Chef Jose Andres and the LA Times Jonathan Gold at the 2018 LA Food Bowl
LOS ANGELES, CA (LA ELEMENTS) 7/17/2018 – Los Angeles can pretty much take on any city in terms of what it brings to the table…and yes, we do mean that literally. Name the type of cuisine that speaks to your cravings. Mexican? Thai? French? Perhaps even the southern comfort of soul food? Whatever you desire, LA delivers with its own unique flair. Angelenos already know this as do the millions of tourists who descend upon the city each year. Publications as diverse as Bon Appétit and GQ often include an LA restaurant or two in their annual listings of “the best.” Last year, Rolling Stone simply cut to the chase with their glowing report dedicated solely to the Downtown LA food scene. So, that begs the question: What is it about the Los Angeles food scene that makes it so outstanding? We asked this question to internationally acclaimed chef, José Andrés and the Pulitzer Prize winning restaurant critic of the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Gold, on the red carpet at “The Power of Food” program of LA Food Bowl and here is what they had to say.
Jose Andrés
What does the city of Los Angeles have to offer in terms of food that is unique from other cities?
“I think everybody will agree that in the old days, New York was the melting pot. But since the first time that I came to LA many years ago and especially since I opened Bazaar almost ten years ago, I came to realize that LA was short selling itself. And I don’t know why that was but I always heard that LA was not up to the level even though here on my left we have a person who has been the best creature of LA. But the truth is that LA, ten or fifteen years ago it didn’t seem to have a…I mean LA today is off the charts. Today I think it has taken over even if Manhattan may disagree. The melting pot right now it is in LA. It’s so immense; it’s so big it’s so huge. The proximity of LA to Asia, and in Europe it’s six hours further away. I think LA has become the most fun, interesting unique city anywhere in the states and if you ask me, it would be in my top five in the world.”
Jonathan Gold
I know that earlier in your career, you were a champion of the smaller restaurants in the “ethnic” LA neighborhoods. For someone who lives in one of those neighborhoods and dreams of opening up their own restaurant, is there some kind of support system in place? Some kind of mentorship program at all?
“I don’t know. I mean first of all, I never use the word “ethnic” because it implies “otherness” and nobody ever calls a French chef ethnic, nobody ever calls the white guy from Iowa ethnic even though he’s as ethnic as anyone out there. Secondly, I mean there’s obviously like a limited government support system, there’s obviously…most communities seem to have some kind of internal support system. LA Kitchen is good at training people to be able to work in kitchens but I don’t think that they’re about that next step, about making people able to open up their own restaurants.”
What makes the city of Los Angeles unique in terms of the food culture? What does the city of LA have that maybe other cities don’t have, in your opinion?
“We have a few things. One, we’re sort of at the heart of a huge and wonderful agricultural region. Until the mid 1970’s, Los Angeles County was the biggest agricultural county in the nation. I know it’s hard to see that now because there’s almost no farm stuff but its in our blood and we’re ..The second thing is of course the diversity the fact that you can taste foods from all over the planet in a form that’s pretty close to what it would be in the home country. In a place like New York, you can go to a restaurant in a Korean neighborhood and the menu can be un-translated and all that, but they still have an idea of what non-Koreans want to eat because it’s crowded and everybody runs into each other, they have expectations, and here I don’t think that that’s the most important thing, they’re cooking for themselves. The third is that compared to places like at the moment, New York or San Francisco, there’s an ease of entry here that you can open a restaurant in a strip mall in a bad neighborhood and it can be the restaurant that everybody wants to go to, people are open-minded and you’ll get customers who will drive all the way across town and taste something slightly new or slightly different and if people want to be a little bit on the experimental side, I think that Angeleno’s are very tolerant of that. It’s the heart of the entertainment industry where things are created and of course the enormous cultural diversity.”
For more information on the LA Food Bowl’s Power of Food program, click here.
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