Latest news with #Times101List
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
This L.A. chef was named the best in California at the James Beard awards
On Monday evening some of the country's most celebrated chefs, beverage professionals, restaurateurs and bakers filled Chicago's Lyric Opera House for the 35th annual James Beard Foundation Restaurant and Chef Awards. The awards are considered some of the highest honors in hospitality, and this year, amid nationwide deportations and a mounting culture of fear, winners throughout the night honored immigrants: often the unsung staff working in restaurant kitchens. 'We tell stories,' said Kato chef-partner Jon Yao, 'stories of immigrants, diaspora, endurance and perseverance.' Yao won the 2025 category of best chef: California. At his fine-dining restaurant in the Arts District — No. 1 on the L.A. Times 101 List for the last two years in a row — he serves a pioneering tasting menu evocative of his Taiwanese heritage seen through an L.A. lens. Yao's win marks the third year in a row that a Los Angeles nominee took the title of best chef in the state. In 2023 Justin Pichetrungsi of Anajak Thai won the category, while last year the honor went to Kuya Lord chef-owner Lord Maynard Llera. Yao is the only Los Angeles or Orange County nominee to win an award at this year's Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony. The Kato chef was a semifinalist or nominee in the rising star category in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Yao, a child of Taiwanese immigrants who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, thanked everyone on Kato's team, both past and present. He underscored the importance of immigrant cuisine not only for Kato but Los Angeles. 'L.A. is a city built by the toils of immigrant communities, and right now, those same communities are being ripped apart,' Yao said in his acceptance speech. 'As the children of immigrants, I'm sure many here can imagine a scenario where we couldn't be here to celebrate this all together. But we all deserve the freedom to pursue our dreams, to determine our own futures and to be treated with equal dignity and respect. And everyone in this room tonight has the ability and voice to amplify that message through their own stories in their own communities, and I urge all of us to please use that voice and platform.' The culinary contributions of immigrants could be heard in acceptance speeches through the night, across a range of cultures. Chefs, restaurateurs and food media regularly praised America's diversity of flavor, widely crediting immigrants. 'All food is immigrant, and immigrants make America great,' Miami chef Nando Chang said when he won best chef: South. 'We're gathering at a time of challenge and fear,' Clare Reichenbach, chief executive officer of the James Beard Foundation, said in the ceremony's opening speech.'That's why it is so important to remember the agency we possess, that hope and empathy are an active choice we can make, and that we're connecting tonight in our shared humanity and in the celebration of food and its unique power to unite. … America's food scene has never been more dynamic, more diverse and exciting — and in large part, we owe that dynamism, that vibrancy, to the immigrant communities that lead and underpin this industry in every way. We get to taste the world because of them.' Washington, D.C., chef Carlos Delgado of Causa and Amazonia accepted the award of best chef: Mid-Atlantic and voiced his support of immigrants while his colleague proudly carried a Peruvian flag to the stage. San Juan's Identidad won Best New Bar, and its owners carried a Puerto Rican flag for their acceptance speech. 'I want this to serve as an inspiration to all Puerto Ricans — and Latinos — that it can be done,' co-owner Stephen Alonso said. Best chef: Great Lakes winner Noah Sandoval of Chicago's Oriole, couldn't attend the evening's ceremony, so a friend read a statement in his stead: 'Thank you, and deepest respect to all the nominees and winners tonight. Also, f— ICE.' When Kumiko owner Julia Momosé accepted the award for Outstanding Bar, she underscored the importance of immigrants not only to her own Chicago establishment, but also the industry. 'Every day we are a team of immigrants,' she said. 'We are children of immigrants … your perspective is your strength.' Los Angeles native, former L.A. Times food writer and community activist Toni Tipton-Martin received the lifetime achievement award, celebrating her decades of contribution to food journalism by raising African American culinary voices and platforming young writers. Last year Ruth Reichl, another Los Angeles Times Food vet, received the lifetime achievement award. Tipton-Martin thanked Reichl in her own acceptance speech for helping to guide her culinary voice early in her career. Though most of Southern California's nominees did not win this year, their contributions to the county's culinary fabric were still recognized. 'You are not just an incredible pitmaster, but you're incredibly creative, and you're sort of creating a style of barbecue that you call Southern California barbecue,' food journalist and red carpet host Francis Lam told Daniel Castillo before the ceremony. 'It's not Texas barbecue, it's not Carolina barbecue, but Southern California barbecue.' Castillo co-owns San Juan Capistrano's Heritage Barbecue and Santa Ana's Le Hut Dinette, and was nominated for best chef: California, which Yao won. San Diego's Tara Monsod, of Animae and Le Coq, was also a nominee in the category. Gusto Bread, the Long Beach artisanal panadería from owners Arturo Enciso and Ana Belén Salatino, was nominated in the category of outstanding bakery as it also was in 2024. The lauded bakery did not win this year; that award went to JinJu Patisserie in Portland, Ore. Anaheim's Strong Water is widely celebrated for its spins on classic tiki drinks as well as its ambitious nonalcoholic program. Like Gusto it was nominated in 2024, but this year's award for outstanding wine and other beverages went to Charleston in Baltimore, Maryland. Redbird bar director Tobin Shea was nominated in the category of outstanding professional in cocktail service, which went to Ignacio Jimenez of New York City's Superbueno. Whether he was going to win or lose, Shea previously told The Times that he would be celebrating: This year's awards fell on the week of his 50th birthday. 'It's going to be a great week,' he said. On Saturday night the foundation held its annual media awards, which celebrate the year's top culinary books, articles, television, radio and more. Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Bill Addison, columnist Jenn Harris and Food senior editor Danielle Dorsey all saw nominations this year. Andrea Freeman — a professor at L.A.'s Southwestern Law School — took the award in the category for food issues and advocacy with her book 'Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch.' L.A.-based journalist Jeff Gordinier, along with artist and designer George McCalman, won the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award for Food & Wine article 'The City That Rice Built.' Another Los Angeles-based author, Gastropod podcast co-host Nicola Twilley, also won an award. Her book 'Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves' led the category of literary writing. The full list of the 2025 James Beard Media Award winners can be found here.
Los Angeles Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Koreatown's Here's Looking at You to close next month: ‘I've really, really pushed all limits'
On June 13 one of the city's most celebrated, eclectic restaurants will close after nearly a decade of accolades, frog legs and cocktails tinged with fresh fruits and vegetables. Here's Looking at You, the genre-bending Koreatown restaurant from restaurateur Lien Ta and late chef Jonathan Whitener, is ending its run six months after the closure of its Silver Lake sibling restaurant, All Day Baby. It currently holds the No. 15 spot on the Los Angeles Times 101 best restaurants list. A number of factors contributed to the decision, Ta told The Times, but one loomed larger than the rest: the 2024 death of Whitener, at 36, which sent shockwaves through L.A.'s culinary community. 'With chef's passing, I couldn't really see how we were going to continue,' Ta said. The restaurateur also credits the loss of business post-pandemic, but says there was no concern of a rent increase, and that she could have found a replacement head chef or flipped the concept entirely. The biggest factor in the decision was the loss of Whitener. 'The truth is that I created this restaurant with Jonathan, and he's eternally my collaborator,' she said. 'The remaining team are all in agreement that we want this to remain Jonathan's restaurant. We are missing our leader. Signing on for another five-year lease doesn't make sense when your leader is gone.' Ta left a role in entertainment journalism to pursue hospitality full-time, and worked as a manager in the Jon & Vinny's restaurant group when she met Whitener, then chef de cuisine of Animal. Jonathan Gold characterized his cooking as 'strong flavors, jolts of acidity and torn Asian herbs, and a tendency to stuff hints of umami almost everywhere it might conceivably belong.' 'Eating his food,' Ta said, 'lifted my soul.' She realized that he could be the chef she'd been looking for: someone to partner in a restaurant, the half of the operation that could oversee the kitchen and menu planning while she helmed the front of the house. In 2016 they flipped a former Philly cheesesteak shop into a nouveau bistro where Whitener's mackerel mingled with marigolds, baseball steak paired with curly fries and a few dishes — such as the just-charred rib-eye, the shishito peppers atop tonnato, and the frog legs with salsa negra — became modern L.A. classics. It quickly drew national praise, landing on best-of lists from Food & Wine, Eater and more. Locally it became a fixture on the L.A. Times 101 List. It served as the centerpiece for Patric Kuh's 'Becoming a Restaurateur (Masters at Work),' a book on Whitener and Ta's struggles and triumphs in building one of the country's trendiest restaurants. When the pandemic hit, Here's Looking at You was still going strong. It shuttered for 17 months due to COVID-19, then reopened in 2022 to great acclaim, though Ta tells The Times that the restaurant has been 'running slim in the kitchen,' limiting their staff because business never reached pre-pandemic success again. The following years brought additional difficulties. 'I think so many of us have had to contend with [closing] being a possibility or an outcome,' Ta said, 'and it's been slow at many L.A. businesses since the strikes.' Business began to trickle in 2023 during the entertainment-industry strikes, which halted revenue for multiple local industries, including L.A. restaurants. In 2024 the unthinkable happened. Whitener died, unexpectedly, in his home; his passing left Ta feeling unmoored. Local chefs rallied around the restaurant, including Ronan chef-owner Daniel Cutler, who served as resident chef for a time. Catastrophe struck again in early 2025, when the Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed thousands of homes and other structures. With the city in turmoil, Ta said the restaurant also saw a significant dip in revenue. For the last two years Ta said she's seen 'this pendulum swing' of 30% to 40% of sales losses because of circumstances beyond her control, and would count herself lucky if even half the dining room was full. She tried to pivot by changing Here's Looking at You's business hours, shifting from a Thursday-to-Monday operation to a Tuesday-to-Saturday model. The lack of business on Sunday and Monday nights could be especially depressing. Mondays, long considered an industry night for hospitality workers, were no longer lucrative because those in the restaurant and bar industry lack the disposable income they once had. She hoped that no longer competing with Sunday-evening television premieres and sports would help. 'I'd wake up with this horrible dread all the time, wondering if anyone was going to book a reservation or come in at all, and who we were going to cut [from service],' Ta said. 'We were always running half the team, and that just doesn't feel good.' It wasn't until she shuttered their Silver Lake restaurant, All Day Baby, in December that she was able to fully reflect on the future of Here's Looking at You, and on her own personal needs. In the months since, Ta says she's been kinder to herself and taken care of needs as requisite as visiting a doctor. She's begun to fully allow herself to grieve, not only Whitener, but also a father figure whom she lost months later. 'I was definitely buried in a lot of grief,' she said. 'I'm still grieving, but sometimes I wasn't really sure what to focus on this last year, to be honest … a lot of restaurant owners are sort of programmed to always find solutions, to get through the day or the week or whatever your metric is. I've been doing that for a long time.' Faced with the termination of the lease and years of professional and emotional turbulence, she made the decision to close this year. Ta said making the Instagram announcement was 'deeply emotional,' but that she felt relief in finally revealing the news; she'd alerted her staff in March. As she entered work Tuesday night, the stress began to dissipate. The restaurant filled with fans coming to get final tastes. A troupe of Magic Castle performers even traveled across the city upon hearing the news, donning matching Here's Looking at You shirts, then performed magic tricks for the other guests in the dining room (they'll be performing a magic show Friday night elsewhere, fundraising for L.A. wildfire victims). Reservations for the remainder of the restaurant's run are nearly entirely booked, though Ta plans to reserve space for walk-ins beyond the seats at the bar. The coming weeks will see new merchandise, as well as the return of pop-up Tiki Fever from bartenders Joanne Martinez and Jesse Sepulveda (an All Day Baby vet) on May 19. Other familiar faces will make an appearance, including a June 7 guest-bartending shift from bar alum and No Us Without You co-founder Damian Diaz. After June 13, Ta isn't sure what comes next. In the closure announcement she wrote that 'this lease is ending, as is [her] era as a restaurateur.' She tells The Times that maybe someday she could reenter the restaurant world again, but not for a long while; what she needs first is to rest and recover, and determine what she wants and needs beyond restaurant life. Operating a restaurant in normal circumstances is demanding and stressful. Operating two through a pandemic, industry-wide strikes that led to economic downturn, and citywide wildfires is anything but normal. 'The last five years have been completely unrelenting and unfriendly, and it's unhealthy, frankly, and I've done the best that I can,' Ta said. 'I've really, really pushed all limits.' What she does know is that she will continue to champion small businesses through her volunteer work with the Independent Hospitality Coalition, where her partner, Eddie Navarrette, serves as executive director. Sometimes she envisions herself moonlighting as a shift supervisor in a restaurant she really cares about, or mentoring younger restaurateurs in need of guidance and business know-how. 'But first thing's first, I just need to close the [Here's Looking at You] chapter in the way that I think it deserves,' Ta said. 'I'm afraid of a lot of things, but in a weird way, I'm not necessarily afraid of what will happen to me.'
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
L.A. chefs, restaurateurs petition lawmakers in wake of fires: 'We need support'
On Tuesday morning one of the city's most influential chefs stood on the steps of City Hall: Wes Avila, along with his business partner and a fellow small business owner, were there to appeal to local politicians and lawmakers. L.A.'s restaurants and other independent businesses say they are hurting and need the city's help in the wake of last month's fires. Some restaurants have seen as much as a 90% decrease in business. Some are already closing because of it. 'Usually I try to stay out of local politics,' said Avila, founder of Guerrilla Tacos and chef of restaurants MXO and Ka'teen. 'But this is something that's super important.' The fires destroyed and damaged some of the city's most storied restaurants and bars, but many that survived now face an uncertain future. On Wednesday, lauded Pasadena restaurant Bar Chelou — an L.A. Times 101 List awardee — announced its permanent closure, citing the nearby Eaton fire's decimation of business as a factor. On Jan. 11, Silver Lake lesbian wine bar and restaurant the Ruby Fruit announced its closure "due to financial impact from the current natural disaster." Its owners hope to reopen someday. 'It's reached this critical level with restaurants in L.A. that there's not really a light at the end of the tunnel,' said Ruby Fruit co-owner Mara Herbkersman. 'This is not just us speaking, this is talking to other owners [too], and some sort of intervention feels really necessary at this point in order to avoid a mass industry shutdown.' At MXO and Ka'teen, Avila said he saw a drop in sales of 60% to 70% since the fires. On Tuesday he joined his business partner Giancarlo Pagani — author of a new petition for support — calling on L.A. and California politicians to encourage dining out as the city recovers and rebuilds. Pagani is a partner in Mother Wolf Group as well as Avila's MXO, a Mexican steakhouse in Beverly Grove. As of Thursday more than 2,000 signatories endorsed Pagani's message to lawmakers, including Funke and Mother Wolf's Evan Funke, A.O.C.'s Suzanne Goin, Tao Group's Gregory Bach and Ben Shenassafar of the Benjamin and the Hundreds. The petition, addressed to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, calls on them 'to amplify public messaging that encourages Angelenos to support their local businesses during this critical time,' possibly with a coordinated campaign. As the fires devastated the city, some of the first aid administered to Los Angeles was provided by chefs and restaurants. Many immediately began preparing and delivering free meals for first responders and those displaced. Some partnered with organizations such as World Central Kitchen, which reimburses restaurants for their product and efforts. Others say they provided aid out of their own pockets. Read more: Los Angeles is burning. Here's how the city's restaurants are stepping up to help On Tuesday Avila, Pagani and Trent Lockett, co-owner of events company Nya Studios, met with District 4 City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a proponent of pandemic-era dining programs such as L.A. Al Fresco and moratoriums on ticketing unpermitted street vendors. The trio said that while politicians are sharing news of fundraisers and programs to help those affected by fires, they have not heard messaging about supporting small business — and they hope Councilmember Raman and others can start. 'When a single event cancels, it's not just us,' Lockett said in the meeting. He added that all January events canceled due to the fires. 'There's hundreds of people that are involved. I think we're here on behalf of the people we support.' Raman said she had already been in touch with local restaurateurs, including the owners of Silver Lake restaurants Kismet and Bé Ù, about the state of their businesses and possible solutions. Read more: Their restaurants survived the Eaton fire, but without customers will they survive its aftermath? 'Strangely out of this came a sense of real reconnection to Los Angeles," she said during the meeting. "People want to lift up Los Angeles.' 'I'm investing significantly in Los Angeles restaurants this year and it's not easy,' Pagani told Raman, adding that there is a preconception among restaurateurs that it's uniquely difficult to do business in California. 'Now it's amplified by the fires. I keep thinking: Why am I trying to open more restaurants? ... I love the team-building of it, I love the shared opportunity. For us to continue doing that in L.A. we need support in sharing the messaging, because people are scared. Investors are really scared.' The restaurateur likens the economic fallout from the fires to 'a micro recession' and 'a micro pandemic.' Pagani's Mother Wolf and adjacent cocktail bar, Mars, saw a decrease in business of roughly 80%, while private events falloff in his restaurants and at his Hollywood events space was 100%. His restaurants are slowly beginning to recover but are running at 65% to 75% of their business compared to the week before the fires began. 'We had guests at Mother Wolf that literally were asking for their checks because they had just found out they were in an evacuation area,' Pagani said. Read more: 'Is it gonna be busy?' Woon Pasadena opens in wake of Eaton fire Pagani's restaurants shuttered the first few days of the fires but reopened that weekend in order to give roughly 400 staff members hours. On Jan. 11, after 'an instantaneous decline of like 90%' of business the week of the fires, Herbkersman and Emily Bielagus decided to close the Ruby Fruit, one of the city's few queer-owned-and-focused hospitality spaces. The announcement made waves in the region's queer communities, with thousands of responses — many begging for the closure to be temporary. Both of the Ruby Fruit's owners signed Pagani's petition. Read more: The Ruby Fruit, Vinovore and more: Joyous L.A. spots to queer your weekend 'We are delighted to stand with our fellow small business owners in Los Angeles,' Bielagus told The Times, 'and the idea of pressing the government and finding resources to help small businesses is really a critical and crucial cause.' On Wednesday, they announced a fundraising event to help save their wine bar and restaurant. Ticket proceeds from the event, which will be held Feb. 22, will help to reopen the Ruby Fruit and compensate for business losses caused by the city's fires. Though patrons can't currently visit the Ruby Fruit, its owners said they hope Angelenos will take the message of the petition to heart and support other small businesses around the city. 'Even if people aren't necessarily coming to our restaurant because we are temporarily closed,' Bielagus said, 'anyone in Los Angeles spending their money anywhere is going to help ignite and reignite and invigorate the economy of Los Angeles.' Sign up for our Tasting Notes newsletter for restaurant reviews, Los Angeles food-related news and more. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
