The key to longevity in fine dining, according to Josiah Citrin
Plus, Azizam wins Bon Appetit recognition, guest chef dinners dissected, and Los Angeles melons get their close-up.
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. Mélisse is old enough to rent a car
Did you know it’s actually a myth that you have to be 25 to rent a car? Most states allow you to rent one at 21, except Michigan and New York which deem 18 the appropriate age to brave a Hertz. And while government employment doesn’t come with many perks, it turns out Uncle Sam’s employees are also allowed to rent cars at 18. The whole “25” thing comes into play because a lot of rental companies will charge drivers extra fees if they are under 25. I digress.
Josiah Citrin’s Mélisse celebrated 25 years in business and THE Los Angeles Times’ Heather Platt scored an interview with the chef, delivering a tour-de-force of a feature encompassing the chef’s past, present and future.
While I highly recommend reading the piece in its entiretee (French), I was particularly struck by Citrin’s musings on the age-old question - how does one achieve sustained success in this business for such a lengthy period? I think you can boil his many key learnings down into three, well, key learnings:
You’ve gotta innovate, kid. Citrin talks at length about how his approach to French cooking has evolved over the years, taking cues from the overall gravitation of FRENCH COOKING WRIT LARGE towards lighter flavors and the embracing of multi-cultural influences.
You’ve gotta adapt, kid. Even Citrin acknowledges that the last few years have been especially tough on restaurants, and he breaks down the ways he’s learned to become more efficient. From le piece… “It’s really paying attention to how you schedule, how many employees you have, the hours they work … all these little details,” he says. “Every little penny counts everywhere. I’ve just always been really aware of all of that.”
You’ve gotta love it, kid. It’s clear that it takes a special kind of person to thrive in fine dining over an extended period of time. I mean, listen to this… “I see the guests who’ve come here over the years and just all the memories and everything we’ve created. It’s addictive. It’s like you want to keep doing that. You want to keep being part of people’s memories. You want to be part of their life. People I’ve never met come in here and tell me stories from eight or 15 years ago, or 20 years ago. And I just think that’s kind of an addictive feeling. It’s a powerful feeling being able to give that to people.”
And if you want more Citrin content after reading Platt’s feature, I’d point you in the direction of this article penned by Eater’s Matthew Kang breaking down every detail of Melisse’s iconic hay-smoked chicken.
2. Bon Appetit is cuckoo for kuku (sabzeh) - and I’m cuckoo for them
Bon Appetit dropped their much-anticipated annual list of Best New Restaurants, which happened to include Silver Lake’s favorite Persian restaurant, Azizam. Notwithstanding that it’s also Silver Lake’s only Persian restaurant, Azizam is a true gem. Bill Addison sang its praises in a full Los Angeles Times review earlier this year, and an intrepid blogger dubbed it LA’s most exciting new fast-casual restaurant. Both are equally important opinions.
Congratulations to Azizam aside, what I really loved about this list was Bon Appetit’s Kate Kassin’s interview with Matt Rodbard on This is TASTE. In it, Kate describes the painstaking lengths she and her team go to to compile this list, and it is truly an impressive process. Not only did I walk away with immense respect for what this publication does in spotlighting new up-and-comers around the country, but the conversation really humanized the list for me.
This isn’t just a list that ChatGPT shat out in the time it takes for me to open the fridge and hate myself for not buying more Spindrift. These are real people, traveling nonstop for months, parsing out dozens and dozens of meals, to sift through what connects with them and what doesn’t. It’s hard work, it’s inherently imperfect work, and it’s meaningful work with a valuable point of view.
So next time you roll your eyes at a list for not including your favorite neighborhood joint, no matter how egregious the injustice feels, remind yourself that omission is not necessarily a sleight. Perhaps it would help to consider these lists an impressionistic painting of the best restaurants, not photorealism. More Monet than Chuck Close. And, yes, I had to Google “photorealistic painters.”
3. Guest chef dinners, they’re what’s for dinner
Have you noticed that “one-night, guest chef dinners” have become a near-daily occurrence at Los Angeles’ best restaurants? Laurie Ochoa has!
In her latest Tasting Notes column for THE Los Angeles Times, Ochoa helpfully lists the pros and cons of these affairs. Pros include:
“In a tough economic environment, these dinners keep restaurants in the conversation and can fill a dining room on slower midweek nights.”
“It’s also a way for customers to taste the cuisine of some of the world’s most acclaimed chefs without spending money on airfare or hotels.”
“These dinners can be thrilling. In March, for instance, chef David Campigotto from the southern French town of Castelnaudary brought his conical cassoulet pots to L.A.’s Chi Spacca for a three-night stand and showed Angelenos what the dish is supposed to taste like. Damn fine pork and beans.”
And now for the cons:
“[Y]ou can’t always assume that the food you are served at these dinners comes close to what you would get at the visiting chefs’ restaurants. The host restaurant needs to be staffed by a highly skilled kitchen team able to support the visiting chefs, who often arrive with little knowledge of our town’s food supply network and without their full crew. Even for chefs who bring their own ingredients and equipment, it’s not easy to re-create the flavors of regional dishes far from home.”
“These dinners work best when host chefs and guest chefs alike make time for advance work. Guest chefs can’t expect to just show up and cook.”
“Host chefs also need to suppress their egos — at least enough to let their guests cook in their own styles. So-called four-hand dinners, in which the host and guest chef serve alternating courses, can sometimes go awry when the host chef is too eager to show off to their famous visitor. This frustrates the guest chef, and it can frustrate customers who pay to experience food they normally wouldn’t get in their own cities.”
Personally, I think the cons in this piece are overblown and far outweighed by the pros. In a tough economic environment, I’m in favor of anything that helps restaurants get butts in seats, especially on typically slow weeknights. Does every single guest chef's appearance hit? No, and there are myriad reasons why. But is it overall a super fun and exciting addition to our city’s culinary landscape? Absolutely.
4. How do you like them… melons?
The New York Times’ Tejal Rao wrote a delightful slice-of-life story on Los Angeles’ love affair with melons, primarily led by legendary farmer Alejandro Weiser:
Mr. Weiser, who is 60, remembers when his family, once known for their apples and later their potatoes, first started growing Super 45 melons in 1985. “I’m learning as I go. Some of these melons, they don’t even have names yet.”
Sweet melons, which were likely native to India, grow particularly well in the hot valleys of Central and Southern California, where immigrant farmers and eaters helped ensure their diversity for hundreds of years. Part of Mr. Weiser’s great melon success, with both chefs and home cooks, has been an investment in so many types that can delight across cultures in Los Angeles.
I loved this because #JusticeForMelons. Melons have gotten a bad rap probably due to their over-inclusion in those heinous fruit cups served in most cafeterias and airports. It’s a classic example of how our obsession with wanting fruits and vegetables year-round leads us to hate said fruits and vegetables because we inevitably end up consuming them in months when they are not in season. Enough! Moving forward, may we all approach melons with the same awe and wonder as these “fruit hunters” referenced in Rao’s piece:
Fruit hunters of Southern California, who heard Mr. Weiser discussing a new trial of two kinds of white-fleshed Uzbeki melons on KCRW, have been pestering him for weeks about when they’ll be at the market. They arrived late last week.
Tonight I drink to Uzbeki melons.
5. Best thing I ate this week? The never-disappointing egg rolls at Golden Deli.
It’s hard to explain just how good the egg rolls at Golden Deli are. Every time I go I have one of those moments of self-hatred for not making the pilgrimage more often. Most would chalk up the goodness to the expert craftsmanship resulting in a glorious crunch and piping-hot interior, but that only tells half the story.
To me, it’s the ever-so-slight funk of the pork in the egg roll that renders it so unique. It announces that it is a distant, distant cousin of the afterthought egg rolls you’ve consumed your whole life, so distant they no longer even post “Happy Birthday” on each other’s Facebook timelines. This is an egg roll with personality, it’s got a point of view, it listens to MJ Lenderman, and wouldn’t be caught dead wearing an Apple Watch. This is the egg roll.
Other stories to chow down on…
LA Taco’s Hadley Tomicki interviewed Pyet DeSpain, the chef bringing LA its first-ever Mexican-and-Native concept.
The New York Times’ Alyson Krueger examined how restaurant playlists come together, with a couple of exciting Los Angeles cameos thrown into the mix.
Bill Addison reviewed Stir Crazy, and I’m honestly surprised it took this long.
What if I told you Carl’s Jr. once tried its hand at an ill-fated taco spin-off? It was called Taco de Carlos (LOL!), and SF Gate’s Karen Palmer has all the gory details.
The Infatuation awarded Bistro Na’s an astonishingly high rating on 9.4.
Emily Wilson’s excellent The Angel turned one! While it’s still 24 years away from being able to rent a car, it’s a fantastic addition to LA’s food media landscape so please consider being an angel and supporting.
This week on The LA Food Podcast…
Father Sal and I discuss Bon Appetit’s list of Best New Restaurants, Josiah Citrin’s secrets to longevity, Laurie Ochoa’s pros and cons of guest chef dinners, and whether we agree that Los Angeles is having a love affair wit melons.
Plus, we’re joined by Lisa Pollack of Corto Olive Oil for a masterclass in olive oil. We learn how to taste good oil, how to weed out the bad ones, and how to best utilize the product when cooking at home.
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