Any commentary on the 2015 J. Gold list of 101 top LA restaurants?

I expected to see a thread on this already, but now that the new list is out, any comments?

Bruce

As always a fun list to review because of how eclectic his choices are. I was happy to see Lucques high on his list, not because its the “best” restaurant in town, but because it is a critical part of the culinary landscape of LA. Too often in foodie circles, its about the next big thing. Lucques is the opposite of that philosophy. I only go a few times a year, but it is one of the few restaurants I would actually miss if it closed.

Nice to see some love for the culinary wasteland that has been (and for the most part continues to be) Pasadena with Racion, DTF (yes I know its in Arcadia), Lincoln and Union. If you throw in Europane and Bulgarini, its almost getting interesting. If only it would continue. Ugh.

Providence as #1 shows the lack of innovation in LA.
Taco Maria as #2 is great but it’s also not in LA
Did lucques change their menu? I felt like it has been the same for years.

Here is a link

While I don’t go to Providence that often, my sense is that they DO shake up their menu fairly often.
I’m not saying it “deserves” to be #1, but my guess is that if you took a survey of the top restaurants in LA by the people
who consistently eat out at that level, Providence would easily rank in the Top 5.

Bruce

I think Providence is a classic restaurant, but is obviously polarizing. JG obviously has his favorites and sticks by them. I’m not a huge Providence fan, but I can see how others might consider it so highly.

As for Lucques, its kind of like Chez Panisse, simple food, good ingredients, well executed. We go there for Sunday Suppers a couple times a year and those change every week, very seasonal. As for their regular menu, they will usually have 2 or 3 of the usual suspects (rabbit, short rib, etc.), but it usually has a good selection. I wouldn’t recommend it for someone looking for to Trois Mec or even Bestia, but for a traditional dinner to pair with a nice Burgundy or Bordeaux, it is just right. In reality, it probably appeals more to my generation than yours Charlie. neener

One of the reasons I like JG is that he provides a balanced picture of what is worth going to in LA, high-end and pedestrian, innovative and classic, European and non-Eurocentric.

My point is LA needs more fine dining restaurants if providence is constantly at 1-3 in his list

Very true.

I agree. He’s covering all the bases well. He’s not taking risks with his top few because the people that would go to just the top few wouldn’t want something more adventurous. I might like a particular place more, but never once has he recommended a place and I’ve been truly disappointed.

He’s also a brilliant writer. Here’s my favorite piece he’s done. It’s on N.W.A. http://www.laweekly.com/music/nwa-a-hard-act-to-follow-2151044

I agree with Charlie. I also think that Gold was better at the LA Weekly, where he wrote without the constraints of writing for the LA Times readership. Spago, Providence, Melisse, Lucques et al are not creative or innovative enough to be considered great dining in any city having the size and cultural diversity of Los Angeles. Put another way, David Toutain would be the best restaurant in Los Angeles if it was located here and, while very good, it isn’t the best restaurant in its zip code, let alone its city.

Mark, each of the restaurants you list (Spago, Providence, Melisse, Lucques) have been on his list forever, so I don’t think it has anything to do with writing for the LA Times. He has favorites and he’s not afraid to stick with them even if they aren’t new and innovative. If anything, what has made his list great over the years is that he is not bound by fashion; he lists restaurants where he likes to eat, whether it be the simple soup dumpling or taco, or something more imaginative and daring. I think one can argue that he is overly enamored with the simple and the offal, but I’m not sure his moving to the LA Times has made his picks more “conservative.”

I like Taco Maria don’t get me wrong but that’s the #2 restaurant in the LA area??

Disagree. I like innovative cooking but it is far from a requisite for a great dining experience. One might need to be innovative to be considered one of the world’s greatest chefs, but that is IMO a separate issue. Wylie Dufresne is incredibly innovative. Graham Elliot is innovative and both of them closed closed restaurants. Voltaggio is innovative but I’ve had a couple of very uneven meals at Ink, regarding both food and service. Cut and Urasawa are excellent dining but I don’t believe that they are extremely innovative. I would say that the best things I’ve eaten over the past few weeks was the Bluefin Otoro at Maru. Nothing creative about it in the least, but boy was it good. The

That Toutain MIGHT be the best restaurant in L.A. really isn’t germane to deciding what are the top restaurants in LA. Parisian spots don’t qualify. I know that some of you don’t like Providence, but most people do, which is the reason it is almost always near the top of various lists, be it LATimes, Weekly, Eater, Michelin etc… Providence IS fine dining, and has that up on most places on the list. It’s also not absent creativity. MC uses a respectable array of fine ingredients and has a menu that varies often. I would submit that he is as creative as the other contenders for best fine dining. I have not been to N/Naka, which I have to rectify, and it consider a similar combination of ingredients, flair, and service/facility. I don’t know when you went to Spago last Mark but, while it is not cutting edge, they’ve dialed up the creativity a notch since pre-remodel.

Gold isn’t constrained by the Times, at least in terms of his restaurant choices. He loves Providence. He has heaped praise upon it since it opened, for years while he was still at the Weekly. He has always liked Spago, Lucques, and a bit strangely Musso&Frank. He has always taken a seemingly cost-based stance against Urasawa and rated Melisse lower than many would. His writing style may be less edgy in The Times, but his list is classic Gold. Having Taco Maria near the top obviously shows he has not gone all old-school.

I love the list. Everyone has their favorites and everyone has to decide how to reconcile price and setting. His list is a pretty darned good cross-section of cuisines and factors. To get nit-picky, I don’t think Rustic Canyon is all that good in taste or QPR so would put it much lower than #5. Trois Mec can’t be #4 because they don’t allow corkage and have a mediocre winelist :slight_smile: I figured N/Naka would place higher than #14, and maybe Maude higher than #25. He always rates Lucques a good bit higher(#8) than I, though it is solid. I tried Odys and Penelope only once and was really underwhelmed. Unfortunately the only place on the list within 7-8 minutes of my house is Post&Beam and I think he over-rates it to even get it on the list. I’m not sure Border Grill really rates either. Langer’s should be higher than #74 by straight virtue of their pastrami sandwich. A quick lunch there surely rates higher than Sycamore Kitchen. I’ll have to try Soban (#21) as I’m not sure I’ve seen it mentioned much in foodie circles. Charlie needs to be in charge of setting up a WEEKEND offline at Chengdu Taste.

I agreed with you until you started saying that “Spago, Providence, Melisse, Lucques et al are not creative or innovative enough to be considered great dining in any city having the size and cultural diversity of Los Angeles.” Perhaps you need to define great, because they are clearly above “good.”

One man’s list. Why criticize it? It’s like any list, pros and cons. Mr Gold is a great food critic imho. I think he has helped LA to learn about its own food culture better than any previous critic at the Times. He definitely has his favorites but I take the list for what it is. One man’s choices.

Gregg, I agree. I think he not only influenced the perception of the LA food scene, but also help change the nature of restaurant criticism. My guess is that 20 years ago, you would not have found many major city newspapers that would include taco joints or ethnic street food in their top 100 list, at least to the degree JG does. Now, when I research what restaurants to go to in SF of NYC, I find a wide variety of recommendations, not simply fine dining establishments.

JGold is a critic. He can be criticized, as well. No issues here.

Yep. I love Jonathan Gold. I think he is an an excellent writer, and his promotion of restaurants across the price and cuisine scales is in part responsible for shaping the dining scene here in L.A… Before the proliferation of internet food sites, it was very likely Gold that would turn people on to smaller, often ethnic spots across the Southland. His attention to those places had an effect in making them more viable by steering people toward specific places, but also giving credibility and buzz to different dining. I don’t know other cities’ critics well but, in forging that path in a large metro area, I am sure he spurred others to follow that path.

That said, since he has credibility and for practical purpose is more than just another guy, of course discussing his list I worthy discussion. Doing so just provides more data/feedback for each of us to formulate our own list of priorities on where to go, especially for a first visit. Has anyone actually been to Soban?

Mark–Of course, that raises the question of how many really $$$$ “cutting edge” restaurants can be supported in Los Angeles. In order for a restaurant to be successful in the long run, you have to have diners who are willing to go back to the restaurant on a reasonably regular basis. While I see a lot of excitement from so-called “foodies” who are thrilled to go to a restaurant when it first opens so that they can try the flaming [fill in the name of some obscure item here served in some bizarre vessel], I think more typical LA diners tend to value consistency/comfort over creativity/innovation.

Bruce

Bruce,
I think your assessment is correct and is due in large part to the casual, comfortable culture of Los Angeles. I like living here because it is casual, comfortable, and the weather is good, but miss the types of cooking that are happening in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Maybe the weather is to blame and we have to go to foul weather or foul environment cities for more creative dining…