Woody Allen summed up Los Angeles best when he explained their cultural advantage is making a righthand turn on a red light.
While Los Angeles has come a long away from the culinary waste land of the 70s (when Annie Hall was made), it’s still eons behind the dining meccas of NYC, SF, Portland, Chicago, Charleston and many other great food towns. However, Los Angeles is not all bad. As any Angelino knows, you spend quite a bit of time defending the fair city’s honor against anyone and everyone not from there. I once had a conversation with a bartender in Toronto who was railing against Los Angeles, only to later reveal she had never laid foot in the city! Being the second largest city in America has it’s edible advantages. Los Angeles is home to more spoken languages than anywhere else in the world, second only to Queens NY. Another win for New York. And where there are foreign languages there is ethnic food. Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize winning food critic has made a career out of reviewing hole in the wall ethnic spots. I haven’t had the time to delve into the real Los Angeles as mentioned above, but I will. And at that point I will amend my top ten. But for now, here are my top ten Los Angeles restaurants. Same rules as NYC top ten: I need to have dined there more than 3 times, each time I left I will need to have thought “holy shit that was delicious”, and it needs to be the best food in that category. Here we go: