachi collar at Hibi
Harvard Heights Asian $$$
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
You can’t get too attached to the food at Hibi, a restaurant where the dishes and also the chefs change with the seasons. The current chef, Ricky Hwang, is serving an intriguing tasting menu with things like ankimo-uni toast or caviar blue prawn doughnuts. But earlier this year, when the kitchen was headed by Daniel Kim — the former sous chef of the Michelin three-star Restaurant at Meadowood before it was destroyed in the 2020 Glass fire — I fell for a dish that stood out for its charm, crunch and inventiveness: the “K.F.C.” or Korean fried hamachi collar.
I’ve had fried hamachi collar before and liked it — a lot. But in Kim’s version, taking a cue from Korean fried chicken, the collar was coated in a batter that fried up crisp and golden in an even layer but left the fish tender and luscious. If Hibi kept its chefs around longer — or even had a greatest-hits menu — I could imagine the “K.F.C.” becoming a citywide obsession.
I’ve had fried hamachi collar before and liked it — a lot. But in Kim’s version, taking a cue from Korean fried chicken, the collar was coated in a batter that fried up crisp and golden in an even layer but left the fish tender and luscious. If Hibi kept its chefs around longer — or even had a greatest-hits menu — I could imagine the “K.F.C.” becoming a citywide obsession.
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Double oxtail smashburger at the Jerk Grill
Redlands Jamaican $
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Lerone Mullin’s double oxtail smashburger is like a chopped cheese, a smashburger and a plate of rich oxtails all lumped onto a potato bun that’s barely holding itself together. The heap of ground chuck patties, cheese, oxtails, gravy and onions turns the yellow paper it’s wrapped in translucent, and a quarter of the filling dislodges before you can take your first bite. It’s the signature dish at his Jamaican pop-up turned restaurant in a strip mall in Redlands. Mullin fortifies his oxtails with Jamaican browning sauce and bits of potato and carrots that create soft, almost creamy pockets in the middle of the patties. It may be the most unlovely, captivating burger I’ve ever eaten. It’s also responsible for a good number of the miles I’ve put on my car this year.
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Saturday tea service at Knife Pleat
Costa Mesa Restaurant $$$
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
The Saturday tea set, like everything else chef Tony Esnault and his team prepare at their South Coast Plaza restaurant, is nothing short of exquisite. It is the most impressive collection of sandwiches and bite-sized sweets that I’ve encountered at a tea service, locally or abroad. There are tartines layered with delicate slices of beet-cured salmon, Persian cucumber and radish over house-made watercress butter. Deviled eggs overflow with caviar. Pieces of lobster dressed in a lobster aioli peek out from a split eclair. Mini pastry shells are filled with whatever fruit is in season next to petites madeleines, macarons and scones. Like Esnault’s tasting menus, the offerings change often and with the seasons. A Lunar New Year tea set included a mini mooncake and black sesame balls that hid a sweet mandarin filling I’m still dreaming about months later.
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Squash blossom quesadilla at Komal
Historic South-Central Mexican $
(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)
I marvel at Fátima Júarez’s tortillas, each one tasting of the sun and soil and bursting with the sweetness of summer corn. Júarez nixtamalizes and grinds heirloom Mexican corn varieties at Komal, her restaurant and molino in the Mercado La Paloma. She tucks squash blossoms into a fresh tortilla with Oaxacan cheese and a corn sofrito. The salty cheese manages to heighten the sweetness of the sofrito and dial up the earthiness of the masa. Unadorned, it’s a joy to eat. A close second to the quesadilla is a warm stack of tortillas eaten on the drive home.
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Taco de cabrito y consomé at El Lagunero
Mexican $
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
There’s a taco stand in Muscoy, a little-known semi-rural community on the byway between the 15 Freeway and San Bernardino, that sits in a class by itself at the regional level: El Lagunero. This unassuming taco vendor tucked off the street in a body shop offers what may be the only known local version of a regional specialty from Mexico’s Laguna region, or metropolitan Torreón: split-roasted baby goat, known as cabrito, a fragrant and satisfying delicacy. Francisco Salinas and Vanessa Sánchez serve it in multiple forms: soft taco, grilled flauta with green sauce, or in consomé laden with strings of beautiful meat. The stand also offers an offal sausage of soft baby goat organs called machitos that is roasted on a spike. The machitos and the meat on the split kid here roast over wood before your eyes. We came upon this taco during our research for the 101 Best Tacos list but it ultimately proved too elusive, for now, to justify inclusion: Muscoy is at least 90 minutes from L.A. and El Lagunero sells out of the baby goat usually by 10 a.m. That said, for Angelenos who strive to always expand their taco boundaries, El Lagunero should be one of your destination taqueros in 2025.
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Mansaf at Mal Al Sham
San Diego County Mediterranean $
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
“Do you have mansaf?” I asked our server. I’d seen shots of the dish — a layered platter of bread, rice and lamb in spiced yogurt sauce — while researching Mal Al Sham online, but it wasn’t listed on the restaurant’s Syrian menu. “Yes,” she answered, and she soon returned carrying the dish. Mansaf is often called the national dish of Jordan, although it’s also beloved in nearby countries. This one ranks among the best versions I’ve had in restaurants across the United States. The sauce, made with a key ingredient of preserved and reconstituted yogurt called jameed, had the exact right sharpness.
Five-year-old Mal Al Sham resides on the main road through El Cajon, a city with one of the country’s largest Iraqi immigrant and refugee communities. The restaurant honors the population with a weekend special of quzi, another lamb and rice dish more peppered with sweet, bright spices (but no yogurt sauce). For a feast, surround these dishes with other regional staples: silky hummus, fattoush tangy with pomegranate molasses, beefy kibbeh in fried or grilled variations and extra-crunchy falafel. For seekers of outstanding Levantine cooking, El Cajon is a worthwhile 20-minute drive from downtown San Diego.
Five-year-old Mal Al Sham resides on the main road through El Cajon, a city with one of the country’s largest Iraqi immigrant and refugee communities. The restaurant honors the population with a weekend special of quzi, another lamb and rice dish more peppered with sweet, bright spices (but no yogurt sauce). For a feast, surround these dishes with other regional staples: silky hummus, fattoush tangy with pomegranate molasses, beefy kibbeh in fried or grilled variations and extra-crunchy falafel. For seekers of outstanding Levantine cooking, El Cajon is a worthwhile 20-minute drive from downtown San Diego.
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Melon d'Exception at Marché Moderne
Newport Beach French $$$
(Marché Moderne)
Every August, I look forward to the melon dishes at Marché Moderne. Chef Florent Marneau always does an excellent job partnering prosciutto and inventive sorbets with the heirloom melons he procures from Weiser Family Farms. Every late summer, I bug him about when he’ll debut his melon plate. It came later than usual this year. Marneau is a stickler for perfection, so the fruit has to be just ripe before he embarks on crafting the labor-intensive dish.
This year’s creation was worth the wait. The dish featured marble-size samplings of Weiser melons and thinly sliced ribbons of 24-month aged prosciutto accompanied with a port wine sorbet. The dish may look too pretty to eat, but that didn’t stop me. The savory prosciutto paired so well with the melons — Charentais, Cavaillon, Sugar Queen and Sugar Cube. The port wine sorbet sealed the deal, topped with a touch of black pepper, mint, basil and balsamic vinegar. I’m sad I have to wait until next year for Marneau’s next melon creation, but I’m excited to see what he’ll come up with next.
This year’s creation was worth the wait. The dish featured marble-size samplings of Weiser melons and thinly sliced ribbons of 24-month aged prosciutto accompanied with a port wine sorbet. The dish may look too pretty to eat, but that didn’t stop me. The savory prosciutto paired so well with the melons — Charentais, Cavaillon, Sugar Queen and Sugar Cube. The port wine sorbet sealed the deal, topped with a touch of black pepper, mint, basil and balsamic vinegar. I’m sad I have to wait until next year for Marneau’s next melon creation, but I’m excited to see what he’ll come up with next.
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Chicken shawarma at Miya Miya
Downtown L.A. Eclectic $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Yazeed “Yaz” Soudani’s signature dish keeps drawing me back to his shawarma stand, and I’m not alone. The Amman-trained chef has proven one of the most exciting new vendors at Smorgasburg this year, with throngs of weekly guests queuing in an almost constant line for chicken shawarma that’s made using spices and equipment imported from Jordan. Miya Miya’s debut has been so successful, in fact, that Soudani is planning a bricks-and-mortar for 2025; it also can be found popping up in Sherman Oaks every Friday night. His chicken browns to a glorious crisp as it spins, and the thinly shaved slices pile onto fries or, as I prefer, into fresh warmed saj bread. The exterior of the long, thin shawarma wrap gets brushed along the tower of rotating meat for extra flavor, then held against the grill for a delicious — and aesthetic — browning. Order this “the Yaz way,” where long strands of tangy pickles, a runny and potent garlic sauce and tart pomegranate molasses all add to the symphony. Just be sure to grab extra napkins to catch the sauces running down your wrists.
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Vanilla St. Honore at Muse
Pacific Palisades French $$
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Fardad Khayami is the gracious maître d’ of the posh, 34-seat Santa Monica restaurant he opened in August with his college roommate David Gelland. While Khayami talks with diners, he often brings up the topic of dessert. “My brother Nikdad is the pastry chef,” he says. “You need to try his vanilla St. Honore. He gets to the kitchen crazy early every morning to make it.” The elaborate pastry, created in Paris in the mid-1800s and named in homage of the patron saint of bakers, involves lots of delicate pâte à choux and stabilized creams. After subdued French-Italian-Continental dishes like lobster over tiny souffled potatoes and pasta tossed in pesto, Nikdad’s pastry steals the spotlight. He builds each creation on a circle of crisp phyllo, arranging caramel-glazed choux puffs over top with a finishing starburst of custardy crème diplomat. A feat of texture and balance, it’s a glamorous reminder of how the right dessert can sweeten a whole evening’s memory.
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Banana and caviar ice cream sandwich at Pasta|Bar
Encino Californian $$$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Phillip Frankland Lee’s restaurants always balance technical proficiency and great service, but I often walk away most floored by the desserts. That’s because Margarita Kallas-Lee, his wife and business partner, is an underrated pastry star. At Pasta | Bar, their Michelin-starred tasting-menu restaurant hidden in an Encino strip mall, a procession of courses is enjoyed with a view of the low-lit kitchen: Fresh cavatelli might come served in house mole; crudo arrives with pistachio and calamansi cream; honey-brushed duck breast could accompany goat cheese mezzaluna; and the cocktail pairings are all hyper-creative riffs on clarified milk punch. Kallas-Lee’s touch extends beyond desserts here, starting the meal with her popular sourdough boules, but she sets the bar highest at the end of the night — especially when it comes to her caviar-topped banana ice cream sandwich.
She roasts bananas in their peels to the point of caramelization and adds them to a freshly made ice cream base, then smokes the ice cream with oak for an earthy edge to the lightly tropical, creamy fruit. She constructs almost shortbread-like brioche cookies using a blend of flours, house brioche crumbs and brown butter, then tops the whole ice cream sandwich with the Lees’ private-label caviar for a salty, savory note. The bites without caviar shine just as much, to the point where I’d like to keep my freezer well stocked with these mini ice cream sandwiches year-round, caviar or no.
She roasts bananas in their peels to the point of caramelization and adds them to a freshly made ice cream base, then smokes the ice cream with oak for an earthy edge to the lightly tropical, creamy fruit. She constructs almost shortbread-like brioche cookies using a blend of flours, house brioche crumbs and brown butter, then tops the whole ice cream sandwich with the Lees’ private-label caviar for a salty, savory note. The bites without caviar shine just as much, to the point where I’d like to keep my freezer well stocked with these mini ice cream sandwiches year-round, caviar or no.
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Cod dosirak at Perilla L.A.
Chinatown Korean $
(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
If I had to choose one dish to eat every day for the rest of my life, what would it be? Currently, I’m thinking it’s the black cod dosirak — a composed lunchbox of a dish — at chef Jihee Kim’s banchan-focused Victor Heights restaurant Perilla L.A. The compartmentalized plate is neatly packed with steamed white rice, topped with soy-marinated cod and served with kimchi, steamed broccolini, potato salad, pickled vegetables and Kim’s rolled nori egg. Kim says she aims to include various flavors, textures and temperatures: the tangy and spicy kimchi; warm, sesame-oil-slicked greens; cool, creamy potato salad; pickly, crunchy vegetables like cauliflower or carrot; and either the rolled or smoked egg. The star is the juicy, tender, flavorful cod, marinated for 12 to 24 hours, baked, then torched for a whisper of char. Everything I want, in perpetuity?
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Mala lamb sausage pizza at Pizzeria Sei
Pico-Robertson Pizza $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
A special so popular it stuck around permanently, Pizzeria Sei’s mala lamb sausage pizza blends multiple cultures to represent L.A. — just as the pie’s creator intended. Chef-owner William Joo conceived the toppings as a nod to Koreatown restaurant Feng Mao, which is known for its grilled lamb skewers, but the lamb, when combined with the creaminess of the crème fraîche and the herbaceous bite of the fresh cilantro flowers, also is reminiscent of shawarma. The mala chile adds a tingling Sichuan element, while the smoked provola, tomato pulp, Parmesan and pecorino pull these cross-cultural nods firmly into pizza territory. Rich, bright, complex and spicy, the first bite blew me away. I tried this slice during Pizzeria Sei’s ambitious new pizza omakase, a dinner event that’s more than worthy of staking out the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ticket drops, but this “special” is so good it’s almost always available during regular service too.
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Al pastor taco at Tacos Los Güichos
Florence Al Pastor Food Truck $
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Given that The Times published our guide to the 101 Best Tacos in Los Angeles in July, it’s been a year when everyone on the Food team cradled dozens of folded tortillas in their palms. The greatness of the pit-cooked lamb served at Barbacoa Ramirez in Arleta catapulted the weekend stand to the No. 8 position on our annual 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles, written this year by Jenn Harris and me. But I also remain transfixed on the al pastor tacos at Los Güichos, a mobile taqueria that Mariano Zenteno has run since 1992, and that currently operates from a trailer in the parking lot of an auto shop on West Slauson Avenue. Los Angeles is an al pastor town; vendors carving pork from fire-kissed trompos are as defining to our streetscapes as palm trees and jacarandas. Los Güichos stands out as exceptional. Zenteno’s pastoreros shave meat along the spice-stained stack’s contours with the practiced precision of swordsmen. Notably, Zenteno skips the familiar pineapple in his al pastor recipe, which instead goes heavy on lime juice for brightness. This is important: Los Güichos serves tacos (including suadero, pollo and other standard variations) all day but only sets up the trompo for al pastor after 5 p.m. Regulars know this, but I’ve never encountered a line that didn’t move swiftly.
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Peruvian bay scallops at Trani's Dockside Station
Italian $$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
If you know anything about the tough essence of Los Angeles, you know that most of it arguably lies in its port. Here, generations of proud immigrant and unionized port workers have built a proper multiethnic culinary culture of their own. In San Pedro, a new and revamped home from a beloved local family’s 98-year seafood chophouse became a worthy drive for dinner for me several times this year. Trani’s Dockside Station reopened in 2023 at a refurbished historical building right off the docks at the terminus of Harbor Boulevard. Fourth-generation family chef Dustin Trani has taken things to another level: Everything is consistently confident and well-handled, and the wine list means business. The Peruvian bay scallops are not to be missed. These come as a festive mountain on ice, with ginger lime, toasted garlic, cashew, cilantro and coconut air. Vaguely Thai and probably the lightest dish on the whole menu, the combined bite is pure freshness and fun. Everything chef Trani is doing with oysters, small plates and traditional steaks is working so well, I’m convinced that his restaurant could stand by any seafood spot in town. Those glee-inducing scallops are simply one reason why.
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Chilaquiles divorciados at Venice Bakery
Palms Mexican $
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
Mexican bakeries in Los Angeles are often fully loaded restaurants with breakfast, lunch and juice menus, and one of the best iterations of this type is family-run Venice Bakery in Palms. Westsiders swing in here for breakfast with the bakery’s excellent chilaquiles, along with steaming coffee and a tall green juice. I sometimes triangulate appointments and points on a drive with this place in mind around brunch, and in 2024, a revisit left me wishing I still lived closer. The chilaquiles divorciados stand out: one side red and one side green, with a generous flattop of a grilled chicken breast, or you can have carne asada or milanesa. The kitchen staples here are the key: sides of beans, rice, fried plantain and the fresh round bolillos perfectly crackled at the top are always balanced, flavorful, complementary. Panadería confections, including pan de muerto in season, are also top-tier.
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'Summer' at Vespertine
Culver City Eclectic $$$$
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
One July evening just as the sun is setting and its rays shoot through the windows of Vespertine — the fine-dining restaurant from Jordan Kahn that feels very much like a spaceship headed for a more habitable planet — a course called “Summer” arrives as if on cue. Like the sentient Mima computer in the epic Swedish sci-fi poem “Aniara,” its purpose is to soothe while you’re hurtling through deep space and might be missing Earth. Fascinatingly beautiful, “Summer” is served in a deep ceramic bowl whose interior is lined with layers of almond cream and pea puree. The creamy surface is covered completely in a blanket of diminutive multicolored wildflowers, sprinkled with tiny pearls of rice crackers. The dish says, “Remember when fields of flowers bloomed across California in June?” Yes, I do, to the last spoonful.
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Peking duck at Wing Lei
Chinese Restaurant $$$
(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
The reason Wing Lei’s Peking duck landed on my best-of-the-year list is at least partly due to the company at dinner: my own! I ordered a whole Peking duck and ate it alone. I had zero distractions (besides the restaurant’s over-the-top ersatz decor), and it was profoundly delicious — probably my most memorable meal of 2024.
For many years, Wing Lei was the standard-bearer for Peking duck on the Vegas Strip, and it still might be, even among contenders such as Mott 32 at the Venetian and Chyna Club in Fontainebleau. It is hard to beat the deftness of its tableside service, overseen by two servers: One carves the crisp-skinned lacquered bird while the other uses three golden spoons (two in one hand act as tongs) to fill and wrap the steamed crepe-like pancakes. Wing Lei chef Ming Yu prepares a hybrid roast duck that combines the styles of Beijing and Hong Kong. It’s stuffed with herbs and aromatics, marinated for 12 hours, basted with vinegar and honey, and air-dried for another 12 hours before it’s roasted until the skin is crisp and burnished. At any time you might see carts criss-crossing the dining room to bring ducks to a dozen tables. But this one was all mine.
For many years, Wing Lei was the standard-bearer for Peking duck on the Vegas Strip, and it still might be, even among contenders such as Mott 32 at the Venetian and Chyna Club in Fontainebleau. It is hard to beat the deftness of its tableside service, overseen by two servers: One carves the crisp-skinned lacquered bird while the other uses three golden spoons (two in one hand act as tongs) to fill and wrap the steamed crepe-like pancakes. Wing Lei chef Ming Yu prepares a hybrid roast duck that combines the styles of Beijing and Hong Kong. It’s stuffed with herbs and aromatics, marinated for 12 hours, basted with vinegar and honey, and air-dried for another 12 hours before it’s roasted until the skin is crisp and burnished. At any time you might see carts criss-crossing the dining room to bring ducks to a dozen tables. But this one was all mine.
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BBQ lamb taco at Worldwide Tacos
Leimert Park Tacos $
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
The experience (and eventual reward) of ordering from Worldwide Tacos is as satisfying as the food itself. You will not find Frederick Sennie’s brick-red taco stand on any delivery apps and it may take hours before your order is ready. But it’s worth strategizing for tacos inspired by the ones that Sennie ate at South L.A. taquerias growing up, with more than 300 filling and flavor combinations that range from hard-shell ground beef tacos that reference a style popular among Black cooks in the region to unique combinations such as Thai shrimp or orange duck, with plenty of plant-based options.
The classic ground beef that’s dressed similar to a Gringo taco with shredded lettuce, cheese, chunks of tomato and house hot sauce is one of my favorites, but the BBQ lamb — featuring halal meat — is just as good, with tender chunks coated in a spicy-sweet sauce and featuring the same crunchy shell (fried to your preferred crispness) with toppings. The wait at Worldwide Tacos can range from 30 minutes to two hours; I recommend arriving around opening at 3 p.m. to expedite your order. Grab a few extra tacos, a sweet potato dessert bar or garlic fries if you need help justifying the wait.
The classic ground beef that’s dressed similar to a Gringo taco with shredded lettuce, cheese, chunks of tomato and house hot sauce is one of my favorites, but the BBQ lamb — featuring halal meat — is just as good, with tender chunks coated in a spicy-sweet sauce and featuring the same crunchy shell (fried to your preferred crispness) with toppings. The wait at Worldwide Tacos can range from 30 minutes to two hours; I recommend arriving around opening at 3 p.m. to expedite your order. Grab a few extra tacos, a sweet potato dessert bar or garlic fries if you need help justifying the wait.
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Ube Cruffin at 61 Hundred Bread
Santa Ana Bakery $
(Karlo Evaristo)
Ever since 61 Hundred Bread transitioned from a cottage bakery out of chef-baker Karlo Evaristo’s home into a stylish bricks-and-mortar in Santa Ana back in mid-November, patrons have lined up for his pastries. The bakery is currently soft open, focusing on wholesale during the week and serving the public Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. until noon only (although he usually sells out before then). Evaristo’s blue corn masa sourdough went viral a few years ago, a crusty-edged loaf that when sliced reveals a soft, blue-violet center rife with micro air bubbles. But it is one of Evaristo’s other purple-hued treats that lives rent-free in my mind: the ube Cruffin. A tight knot of buttery laminated dough encases a generous smear of ube-flavored crème pâtissière, luxurious in texture and just the right amount of sweet, topped with a dollop of toasted meringue. Ube, a purple yam popular in Filipino desserts, is one of the ways Evaristo’s heritage makes it to the menu. Pillowy pan de sal is another; but Evaristo won’t forget where he is from anytime soon. The name of the bakery is a reference to the ZIP code of his hometown in the Philippines.
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Tortellini at Gucci Osteria
Beverly Hills Italian $$$$
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
Despite Los Angeles’ many excellent Italian restaurants, it can be difficult for chefs here to capture the ineffable essence of Italy when they are thousands of miles away from the source. But Mattia Agazzi, who leads the kitchen at Michelin three-star chef Massimo Bottura’s Gucci Osteria, has Italy in his genes. He also spent some of his most formative training at Bottura’s Modena mothership, Osteria Francescana, where one of the most coveted dishes is tortellini, either in brodo or in Parmigiano Reggiano sauce, sometimes served as a bonus course right out of a copper pot. It’s not surprising, then, that Agazzi — eager to give Los Angeles diners a taste of Modena alongside his California-influenced cuisine — decided to add tortellini to Gucci Osteria’s menu. I’ve had Bottura’s tortellini in Italy, where the tiny rings of prosciutto-filled pasta are the perfect, yielding vehicle for the chef’s umami-rich Parmigiano sauce. Here in Los Angeles, after loving how Agazzi integrates local, seasonal produce, such as summer corn, into his menu, plus his L.A. transformation of Bottura’s famous camouflage hare stew into the bright red, green and white “risotto camouflaged as pizza,” with tomato, basil and mozzarella in place of the hare, I wondered if how the young chef’s tortellini in Parmigiano Reggiano sauce would compare to Bottura’s. I took a bite. I closed my eyes. And for a moment, as I ate the tortellini, I was transported to Modena, Italy.
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