Delicious Ways to Love Downtown Los Angeles
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Monica Almeida/The New York TimesWhen Joshua Smith, the chef at Church & State, gets involved with potatoes or pigs, he scores. The two-year-old restaurant can attract a raucous dinner crowd. More Photos »
DOWNTOWN Los Angeles has been “reviving” for the better part of 20 years.
The seed may have been planted in 1988, with the naming of Frank Gehry as the architect for Walt Disney Concert Hall — a civic commitment to return downtown to its early 20th-century glory days, when it was a hubbub of activity rather than a place to flee come sunset. Revitalization continued in the 1990s, with rezoning laws that allowed for the transformation of old warehouses into sleek lofts.
In recent years, the openings of the Grammy Museum and a Ritz-Carlton, as well as the philanthropist Eli Broad’s unwavering focus on Grand Avenue as a cultural destination, have hastened the otherwise glacial pace of downtown redux.
There have been barriers: a large and intransient homelessness problem, the recent credit crisis that left some developers in the lurch, and the physical nature of downtown, enveloped in a sea of freeways that make it feel cut off from large swaths of the rest of this city. Yet downtown Los Angeles is now genuinely a place where people want to live and travel to for art fairs, music festivals, basketball games and more.
But, until recently, not to eat.
Yes, there is Little Tokyo, where I have sat in silent awe of the fish at Sushi Gen, and the occasional historic spot, like Philippe the Original, which makes claims on inventing the French dip. But true destination restaurants have been few.
That, too, is changing, with smart new bistros emphasizing creativity and local produce; hidden bars; and cheap-but-chic fare springing up from points east and west. An increasing number of intrepid diners are venturing a few miles east on the 10 Freeway toward the contemporary response to years of suburbanization and sprawl that led to downtown’s descent years ago. And they will now be well fed.
Lazy Ox Canteen
Huh? That was my first reaction as I slid my quarters into the parking meter a block away from this gastro-pub, its sign barely distinguishable. Sitting on the edge of Little Tokyo, the restaurant occupies a stretch of South San Pedro Street that feels slightly deserted, like a toy factory at night. But once I slipped into my seat at the handsome wooden bar (which is where I suggest you plant yourself) and ordered up one of the many great rosés on offer by the glass, a warm, fun feeling began to flow.
The staff here is extremely knowledgeable about the finer points of each goody coming from the kitchen of the chef, Josef Centeno, which is impressive, considering how numerous and eclectic they are. My dining companion and I started with breakfast in a shell — a coddled egg bathed in maple syrup, crème fraîche, Cream of Wheat and tiny bits of pancetta — a dish the bartender assured us took the skill set of a mason to assemble.
Next up was braised beef tongue ravioli with toasted pine nuts, dried chilies and spiced lebni, a kind of tangy yogurt — almost unbearably seductive. Ditto ricotta fritters with saffron honey. My guest, who claimed to dislike anchovies, was won over by the ones marinated with piquillo peppers, and proclaimed them “like an oyster” — which is sort of like comparing Lindsay Lohan with Audrey Hepburn, but I saw where he was going. We finished the evening, staring hazily at the crowd — youngish, appropriately hairy of the face — and polishing off a blue- and blackberry crumble.
Lazy Ox Canteen, 241 South San Pedro Street; (213) 626-5299; lazyoxcanteen.com. $70. (All prices are for an average meal for two, without drinks or tip.)
WP24 at the Ritz-Carlton
Wolfgang Puck is to modern dining in Los Angeles what the bikini is to its beaches — you can’t have one without the other. Spago in Beverly Hills remains a premier lunch spot, and without Mr. Puck, the city may never have known the joys of goat cheese. At his latest venture, on the 24th floor of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Mr. Puck is making use of his occasional proclivity for Asian fusion with a high-end take on Hong Kong dining.
“I expected to make the best modern Chinese restaurant,” he said in an e-mail, “with great food, a great wine list and great service.”
At WP24, you first enter the bar, where couples sit whispering to each other over elderflower cocktails, and dudes in T-shirts tap away on MacBooks while downing dumplings, high above the neon and illuminated freeways. The bar scene fades away as you pass through padded doors into the formal dining room, in muted shades, and settle into a leather chair for dinner, still taking in the panoramic view of Los Angeles, which is an unusual restaurant vista here. At a large table in the center of the room, servers carve up Peking duck and other dishes.
Start with a refreshing umami cocktail (plum, cucumber and gin). Skip the shrimp dumplings and go for a tasting of dim sum, then move to sea bass in a salt crust and maybe a hot pot of slow-cooked beef cheeks, decadent and deeply flavorful. The pistachio cherry fondant was good, but I returned with my husband on another night just for the marjolasian, essentially a high-end Twix bar, because I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
WP24 at the Ritz-Carlton, 900 West Olympic Boulevard; (213) 743-8824; wolfgangpuck.com. $140.
Church & State
Since it opened almost two years ago, food enthusiasts have been quite gaga over this bistro, set among a cluster of sketchy industrial blocks. And, indeed, there is much to like. Start at the lively and evocative bar and the restaurant’s extensive and exciting wine list, which includes roughly two dozen pours by the glass. Cocktails are equally numerous and judiciously balanced, like the sublime basil avec concombre, a gin-based concoction.
Back in the kitchen, when the chef, Joshua Smith, gets involved with potatoes or pigs, he scores. The salade d’harengs is a lovely combination of smoked herring and fingerling potatoes, and the best thing about the veal skirt steak stroganoff is the accompanying roasted potatoes. Pigs’ ears are another fun option. Avoid the ratatouille; in general it’s best to hew to menu items that seem vaguely Scandinavian over the traditional French choices.
The dining room could use some work: At night, the din would deafen all but denizens of glam-rock reunion tours. One night a friend and I found the service almost a parody of faux French snootiness (the waiter never even offered us a drink). Go anyway. But try lunch if you can, when the room is quieter (though still filled with diners) and bathed in beautiful Los Angeles afternoon light. Have a pan-seared skate wing and a glass of riesling, and let your mind wander to the neighborhood’s industrial past.
Church & State, 1850 Industrial Street; (213) 405-1434; churchandstatebistro.com. $60.
Rivera
Sleek and modern, with low, comfy chairs and bullfighting images on monitors, Rivera bills itself as contemporary Latin cuisine, near the Staples Center in the heart of downtown. Tequila is the tipple of choice here — the menu boasts rare and interesting selections, as well as a very affordable list of Spanish and Portuguese wines. Cocktails are also tasty — you will order a “Blood sugar sex magic” (an homage to the band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, teaming red peppers with rye and basil) because — well, do I really need to explain?
The tortillas with rose petals were a savory highlight, as was the house specialty, paper thin jamón Ibérico — the foie gras of hams — served on toast. An appetizer of quail bathed in a paprika sauce is bright and delicious, served on a plate bearing an image of a skull — a cheeky touch. This is Los Angeles, so there must be Jidori chicken, from a local purveyor of super fresh birds, cooked here with a Spanish peanut salsa.
Skip dessert, with one exception: Remember, in the movie “Wag the Dog,” when William H. Macy said, “There’s no difference between good flan and bad flan”? He clearly hadn’t tried Rivera’s.
Restaurants in Los Angeles generally reflect their neighborhoods, but this place attracts a mixed crowd of people headed for LA Live, the entertainment complex downtown: women in skirts that are shorter than their mothers would like, and, on the night we were there, a table of makeup artists — one sporting a bee hive — celebrating around a very large, bar-like table. Sit at the bar, stick to snacks and cocktails, and take in the scene.
Rivera, 1050 South Flower Street, No. 102; (213) 749-1460; riverarestaurant.com. $80.
Starry Kitchen
Everyone loves a restaurant back story, and Starry Kitchen’s isn’t bad. Nguyen and Thi Tran were running an underground restaurant in North Hollywood, sending out invitations on the down low to guests who would partake in their varied Asian dishes, paying at a card table set up with a cash box. Now, the married couple have gone legit in a big way, operating out of a food court in the center of a complex of office buildings downtown, happily near the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Mr. Tran works the front of their little space, alerting visitors in a profanity-laced speech the second they enter that the menu changes all the time — save for the lemon grass chicken with ginger, which he claims is only for the frightened and the weak. (Actually it’s quite good, especially when paired with scallion-laced rice.) You pick a protein, a vegetable and a side dish, and a presentation (wrap, bowl, etc.), and it all comes out in a jiffy. The Japanese sesame fried chicken was a good choice, too, but who knows if it will be on the menu when you go. That, of course, is part of the fun.
Starry Kitchen, 350 South Grand Avenue; (213) 617-3474; starrykitchen.com. $18.
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