Best family-friendly and kid-friendly restaurants in Los Angeles - Los Angeles Times
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A mix of Mexican and Texan culinary traditions draw diners of all ages to Moo's Craft Barbecue in Lincoln Heights.
(Shelby Moore / For The Times)

19 great family-friendly picks from the 101 Best Restaurants guide

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School is back in session and parents readjusting after summer break might be craving a break from cooking. Or maybe you’re celebrating an occasion and seeking a destination that the entire family will enjoy. On restaurant critic Bill Addison’s annual ranked guide to 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles, you’ll find plenty of options fit for diners of all ages, many with kids’ menus for those who prefer classic plates such as chicken tenders and fries and plain cheese pizza.

From comforting soul food to local favorites for barbecue and a weekly food festival, keep this guide handy whenever you’re in need of family-friendly dining ideas. — Danielle Dorsey

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LOS ANGELES, CA - THURSDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2021 - The breakfast biscuit with both meats served at All Day Baby restaurant. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) -
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

All Day Baby

Silver Lake
The only constants at Lien Ta and Jonathan Whitener’s daydream of a corner diner in Silver Lake are change and the colossal biscuit sandwich. Last year’s wonderful Tet-a-Tet, an in-house dinnertime pop-up centered on Vietnamese-inspired dishes, ran for 10 months as planned. Currently the kitchen’s evening crew is staging something akin to a Southern-themed chophouse: grilled meats of all sorts with sides of pimento cheese, cheddar-y macaroni gratin and potatoes in three variations. The regular daytime mix mingles a stellar take on loco moco featuring teriyaki-glazed Spam with big salads and bigger burritos. Watch the restaurant’s kinetic Instagram account for news of trivia nights and collaborations with civic treasures like KCRW’s Evan Kleiman, who fried calzones in July to revive her still-missed Angeli Caffe for one night. All Day Baby’s ceaseless happenings and metamorphoses strike me as being as much about pinpointing the mercurial tastes of diners as continually widening the restaurant’s definitions of community. It is a deeply welcoming place. About that biscuit: White American cheese melts lazily off thick folds of scrambled egg and sausage (or bacon, or both), and a spoonful of strawberry jam makes complete meat-on-sweet sense. I can hardly think of a better weekend morning indulgence.
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SANTA MONICA, CA- September 25, 2019: Hangtown Brei from Birdie G's on Wednesday, September 25, 2019. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Birdie G’s

Santa Monica American $$$
Rich matzo ball soup, a stunning relish tray centered around next-level five-onion dip, petrale sole grilled over oak, an avant-garde jellied berry pie: Birdie G’s ever-evolving menu of comfort foods traces Jeremy Fox’s zigzagging roots through Eastern Europe, the American South, the Midwest and California. Fox also oversees the menu at sister restaurant Rustic Canyon; at Birdie G’s the creativity leans more personal and lighthearted. One great example: Pickle Chick, in which Fox seemingly imagines the flavor possibilities of Southern fried chicken crossed with the brine from a jar of kosher dill spears. Among the courses at an early September tasting-menu dinner, dubbed “Smorgasbird” and guided by chefs Matthew Schaler and C.J. Sullivan, was a crab custard spread over a plate in a thin layer and scattered with slices of honey-sweet greengage plums — a savory flan from an alt-universe of never-ending summer.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 13: Oxtail with collard greens, mac and cheese and cornbread from Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020 in Los Angeles, CA. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Dulan’s Soul Food Kitchen

Inglewood American $$
Gravy-smothered chicken, meatloaf lacquered in tomato sauce, baked turkey wings that taste like year-round Thanksgiving, a sunny duo of corn and okra, mashed potatoes: I inch along the line at Dulan’s hungry for most everything on the restaurant’s steam table. But I’m looking first for the long-simmered oxtails that yield their lacy meat at the slightest nudge. I’ve learned to ask for an extra side of rice underneath to catch the juice; vinegared collards and mac and cheese fill the rest of the plate. The fried chicken recipe, bringing consistent crunch and saline juice, maps the lineage of Adolf Dulan, who ran the legendary Aunt Kizzy’s Back Porch in Marina del Rey before opening the first Dulan’s in 1999. He moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma in the late 1950s as part of the second wave of the African American Great Migration. Adolf died in 2017, but the Dulan family honors his culinary legacy. This is food integral to Los Angeles.

Bonus: Family member Greg Dulan, who is close to reopening Dulan’s on Crenshaw, and Kim Prince, whose Hotville Chicken heartbreakingly closed late last year, teamed up for a food truck they call Dulanville, serving Nashville-style hot chicken in tacos and red beans and rice loaded with sausage. Follow along on Instagram to see where they’ll pop up next.
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ALHAMBRA , CA - NOVEMBER 2: (From left to right) The beef curry stew, tiger prawns, deep fried salted pigs feet, the Vietnamese style fried fish, and the winter melon soup (center) at Henry's Cuisine on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022 in Alhambra , CA. (Shelby Moore / For The Times)
(Shelby Moore / For The Times)

Henry's Cuisine

Alhambra Cantonese $$
The sprawling Cantonese banquet halls that proliferated across the San Gabriel Valley in the 1980s may be waning, but smaller, more casual restaurants are keeping the cuisine’s presence vital. Witness the weekend crowds at Henry’s Cuisine: Henry Tu and Henry Chau created a new social center in Alhambra when they opened it in 2015. Families gather around large tables, calling to one another above the din to pass platters of lobster strewn with crisped garlic, water spinach shiny in silken bean curd sauce and shrimp fried in salted egg yolk batter that’s pleasurably gritty. At lunch or dinner, the kitchen prepares its in-demand showstopper: pig’s feet cured and rendered to the texture of greaseless ham and then draped with near-sizzling squares of crackling skin. A few subtler but equally worthwhile specialties require a day or two of notice to prepare. Among them are two sustaining soups sized for groups: winter melon, as big as a jack-o’-lantern, presented with pageantry in a silver tureen and swirling with fresh and cured pork and black mushrooms, and the warming comfort of chicken and morels bobbing with dried scallops.
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Aluminum platters filled with meats and chicken smoked onsite at Heritage Barbecue & Brewery in Oceanside.
(Courtesy of Heritage Barbecue)

Heritage Barbecue

San Juan Capistrano Barbecue $$
On sunny weekend afternoons at Heritage Barbecue in San Juan Capistrano, people seek shade against building walls and tall fences while they inch through a slow-moving line to order their meals. One member of a group might meander to the restaurant’s side bar to retrieve lemonade seltzer slushies or citrusy West Coast IPAs brewed by Heritage’s sister brewery in Oceanside. Once they reach the front of the queue, the food tends to come fast to the table: fanned slices of brisket and pork belly smoked to their melting points; bowed sausage links, in daily-changing styles that range from chorizo to Texas cheddar; sides of potato salad, beef-speckled beans and milky, crunchy slaw. Pitmaster Daniel Castillo and executive chef Nicholas Echaore are among the handful of practitioners shaping a modern regional vernacular for barbecue in Southern California. To that end, everyone’s tray should include at least one taco built on a Sonoran flour tortilla made using tallow rendered from brisket trimmings.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 11, 2023: A Taco de Pescado al Carbon from Holbox inside Mercado La Paloma on June, 11th, 2023 in Los Angeles . (Ron De Angelis / For The Times)
(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)

Holbox

Historic South-Central Mexican $$
In a city prolific in mariscos, no one in Los Angeles approaches citrus-doused, chile-ignited seafood with quite the same merging of soul and finesse as Gilberto Cetina. He opened his colorful, stylishly angled marisqueria in 2017 near the entrance of the Mercado La Paloma in Historic South-Central. Holbox is named for an island off the northern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula, about a four-hour drive from where Cetina grew up with his family in the city of Mérida, and he initially imagined the food would hew to these roots. Cetina had helped his father launch Chichén Itzá, one of the Mercado’s founding food stalls that remains a beacon of Yucatecan cooking, 16 years earlier.

He quickly began dreaming bigger, though, wishing to articulate a sum expression of the coastal flavors he loved across Mexico — and his own imaginings. Some of his menu’s early scene-stealers grew out of relationships he developed with top-tier seafood suppliers. They include limey kanpachi ceviche, garnished with avocado puree and tongues of Santa Barbara sea urchin, and the pata de mula (Baja blood clams) with more citrus and a sauce of morita chiles blended with balsamic vinegar that reaches a thrilling intersection of smoke, brine and acidity. Then there’s the smoked kanpachi taco buzzing with peanut salsa macha and a stretchy knot of queso Oaxaca, the fried octopus taco anchored by mulchy sofrito stained black from squid ink, and the bisque-like stew showcasing delicate seafood sausage.

Even though he can’t serve alcohol at the Mercado and considered relocating, Cetina decided to stay put and invested in a recent renovation. He gained four counter seats, but critically he expanded the kitchen, allowing him to hire additional staff. Doing so has created more room for community and creativity, and for possibility. Holbox is The Times’ 2023 Restaurant of the Year.
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Empanadas filled with custard and pastelitos de pollo.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

La Pupusa Urban Eatery

Pico-Union Salvadoran $
Los Angeles County is home to more than 400,000 people of Salvadoran descent; multitudes of restaurants and street vendors sell their distinct versions of plush, griddled pupusas. You can debate the one be-all-end-all pick of the bunch while I settle into a table at Stephanie Figueroa and Juan Saravia’s Pico-Union restaurant, content that theirs is an excellent starting point from which opinions may fly. They balance density and crisp-soft ratios; fillings span traditional blends of cheese and refried beans to more elaborate additions of shrimp or chorizo. The requisite curtido (pickled cabbage relish) twangs and crunches appropriately. Pupusas comprise the heart of Figueroa and Saravia’s menu, but the couple also affectionately rework some other fundamentals of Salvadoran cooking. Breakfast dishes are particularly strong, including La Mañanera, a cheese-filled pupusa mounded with eggs, salsa ranchera and curtido, and a burrito anchored by plantains and casamiento, a pilaf-like merger of rice and beans.
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LOS ANGELES , CA - OCTOBER 01: El Trio at Moo's Craft Barbecue in Los Angeles , CA on Saturday, Oct. 01 2022. (Shelby Moore / For The Times)
(Shelby Moore / For The Times)

Moo’s Craft Barbecue

Lincoln Heights Barbecue $$
Andrew and Michelle Muñoz’s first forays into smoked meats were sparked, like many other current-generation pitmasters, by last decade’s countrywide mania for central Texas’ beefy traditions. But even before they transitioned from their breakout pop-up to their always-busy restaurant in Lincoln Heights, they had spliced Mexican flavors into their Lone Star-inspired techniques, spearheading a new school of Los Angeles barbecue. Andrew’s brisket, rendered nearly to pudding and perfumed by smoldering California white oak, sets the bar for excellence. Michelle’s sausage, particularly the one that’s tinged lizard-green from roasted poblanos and oozes queso Oaxaca from its center, follows closely. The street-corn-style esquites and mac and cheese are creamy and punchy. Crunchy slaw flecked with green and purple cabbage completes the order. Popular specials like Korean pork belly burnt ends glazed with gochujang deepen the L.A. narrative. The thick smoked burger is a wonder unto itself; I won’t be surprised if its popularity spurs a spinoff business.

An important factor: The line to order can move along glacially, and another 20 to 30 minutes often elapses before your food is ready. Plan accordingly — sipping one of the more than two dozen beers on draft can nicely fill the time — or consider ordering takeout online for pick-up.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 8, 2023: Left, oxtail tacos with roasted tomato, shreded kale and whiskey reduction; and on the right, shrimp and grits (corn grits with Creole beurre monte and parmesan) from chef Alisa Reynolds, the owner of My Two Cents, a reimagined soul food restaurant in Pico-Robertson neighborhood in Los Angeles, photographed on one the restaurant's hand-painted tables by a London-based artist Kione Grandison on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. My Two Cents will be opening their second location on the L.A.'s west side in December. (Silvia Razgova / For The Times) 1371916-fo-101-2023-my-two-cents
(Silvia Razgova / For The Times)

My 2 Cents

Mid-Wilshire Soul Food Californian $$
My introduction to chef Alisa Reynolds’ cooking came during the pandemic, when she devised a subproject called Tacos Negros while her Mid-City restaurant, My 2 Cents, struggled for business. The fan favorite quickly became oxtails cooked for six hours until the meat reduced to a filigree, which Reynolds gathered into a corn tortilla with roasted tomato and whiskey reduction for a one-two acid punch. The tacos remain, but the menu has plenty of other enticements: grilled pork chop complemented with plantains, mascarpone and an agave-based sauce revved with jerk seasonings; varying cuts of steak draped over cheese grits with braised greens; and a persuasively unconventional shrimp po’ boy accented with bacon and shaved okra. The dining room, happily busy these days, feels like a seat of community, with shelves displaying cookbooks, many by Black authors, and a front-and-center array of desserts, including the eye-popping cakes — the triple strawberry! — supplied by local baker (and Reynolds’ sister) Theresa Fountain.

If you haven’t yet seen Reynolds’ globe-traveling show “Searching for Soul Food,” released on Hulu in June, make it your next binge watch.
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WESTMINSTER, CA - NOVEMBER 02: BBQ mix combo and Tum mak huong (papaya salad) from Nok's Kitchen on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023 in Westminster, CA. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Nok's Kitchen

Westminster Laotian $$
Nokmaniphone Sayavong began Nok’s Kitchen in her home during the pandemic selling sai kok, coarse Lao pork sausage that practically lashes out with chile, garlic, speckles of scallion and lemongrass and red curry paste she pounds by hand. Her sunny counter-service restaurant in a Westminster mini-mall followed two years later, beginning with a small menu that keeps expanding with skewered meats, salads and soups. Mee ka tee is a lush, aromatic variation on egg drop soup, in which you pour the broth of curry-tinged coconut cream and softly scrambled egg over a bowl filled with rice noodles and shrimp. She uses tapioca and rice flours to make wide, plush noodles for khao piak gai, a gentle chicken soup. Her fantastic rib-eye laab thwaps the senses with fish sauce and lime. In a region where Lao cuisine is underrepresented, Sayavong’s exuberant and painstaking cooking sets new benchmarks for Southern California.
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REDONDO BEACH, CA - NOVEMBER 07: from left: Feijoada, Carne de Panela (pot roast), and the BBQ plate from Panelas Brazillian Cuisine on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023 in Redondo Beach, CA. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Panelas Brazilian Cuisine

Redondo Beach Brazilian $$
Grief over the loss of Natalia Pereira’s downtown restaurant Woodspoon in May sent me on a quest for Brazilian cuisine in Greater Los Angeles, and eventually to the rewards of Marcia Delima and Adriano Bertachini’s cooking in Redondo Beach. Follow the examples of customers ordering at the counter in Portuguese and go heavy on salgadinhos (fried street snacks): wonderfully stretchy pao de queijo, coxinha de frango (croquettes rolled with shredded chicken), flaky beef empanadas and bolinho de bacalhau (cod croquettes) that liven up with a squeeze of lime. Delima and Bertachini excel at Brazil’s iconic meaty stews. Feijoada, beautifully murky with black beans and several cuts of beef and pork, arrives with sides of farofa (toasted, seasoned cassava flour) and finely cut collard greens; stir them directly into the bowl to add dimension and bulk. Carne de panela, slow-cooked to the texture of ropy, melty pot roast, stands complete on its own. For dessert, the bolo de laranja (frosted orange Bundt cake) zings with citrus without sliding into creamsicle territory.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 14, 2022: A Wiseguy and a Rosa pizza and an Antipasto plate at Pizzeria Bianco (Ron De Angelis / For The Times)
(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)

Pizzeria Bianco

Downtown L.A. Pizza $$
Innumerable food writers, me included, have written for decades about Chris Bianco, the godfather of America’s modern pizza frenzy and its most revered pizzaiolo. His first stand-alone location outside Arizona, in downtown’s Row DTLA complex, was long awaited when it arrived last year. What hasn’t been said as often is that the kitchen, overseen by head chef Marco Angeles, excels at so much more than pizza. The antipasto platter of salumi, cheeses and roasted vegetables makes a superb solo meal. Chicken Francese, a frequent special, flaunts a sauce made from rich chicken stock infused with Parmigiano-Reggiano rinds, pan drippings, butter, lemon and chives. It is one of the city’s most magnificent Italian American indulgences. Ask about pastas; there might be kerchiefs of paccheri tossed with beef ragù or fusilli alla gricia, a peppery take on the Roman classic pungent with smoked guanciale. A seemingly simple summertime combination of roasted Andy’s Orchard peaches with homemade vanilla ice cream, bourbon cream, a crumble of streusel and a glug of olive oil proved one of the year’s best desserts. Don’t be surprised if the restaurant eventually, and rightly, renames itself Trattoria Bianco.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 7: Tortelloni from Rossoblu on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA. (Katrina Frederick / For the Los Angeles Times)
(Katrina Frederick / For The Times)

Rossoblu

Downtown L.A. Italian $$$
Rossoblu’s pasta maestro Francesco Allegro is originally from Puglia, but his hands know the secrets to rolling, filling and shaping tortellini, a specialty of Emilia-Romagna where chef and co-owner Steve Samson has ancestry. Allegro stuffs the tiny dumplings with a blend of ground pork loin, chicken breast, mortadella, prosciutto, Parmigiano-Reggiano and nutmeg, presented in a simple cream sauce (with more parm) to let the tightly spooled flavors unravel on the tongue. Tortellini appear again in soup paired with a recipe from Samson’s mother: minestra nel sacco, spongy Parmigiano-Reggiano drop dumplings cooked in a cloth bag, as is tradition, and served in chicken-and-beef broth. Regional specificities like these give Rossoblu its underlying character. Which is to say, make pastas the persuasive center of a meal, fortified by fritto misto, a lemony salad and, to share with an omnivorous group, the grigliata — a platter of grilled pork chop and sausage, perfumed by sage and wood fire from the kitchen’s hearth. With plenty of indoor and outdoor seating, keep the restaurant in mind for when you need a last-minute reservation downtown.
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LOS ANGELES, CA- December 30, 2019: The enchilada plate with 1/2 Mole Negro and 1/2 Coloradito de Pollo O Puerco from Sabores Oaxaqueños on Monday, December 30, 2019. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Sabores Oaxaqueños

Koreatown Oaxacan $
The pink-and-orange sign emblazoned with Sabores Oaxaqueños’ name stretches half of a Koreatown block. It sets an uplifting mood for the saturation of colors that await on walls and plates inside. Brothers Germán Granja and Valentín Granja run their business in the space that formerly housed the original Guelaguetza, where their chef Dominga Rodriguez also previously worked. She oversees an extensive menu; I concentrate on her exemplary Oaxacan classics. Moles bear her unique fingerprints. Try her amarillo, a soupy rendition with chicken and vegetables that leaves an aura of cumin and cloves around the palate. Satisfying versions of goat and lamb barbacoa, both swaddled in avocado leaves as they cook, arrive in chile-stained broths that warm with spice without inflicting heart-pounding chile heat. Crackery tlayudas and plush, oval memelas show off masa’s sustaining goodness in contrasting textures. The restaurant opens at 8 a.m. daily for eggs that are scrambled with chorizo or made into an omelet and submerged in salsa verde.
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LONG BEACH, CA - JUNE 10: An array oof dishes from Selva, clockwise from top left: Bandeja paisa,market green salad, corn arepa, arroz chaufa, yucca fries and Colombian hot dog on Friday, June 10, 2022 in Long Beach, CA. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Selva

Long Beach Colombian $$
Carlos Jurado, a veteran chef of Los Angeles restaurants including stints at Vespertine and Border Grill, returns to the foods and the town he knew growing up: His parents relocated from Colombia to Long Beach when he was 3, and he started making regular trips to see family in South America when he was a teenager. His dinner menu revolves around smoky meats and soulful sides like grilled arepas filled with corn and queso, braised greens flecked with pork belly, and first-rate smashed and fried plantains served with hogao, an ubiquitous Colombian tomato-onion condiment. Sunday brunch is my favorite meal at Selva for two keystone dishes. Bandeja paisa is a one-platter feast synonymous with Colombia that arrays steak, grilled chorizo or morcilla, extra-crisp hunks of pork belly, plantains, smoky beans, white rice, an arepa, a fried egg and sliced avocado on one monumental platter. As if that isn’t plenty, brunch is also when Jurado makes his joy-ride version of a Colombian hot dog. A link of paprika-stained Colombian chorizo peeks out from beneath charred onions and peppers, crumbled cotija, green chile jam, aioli mixed with ají (mulchy, punchy Colombian salsa verde) and smashed potato chips dusted with chile powder. This is a two-handed, face-planting commitment to polish off, and I never tire of its layered pleasures.

Read the full review of Selva.
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LOS ANGELES, CA- March 1, 2020: Grilled lobster from Lobsterdamus at Smorgasburg LA on Sunday, March 1, 2020. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Smorgasburg L.A.

Downtown L.A. Eclectic $$
At face value, Smorgasburg L.A. is a weekly open-air event, one in a network of Smorgasburg vendor markets across the U.S., which congregates food trucks and other culinary businesses on Sundays in Row DTLA’s back lot. I can’t speak to what goes on elsewhere, but for Los Angeles, under the direction of general manager Zach Brooks, the gathering grew into a vital incubator and connector of talent. As one wonderful instance: Juan Garcia and Ivan Flores run a pop-up they call Goat Mafia, serving a deeply spiced, Jalisco-style goat birria based on Garcia’s father’s recipe. Rhea Patel Michel and Marcel Michel established Saucy Chick Rotisserie, a pop-up featuring rotisserie chicken and sides that express flavors honoring Marcel’s Mexican roots and Rhea’s Gujarati lineage. Both are Smorgasburg regulars. They joined forces recently to open a restaurant in East Pasadena that — win, win — serves their respective specialties under one roof.

The pleasure of attending Smorgasburg in its eighth year is revisiting vendors that have gained citywide followings, while also scouting out newcomers. A recent Sunday tour included a breakfast burrito from Jonathan Perez’s Macheen, lamb barbacoa flautas from Steven Orozco Torres’ Los Dorados, and a green chorizo torta from Evil Cooks. For dessert? Velvety scoops of sour cherry and orange blossom-pistachio ice creams from Kinrose Creamery, which landed official vendor status in September.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 4, 2022: Burrito 2.0 with Grilled Steak at Sonoratown in Los Angeles. (Ron De Angelis / For The Times)
(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)

Sonoratown

Downtown L.A. Mexican
The magnificence of Teodoro Díaz Rodriguez Jr. and Jennifer Feltham’s taqueria rests first on the flour tortillas cranked out by their master tortilla maker, Julia Guerrero. Their thinness belies their durability, and like the best pie crusts they manage to be at once flaky and buttery. Nearly translucent and handsomely pocked from the griddle, it is the flour tortilla against which to judge all others in Los Angeles. I am quick to recommend Sonoratown’s famous Burrito 2.0, swollen with pinto beans, mashed guacamole, Monterey Jack and sharply spicy chiltepin salsa; among meat options that include grilled chicken, tripe and chorizo, the standout choice is costilla, a mix of boneless short rib and chuck robed in mesquite smoke. Lately my order also has included at least one chivichanga, mini-bundles swaddling shredded chicken or beef cooked down in a thick guisado of tomatoes, Anaheim chiles, cheddar and Monterey Jack. They are deeply comforting, and they’re equally excellent at the couple’s second, larger store in Mid-City.
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MONTEREY PARK, CA - OCTOBER 20: Tokyo chicken sandwich and the 3 piece box with drums from Tokyo Fried Chicken on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022 in Monterey Park, CA.(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Tokyo Fried Chicken

Downtown L.A. Fried Chicken $
Kouji Yamanashi spun some plot twists this year: He closed the original Monterey Park location of Tokyo Fried Chicken in late summer, and then reappeared this fall in a 30-seat space at the foot of the shiny Atelier Apartments complex downtown. The move brings the welcome return of pre-pandemic dinner sets, reinstating fried wings and thighs alongside the drumsticks he’s been serving lately. For fried chicken lovers, such details are important. Yamanashi’s recipe continues to deliver: He brines the bird in soy, ginger and garlic before frying it in rice bran oil. The pepper-flecked batter tastes rounded in its seasonings, distinct but never overly salty. Chile heat comes through with more bluster in the side of fried chicken skin, a snacky addition to vegetables that best complete the meal: collards simmered in dashi, curried corn, and yams in a not-too-sweet glaze that calls to mind barley malt syrup. Baked mac and cheese, another fan favorite suspended during 2020, also has been resurrected in all its custardy richness.
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LOS ANGELES , CA - OCTOBER 08: The Villa's Trio at Villa's Tacos at El Mercado Street Festival in Highland Park on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022 in Los Angeles , CA. (Shelby Moore / For The Times)
(Shelby Moore / For The Times)

Villa's Tacos

Highland Park Mexican $
“Tacos estilo Los Angeles” is the motto Victor Villa adopted for his Highland Park business. At the pop-ups he ran starting in 2018, the words blazed across banners hung from tented stands; they beam now from a neon sign in the back of his first taqueria, which opened in February. Villa’s style epitomizes the L.A. dreamer, the go-getter. His queso taco — large and lavish with griddled cheese, layers of cotija, squiggled-on crema and dolloped guacamole — is deftly engineered chaos that practically takes two hands to wield. It’s a taco built on charisma. One has no choice but to be all in. Among choices of meat, I savor the nubbly beef and chorizo but take particular pleasure in the rich, hashed chicken leg that absorbs mesquite smoke. Villa is thoughtful about vegan options too, leaning into satisfying texture contrasts such as half-pureed black beans scattered with cactus salad. The tacos’ generous construction invites a more-is-more approach with salsas. While peering at the variety — all shades of green and red, save for the pop of cubed mango paired with habanero — don’t overlook the fire starter labeled “jiquilpan.” Based on a recipe that Villa’s father learned in Michoacán, it’s riddled with smoked chiles that echo the flavors of the grill.

Read the full review of Villa’s Tacos.
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