Jessica Koslow

Born and raised in New York, sometimes Tad Yenawine wanted was a good slice of pizza. It was the main reason he opened Purgatory Pizza in the area that he refers to as Boyle Flats, the red-headed stepchild of Boyle Heights.

“In 2000, I bought the building because I was doing construction projects and I also have a bad habit of collecting cars and motorcycles,” Yenawine began. “The neighborhood still had no density, so if you wanted to start a retail business, this is the opposite of where you should do it. There was a restaurant in the front and it served Chinese food, but when you sell a literal mountain of Chinese food for $3, you’re relying on volume, and when there are no people, you don’t get that volume. I wanted to preserve the use and the value in the building, and I couldn’t get a good slice of pizza to save my life, so in 2007, I got together with a buddy, and we redeveloped recipes — and that was that.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Celebrated director Gore Verbinski and accomplished screenwriter Matthew Robinson have more in common than their Hollywood careers. They both love NORMS, which has served Californians as a 24/7 iconic neighborhood diner since 1949.

Most recently, Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”) and Robinson The Invention of Lying”) teamed up on the film “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” which hit theaters Feb. 13. NORMS played a feature role in the film: “It had about 20-25 minutes of screen time,” said Ingrid Martinez, VP of Marketing at NORMS.

Love for NORMS runs deep for both filmmakers. Gore frequented NORMS on La Cienega while at UCLA School of Theater, Film and television, and Robinson conceived the narrative while dining there. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

On Sept. 12, 2025, the Hoxton Hotel debuted a new Mediterranean-themed restaurant, Inanna Bar, on its 34th floor. One of its best offerings is off the menu: panoramic skyline views of Los Angeles.

Darryl Jenkins, director of food and beverage for Inanna Bar, joined the team in August and was tasked with opening the concept that the owners had created.

“For the start of the project, we were serving mostly dips and snacks, and now we’re leaning into more entrees using our wood-fired grills,” Jenkins said. “We have grilled lamb chops on the menu, a beautiful branzino that’s cooked on our open fire. We’re doing roasted chicken breast and using the wood-fired grill to push the spring menu with lighter eats but still offering the hummus and dips. We’re making the menu a little more versatile and dinner forward.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

North Italia is located right across the street from Garage 6 on Second Street in Santa Monica. In this part of town, directions are often given by where people can park. The authentic Italian restaurant is also just around the corner from the Promenade, which is nice, according to Regional Chef Sammy Sleman, “because we’re kind of tucked away, it makes us feel a little bit more neighborhood-y versus in a busy touristy spot.”

“The cool thing about Santa Monica is it’s a mix of everything,” he explained. “We have local residents who live close by, and we have a lot of tourists. They’re coming in from all over the world. We love that mix. It keeps us on our toes because we have new clientele that comes in often, a lot of first-time guests. We really like to wow them and make sure they have an awesome experience.”

Next year marks a decade that North Italia in Santa Monica has been open for business. Sleman joined the brand 13 years ago when it included just six restaurants. Today it consists of 50 nationwide. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Thibaud Duccini grew up in Cannes, a city in the South of France that he refers to as hospitality-forward. He credits its “touristiness” with exposing him to what would become his career path, a passion that stayed with him when he moved to LA 16 years ago.

“There’s a lot of restaurants and hotels in Cannes,” explained Duccini, who opened The Wine Station in August 2025. “When you’re in high school, during the summertime you work in restaurants to make money and that’s how I got introduced to the hospitality business. I’ve worked in hospitality since I was 16.”

Duccini’s first job in LA was working with the Patina Group for 7 years, where he was put in charge of the wine program. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

According to Zach Brooks, general manager of Smorgasburg LA, there is no better way to enjoy the city of LA than through its food. Brooks has tested this worldview in other cities as well, such as New York, where he began his food writing career with the launch of a website called Midtown Lunch.

It was while running this venture that he met the founders of Smorgasburg New York, which started about 15 years ago.

“Originally, it was the Brooklyn Flea, before there were a lot of hipster flea markets,” Brooks explained. “They were one of the first in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, and it had a little bit of food. The food became so popular that when they got an opportunity to launch a second event, they decided to focus on food, and they called it Smorgasburg because the original one was in Williamsburg.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios, owners of Merka Saltao, the new Peruvian restaurant in Culver City, met in elementary school and became fast friends. As the years progressed, so did their careers — but in different directions.

Franco ran hostels, offering tourists 300 beds from Lima to Cusco, hosting 1% of all Peruvian tourism each year and reaching the rank of No. 3 hostel in the world by Hostelworld. Barrios was a celebrated chef in Lima who ran collaborative kitchens and appeared in his own TV show on a local food network.

When the pandemic hit, the two reconnected. Because people were not traveling as much or getting together as often, the two successful entrepreneurs decided to start from scratch and build something aligned with their goals and passions: Peruvian food in the United States. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

When asked about the origin of Truly Pizza, the wildly popular pizza place in Dana Point, co-founder John Arena mused about the humor of how things always seem to come full circle.

As the story goes, Arena moved to Las Vegas with his cousin in 1980 to open a tiny pizzeria. He had picked up a few tips and tricks growing up in his family’s shop in New York and wanted to launch out on his own.

“When I was a young child, my dad always worked two jobs,” Arena said. “He was a New York City factory worker by day and after his shift, he would go straight to our family-owned pizzeria and work late into the night. By the time he came home, I was always asleep, but without fail my dad would come to my room to kiss me goodnight. After a night of cooking, his clothes would take on the aroma of pizza. For my entire life the fragrance of pizza has conjured up the love of family and a commitment to the beautiful heritage of the world’s greatest communal food.” . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

It’s Veterans Day, the Tuesday after their grand opening weekend, and Jessica Christopher and Michelle Taylor, the owners of Altadena Cookie Co., are taking stock of their good fortune in a year that saw a lot of bad fortune. The store is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and the cases are fresh out of inventory, but the two entrepreneurs could not be happier.

“It was overwhelmingly positive and overwhelming in the amount of people that came in,” Taylor said. “It was really touching because a lot of people were saying that they’ve been following us, and this is giving us hope.”

The hope is referring to the atmosphere in the aftermath of the January wildfires in Altadena that destroyed more than 7,000 structures, including Taylor’s home. Before opening a brick and mortar, the two women who met at a mommy and me group ran their business out of their homes. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

In France, food is more than a meal; it is a ritual. This is the gospel according to Maxence (Max) Bouvier, the 29-year-old co-owner of OH LA LA, the French-Californian café on East Colorado Boulevard.

“Usually an average dinner is twice as long as what you experience here in the U.S.,” he explained. “It’s really something very important in the French culture.”

Inspired by his native French love of food and the desire to share it with his community, one year ago Bouvier opened OH LA LA with his business partner, Thomas Kocer. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.