Baroo is the LA Times' 2024 Restaurant of the Year
Plus, Michelin deigns 6 LA restaurants with recognition while Gogo's Tacos closes due to... homelessness?
LA FOODSTACK is a curated list of the week’s most essential food news through a Los Angeles lens. Prepared by The LA Countdown and The LA Food Podcast.
1. To thine own self be Baroo
The LA Times has named Korean tasting menu restaurant Baroo the 2024 Restaurant of the Year. Here’s Bill Addison’s reasoning for bestowing the honor upon the Arts District restaurant helmed by Kwang Uh and Mina Park:
Creating menus that tap into a chef’s narrative is endemic to L.A., from taco street carts to omakase counters. But the synthesis of ideas in Baroo’s cooking was empowering in a new way. Even if none of our next generation of talents ate at Uh’s original restaurant, I see a throughline of self-determination among recent achievers that began as pandemic-era pop-ups. Upstarts like Kuya Lord, Quarter Sheets, Villa’s Tacos, Poltergeist and Azizam. Taste the cooking at any of these places and you’ll know something about the people who conceived the dishes. Their successes come with a reminder: No life takes a straight line.
The Times also blessed Mariscos Jalisco with the 2024 Gold Award, which recognizes a restaurant for “honoring culinary excellence and expanding the notion of what Southern California cooking might be.”
Who’s down for a Baroo-Mariscos Jalisco bang bang?
2. 6 LA restaurants get a Michelin close-up
Like a thief in the night, Michelin added 6 Los Angeles (and 1 Santa Barbara) restaurants to the California Guide - Mona Holmes covered the story for Eater LA:
Michelin’s July additions throughout the region include Glassell Park’s Barra Santos, the barely three-month-old Danbi, sourdough pizza specialist Grá, chef Josh Skenes’s Leopardo, Thai Town’s Mae Malai Thai House of Noodles, and serial restauranteur Janet Zuccarini and chef Rob Gentile’s Stella in West Hollywood. Silvers Omakase opened in February 2024 in Santa Barbara and also joins Michelin’s “recommended” list.
The additions signify that these restaurants could be in line to receive stars or Bib Gourmand recognition at the upcoming California Michelin Guide ceremony in August. Personally, I’m extremely confused as to how a list can include both unproven newcomers like Leopardo and long-standing cornerstones of the community like Grá. What the heck is the criteria, fam? That said, I could not be more thrilled for Grá and Mae Malai especially - two of my all-time favorite Los Angeles restaurants.
3. Gogo’s Tacos blames “transients” for closing
On June 27, Gogo’s Tacos owner Brittany Valles posted the following message on Instagram (a caption that has since been edited, by the way - sus?):
“After almost three years at this buzzy corner, we are closing our retail operations. Unfortunately, the increasing safety issues with the transient community in the area have made it impossible for us to keep our staff safe.”
While restaurant closures have not been in short supply over the past 12 months, homelessness hasn’t often been invoked as a reason for calling it quits. My question is - is this a one-off or the start of yet another concerning factor for our restaurants to navigate?
In the meantime, I highly recommend reading Mona Holmes’ coverage of the story, and LA Public Press’ assessment of Mayor Karen Bass’ “Inside Safe” program.
4. The Bear haunts Los Angeles
Guys, The Bear is coming to LA. Kind of.
This weekend, Mr. Beef, the Chicago Italian beef shop that served as inspiration for The Bear’s fictional “The Original Beef of Chicagoland” restaurant, will be popping up at Uncle Paulie’s deli on W. 3rd St this Saturday July 13 and Sunday July 14 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
I’m gonna keep it cien with you - I lived in Chicago for a year, and I never succumbed to the virus that is affinity for the Italian beef sandwich. That said, I am a huge fan of The Bear culinary producer Courtney Storer’s Italian ice concept, Coco’s To Go-Go, and they too will be part of this weekend’s pop-up. In this heat, the only thing better than Italian ice is, well, nothing.
If you do miss the pop-up and have a hankering for a sandwich that approximates an Italian beef, I’d recommend visiting Giamela’s in Burbank and Atwater Village. Tell ‘em LA FOODSTACK sent you (…they’ll shoot you a confused look and charge you $11.95).
5. Best thing I ate this week? Devilishly inventive pasta dishes from Cento Pasta Bar in West Adams.
More than 2 years since it officially opened its doors, I finally made it to Cento Pasta Bar in West Adams. Like visiting the Grand Canyon or watching Succession, this was one of those things I always knew would be a great experience, but that I kept putting off. Maybe I was scared of being let down. Maybe I romanticize feeling left out.
Either way, the overwhelming feeling I walked away with after dining at Cento was deep regret for not having visited sooner. Every dish we had hit, from the stone fruit and tomato salad over a delicate gorgonzola cream to the homey, comforting spicy pomodoro rigatoni (Jon & Vinny’s wishes).
Of course, the signature dish here is the beet spaghetti, a dish so successful that Chef Avner Levi is legitimately sick of making it (the same way I imagine Carly Rae Jepsen gags at the prospect of singing “Call Me Maybe”). I’m pained to say that Levi’s nausea is likely to continue, because nobody in their right mind would take a banger of this magnitude off of a menu. It’s a uniquely satisfying blend of earthy sweetness and nutty decadence, finished with a naughty-as-flip dollop of whipped ricotta. I’ve sincerely never had anything like it.
Other stories to chow down on…
Tejal Rao gives Northgate Gonzalez Market in Costa Mesa The New York Times treatment.
According to Taste’s Jordan Michelman, non-alcoholic beer is good now?
The Gray Lady also answers the other question we’ve all been thinking - why do food documentaries treat us like we’re stupid?
This week on The LA Food Podcast…
Father Sal and I discuss the LA Times Restaurant of the Year as well as the rise of non-alcoholic beer and what his grocery cart says about him. More importantly, Eater’s Mona Holmes joins the pod - our wide-ranging conversation covers the troubling state of LA restaurants, the value of a vibrant food media, and what we think about out-of-towners talking bleep about LA food.
Want more? Follow The LA Countdown on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Listen to The LA Food Podcast wherever podcasts are heard and follow @lafoodpod on Instagram.