Jessica Koslow

Fried Sweet Potato Slices at Upper West

Zagat has spoken: Los Angeles was the most exciting food city in America in 2017. And many of the restaurants and chefs putting L.A. at the top of the Zagat list actually work in Santa Monica, which makes the city perfectly suited to host its own Restaurant Week.

Unlike other such culinary programs that focus on meal discounts, Santa Monica Restaurant Week celebrates Santa Monica’s healthy eating scene. The city boasts four weekly farmers markets that are packed three days a week: Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. And Santa Monica is, after all, a popular tourist destination where locals can bike ride, roller skate, surf, swim and paddleboard all year round. Eating well is the way
to live here.

Spanning Jan. 8 to 14, Santa Monica Restaurant Week has more than 30 restaurants across eight neighborhoods offering at least one dish that features a special ingredient available this winter at any of the city’s farmers markets. It could have been blood orange, cauliflower, kale, or the tangerine, but this year Santa Monica Travel & Tourism picked the pomegranate: a ruby-red fruit that’s rich in Vitamin C and antioxidants. …

Read the full article at The Argonaut.

Nutella Panettone French Toast

‘Tis the season to be jolly. But judging by Angie Corrente’s bright smile, she’s happy year-round.

She grins while talking to a talent manager about hanging local art on her walls. She bristles with excitement when describing Eastern European menu items like pelmeni and vareniki. And she overflows with enthusiasm when discussing the live music lineup at her restaurant, and her and her husband’s handmade contributions — like the tables, floors, aprons and sewn-denim cushions.

Corrente and husband Stanislav Mayzalis are the founders and owners of Doma Kitchen, which occupies the former Panini Grill space in the Villa Marina Marketplace Mall.

“Our food is gorgeous,” she gushes. “Every dish is beautiful as well as tasty.”

Doma Kitchen takes holiday eating seriously. …

Read the full article at The Argonaut.

Photo by Courtnay Robbins

Without many words, Jonathan Weiss communicates volumes through his cooking. He’s in the kitchen every day at 2:30 a.m., preparing 1,000 catered meals for the surrounding business community. He greets and often hugs his customers at Big Mango Café, a successful restaurant he co-owns with partner Adam Drucker on Waterfront Drive. He’s worked alongside master chefs including Wolfgang Puck, Julia Child and Border Grill co-founder Susan Feniger.

And if you don’t pay close enough attention when ordering at the counter, you might not realize that Jonathan Weiss is deaf.

Weiss’ culinary education began as a kid in his grandfather’s British pub, The Fox and Hounds.

“He’s been in the kitchen since five minutes after he was born,” jokes Drucker, who often stands by his partner, listening to him and translating. Weiss speaks, but is liable to not be understood, and reads lips.

“His grandfather was a huge influence on him,” Drucker says. “He pushed him to speak, to read lips and to cook like a champion.”

Read the full article at Playa Vista Direct.

Photo Courtesy of Kristian Vallas

“There’s an old joke in the industry,” Chris Carver, Neighbor’s director of operations, says smiling. “When it comes to restaurants, only three things matter: location, location, location.”

Enter Abbot Kinney Boulevard, where there’s a place to get a bite or a drink at almost every step. And Neighbor, in the spot where Willie Jane operated for eight years until November 2016, is one of the newest restaurants to open. It’s just a few doors down from Felix Trattoria, which occupies the space where Joe’s Restaurant stood for 24 years.

“It feels good to launch a concept on a street that is a real destination,” says Neighbor owner Kristian Vallas. “I’ve lived in the neighborhood for about 17 years, so it’s special to create an experience for our friends and neighbors, many who live in walking distance.”

Carver, who helped open downtown L.A.’s Bestia and has worked hands-on with Bill Chait (The Rose, Republique) over the last nine years, says the street’s built-in competition begs the question: “What do we do to separate ourselves from the hoard?” …

Read the full article at The Argonaut.

Drunken Noodles at unity la

Put the words airport, hotel and food together and you aren’t usually talking about an unforgettable meal. But that’s just what Hyatt Regency Los Angeles International Airport’s new three-in-one dining concept — the conspicuously un-capitalized unity la market, bar and restaurant — aims to serve. Their motto, “unquestionably un-airport,” says it all.

The average stay of a visitor at the Hyatt Regency is one day. The hotel’s mission is to expose guests to L.A.’s diverse food scene without them having to leave the building.

“We want to give people a sense of where they were for a short amount of time,” says Charles Fusco, executive chef at unity la.

The unity la menu is currently divided into the fare of six neighborhoods: Thai Town, Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights, East L.A., Santa Monica and Sunset Strip. In East L.A., chicken mole is plated with chorizo potato hash. Boyle Heights showcases charred corn salad and crispy pork belly. Santa Monica offers up fish tacos and California salad, with roasted kabocha squash. The Drunken Noodles from Thai Town is a take on a traditional Thai hangover cure, shares Fusco. …

Read the full article at The Argonaut.

On a cone, in a cup, between two cookies or even inside a waffle taco shell, ice cream in all of its many incarnations remains the official treat of summer. And these days, Baskin-Robbins and Ben & Jerry’s aren’t the only game in town.

Ice cream shops specializing in house-made, artisanal, organic, sustainable and locally sourced frozen confections are popping up throughout the Westside.

Let’s call it The Golden Age of Ice Cream: a whole new crop of boutique shops is attracting lines out the door with adoring fans willing to wait, often late into the night, for some of the richest, most decadent flavors that ice cream lovers have ever tasted.

Beat the heat and treat yourself to one of these 13 standout frozen treats. …

Read the full article at The Argonaut.

Photo by Emily Hart Roth

One look at Margaret Schniderman’s face — her bright green eyes, beaming smile and ginger-colored hair — and it’s easy to see why she picked radiant yellow to dominate Ginger’s Divine Ice Creams, her new ice cream shop on West Washington Boulevard. Three yellow umbrellas, yellow door frames, yellow chairs … the list goes on.

“Yellow is a happy color,” Schniderman, whose nickname is Ginger, explains. “I want it to feel like a little break in here. A treat. A vacation spot.”

While Schniderman is no stranger to retail, this is her first foray into the food business. Born and raised in Santa Monica, she and her husband bought DNA Clothing on Rose Avenue in 1996. Although incredibly popular with locals, the one-of-its-kind-for-some-time boutique on Rose shut its doors in January 2016.

About two years before DNA closed, Schniderman began thinking about ice cream. In 2014, she attended an ice cream making program at University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the top two ice cream programs in the country along with Penn State. She worked in a dairy plant in the dead of winter with temperatures of 20 below, and followed that experience with a one-year gelato program in L.A.

Finally, Ginger’s Divine Ice Creams opened its doors in late January. …

Read full article at The Argonaut.