RIP Jonathan Gold

So young

I’m so upset about this. Such a gentle soul.

Yeah, it’s a crushing blow to LA’s food scene. I’ve been lucky enough to talk with him a few times and see him talk or at events on a number of other occasions. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of food, especially LA’s food scene, and was a very talented writer.

Very saddened to hear this. His legacy will live on.

Jason

My heart is still aching thinking about what a loss this is for LA, for the food world, and for our greater society as a whole. He was sui generis, truly unique, someone who was uniquely LA and uniquely contemplative about what it meant to live in this city. I just rewatched City of Gold recently, and it was striking how so many chefs, from Roy Choi and Ludo to others, articulated how they didn’t fully understand their own vision for their food until they read Jonathan Gold’s interpretation. In retrospect, it’s striking to see David Chang’s scene in the beginning, and see him talk about Jonathan Gold’s deep understanding of LA and ethnic/Korean food, and then to think about the very public consternation that DC expressed after the infamous Majordomo review. I know it was expressed on our own boards that:

“My issue with the Gold review is Gold can’t differnetiate himself from the idea that ethnic food can’t be had anywhere but in hole in the walls. Elevated modern ethnic food just tastes different. Is it what we know and are comfortable with? No. My friend owns a chain of higher end Vietnamese restaurants in LA and he is always telling me how it’s tougher to sell a different type of more expensive pho because people are comfortable with a price and quality. When he tweaks it and adds modern flair it seems to fall short cause people want the traditional.”

but that’s such a facile and shortsighted interpretation of what Jonathan Gold truly meant. Looking back at his reviews, he appreciated how great “ethnic” restaurants like Broken Spanish, Taco Maria, Lukshon could be – non-traditional restaurants that took “ethnic” cuisines, “elevated” with “modern flair.” On looking back at his review of Majordomo, I don’t think he was less than 100% positive because of his limitations as a critic appreciating ethnic food, but I think he genuinely expected more from David Chang, and expected more than a first draft of a restaurant/cuisine concept from someone who doesn’t have the rooted-in-LA perspective of someone like Ray Garcia, Carlos Salgado or Sang Yoon, or the well-defined culinary identity of someone like Corey Lee of Benu. On reading the Majordomo review, and taking in David Chang’s work as a whole, he seems like a chef/artist in flux, still figuring out his identity… and in a way, it’s tragic that someone like Jonathan Gold, with his uniquely perceptive and knowledgable perspective as a food critic, couldn’t have helped guide him more along the way.

Like many others in our city, I’m still trying to process this loss… I hope others on this forum can spread the word and help his loved ones, there’s a gofundme for his family…

Have you watched “Ugly Delicious”, Fred?

I did not always agree with Golds take on a restaurant but always enjoyed his perspective and often learned from his review.

Chang addressed Golds passing in the opening of his podcast today and sounds like they had a complicated relationship.

I’d like to listen to that, what is the podcast called?

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Hope this helps. Couldn’t do a link but Google found it.

Thanks. All I could find was weird social commentary as I searched David Chang.

This is an interesting six minutes (4:00-10:00 if you have no interest in hearing about partying excessively in Vegas, as I didn’t), it’s obvious Chang has real regret and sorrow while trying to digest palpable anger. He now realizes this anger has so little meaning and no value whatsoever. I feel badly for Chang, to think he bears this as a result of Gold doing his work. Sad indeed.

That was heavy. It seems like he’s been having a lot of “complicated” relationships lately.

I did see it… I’m not sure what to make of it overall; it was fun to watch and the production values were great, but I’m not sure if it had a point/overarching message, and at times it felt self-indulgent (e.g., the rather silly debate between DC and Mario Carbone). I think watching David Choe was my favorite part simply because he’s so oddball and hilarious, and seeing him and Roy Choi speak about the LA riots really resonated.

I don’t think the Majordomo review that Jonathan Gold wrote was as bad as it was made out to be, and didn’t justify any anger on David Chang’s part if he was angry about it. JG was nuanced; he noted that there were obvious strengths to the restaurant and its food, but that – like any restaurant – it also had some significant shortcomings. Compared to the hack job that Pete Wells did of Per Se, or PW’s execrable review of Locol in Oakland, there’s no comparison.

As to the relationship between Jonathan Gold and David Chang… they didn’t seem like friends, but even if they were, I trusted Jonathan Gold’s judgment enough to value his opinion more than DC’s reaction. David Chang is obviously a talented and very successful chef, but first and foremost he’s a businessman now, de facto CEO of momofuku, and it appears a very good one; he seems to be very good about hiring talented people, and I’ve seen how he supports/mentors younger Asian-American chefs, which I think is important and generous of him. With all the controversy about what happened with Lucky Peach and the faltering of his relationship with Peter Meehan, I think it was easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s pretty weird to have a chef sponsor and own a magazine – his interests are justifiably in promoting himself and his restaurants, while Peter Meehan and Jonathan Gold are journalists/writers with perhaps more idealistic interests for the love of food itself, and in JGold’s case, a genuine and deep love for the city of LA. We don’t know exactly why Lucky Peach closed, but as with the closings of other David Chang enterprises like Ma Peche, Ando, etc., I think it probably didn’t make financial sense for DC, and he made a hard and unpopular decision that probably burned some bridges. By that token, though, I don’t think JGold was petty in how he wrote his review – he wasn’t a perfect restaurant critic, but he had more sense and wisdom than that, and I truly read his Majordomo review as a careful evaluation of its merits and weaknesses.

In the end, like Glenn said, all of this is relatively meaningless… we can only hope that LA finds a new generation of great food writers to carry on Jonathan Gold’s legacy, and that David Chang and other chefs work collaboratively with the food media for the greater good.

I don’t often disagree with jgold but I do think that review completely missed the mark and sort of missed the point of what DC was trying to do with MD, which is take some favorites from diverse Asian cuisines, make them to an outstanding but not best in class level while keeping the accessibility level up, and wrapping it all up in a sexy package with a beautiful venue, good service, and an excellent wine/food program. There’s nothing in LA similar imo and it is worlds better than fusion and/or Asian inspired places like Cassia on which JG heaped praise. Are the galbi jjim as good as sun nong dang? Absolutely not. But they’re 90+% as good, and it’s a beautiful venue that id take clients to that still has fantastic food. There’s no rude waitstaff, my choices of beverages aren’t Korean tea, coke, or Diet Coke, and I don’t have to write my name on a whiteboard and get deleted from the list if I step away for 30 seconds at the wrong time. I generally agreed with the majority of JG’s reviews but not that one.

wow… was thinking of writing a snarky response that I think you left off that the typical ktown beverage options also include soju, OB, Hite in case you wanted to really seal the deal with clients… but duly noted that at least your opinions have been consistent:

I don’t think I could disagree more profoundly with what I feel is your mis-interpretation of both JGold’s complex review and the relationship between Majordomo and ktown cuisine, but setting that aside, my point was more that I had an issue with what I felt like was David Chang’s frankly childish overreaction to the LA times review, which said a lot about who he is/was and how he approached opening a restaurant in this city. Stirring contrast to instead listen to Roy Choi and Sang Yoon both talk about how they and other LA chefs felt about Jonathan Gold, in Evan Kleiman’s heartfelt tribute episode of the Good Eats podcast for KCRW, posted yesterday for what would have been JG’s 58th birthday:

As a NYer who has long been frustrated with LA restaurants, mostly because they just don’t get the hospitality part, I was fascinated with two recent reviews. Verspertine which I could absolutely tell Jonathan Gold did not love and he was coming at it from a person who wanted to Champion the LA food scene. If you have not eaten at Verspertine (I have) you will have a hard time understanding what I mean. The second was obviously Majordōmo and to me that was him pushing David Chang to be better because he knows that he is extremely talented and he is the only one that could write that review.

For something he didn’t love, he put it at #1 in 2017 for his top 101 list.

I know, I know, truly perplexing. If I had ever been in his presence again I would have loved to discuss this review. We will never know…

Amazing tribute from so many around the City. Its almost unfathomable, the number and significance of the buildings that went Gold. Very moving.

Honestly I couldn’t care less what David Chang thought about the review, I was specifically critiquing the review itself. I thought he was wrong when he wrote the review and think he’s still wrong now. I’m sad that he died but that doesn’t posthumously make his review any more correct.

There was a reason it was the hardest table to get in LA for months and is still extremely popular despite its less than optimal location. Imo it was exactly the restaurant LA needed, bringing pan-Asian cuisine to a broader audience.

You can’t really compare it to “high end” Asian restaurants in K-town and the SGV because they aren’t trying to do the same thing and they’re geared toward a completely different clientele. I think DC knew exactly what he was doing and nailed it. I’ll also comment that I’ve definitely spent more money at Park’s, Gwang Yang, Chosun Galbi, Newport Seafood, Hi de Lao, and Meizhou Dongpo than I have at Majordomo, and enjoyed them less. I completely agree with JG that the best iterations of their relative cuisines are found at lower priced venues in their respective areas. Yet for the most part JG lauded the restaurants I just mentioned (meizhou got a somewhat lukewarm review, but better than what majordomo got).

Could you argue that JG holds dc to a higher standard and reviewed accordingly? Sure, but I’m not sure that’s helpful to the average person that’s going to eat there.

I also don’t get the vespertine review at all, nor do I honestly get vespertine, fwiw.