The Bear drops Season 3 as LA pizza gets a national close-up
Get ready for everyone in your life to "Yes, Chef!" you to death.
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. Feeling bullish about The Bear
It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The Bear Season 3 is now streaming on Hulu. Will it live up to the hype? To answer that question, The LA Food Podcast will be dropping a two-part season review. Part 1 will drop on Monday, July 1 and Part 2 on Friday, July 5.
If you want to get excited for Season 3, I highly recommend reading Tejal Rao’s New York Times article dissecting why the show has gripped the country’s consciousness so ferociously. Also consider listening back to The LA Food Podcast’s interview with culinary producer Courtney Storer on the heels of Season 2.
2. NYT names Pizzeria Sei one of the US’ best pizzas
If you haven’t yet had one of William Joo’s Tokyo-style Neapolitan pizzas, the lines are about to get a lot longer. The New York Times staff dropped a list of the 22 best pizzerias around in the nation, naming Pizzeria Sei as well as Pizzeria Bianco (LA location at the Row in Downtown) and Roberta’s (locations in Culver City and Studio City).
Also interesting, Brett Anderson wrote a companion piece examining the reasons why artisanal pizza has took off around the country over the past 20 years:
[B]road appeal, coupled with the relatively low cost of opening pizzerias and the ease of acquiring the information to master high-quality pizza-making, has made the dish a uniquely effective vehicle for chefs to find a voice while also making a living. Until recently, chefs looking to make sublime Neapolitan pizzas would have few options beyond traveling to Italy, said Chris Bianco, who opened Pizzeria Bianco in 1988.
3. 86 service fee ban on California restaurants (probably)
If you’re an avid LA Food Pod listener, you know we’ve been talking about the looming service fee ban nonstop. As we discussed last week, restaurants may not have to eliminate service fees after all thanks to the introduction of emergency legislation that would exempt restaurants from having to comply with the state’s broader junk fee ban, which goes into effect July 1.
The Los Angeles Times’ Stephanie Breijo covered the latest developments this week as the emergency legislation made its way through the Assembly. Next, the bill heads to the Senate before hitting Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. The question now becomes… will the bill be signed into law before July 1?
4. The non-tipping bandit
An influencer has gone viral for refusing to tip at restaurants. And that’s it.
LA Taco got in touch with the social media “sensation” to better understand their motives. The most charitable interpretation is that this individual is attempting to shine a light on the fact that service workers aren’t paid enough. The reality is most likely closer to what we see with a lot of shock jock influencers - their “acting” career has stalled and they just haven’t gotten around to starting a podcast yet.
5. Best thing I ate this week? The “timballo” from Union in Pasadena.
Have you ever seen the movie “Big Night” with Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub? If yes, then you know about the epic Sicilian dish known as “timballo” or “timpano” - a bona fide pasta pie hailing from Sicily that usually features layers of meats and vegetables. As it is an incredibly difficult dish to execute, I’ve never actually seen it on a menu - until I visited Union in Pasadena, that is. Chef Sandro Hernandez is doing a stripped down version mostly consisting of baked rigatoni and eggplant, but it still has that show-stopping effect when it hits your table - and your tongue, for that matter.
Other stories to chow down on…
Eater’s Bill Esparza updated his famed 38 Essential Tacos guide.
The Infatuation dropped its list of the places you “NEED! TO!! EAT!!!” this summer.
This week on The LA Food Podcast…
I sat down with Michelin-starred chef Santiago Lastra of KOL in London for a spectacular lunch at Holbox, the 2023 Los Angeles Times Restaurant of the Year. It was a fascinating conversation on his career as a nomadic chef cooking all over the world, including at Noma’s famed pop-up in Tulum, and how his international journey shaped his approach to food today.