Tom Yum Aguachile, part of the tasting menu at Evil Cooks Kamikaze
“It's like a fresh food bar with pizza,” chef Josh Skenes casually says of Leopard, the popular Los Angeles restaurant that opened in the historic location of Nancy Silverton's La Brea Bakery flagship.
On a Tuesday night in the Leopard's dining room, celebrity chefs, TV personality, podcasters and various hospitality stars are flocking to dine on expertly prepared tilefish crudo and purple sea urchin stuffed with tuna, and waffles topped with wild caviar cured with bacon salt are piled high on many tables.
Leopard's pizzas, including the sweet and spicy “Hello Satan,” have light, bright crusts with just the right amount of bounce, and the whole grilled white fish is a reminder that Skenes excels at preparing seafood, that he understands the difference between umami and deep flavors, and that combining both can be done to great effect.
Leopard's tagline is “A new take on the familiar,” a sign that Skenes, who rose to fame in San Francisco with his live-fire fine-dining restaurant Saison, knows what kind of food is in demand in Los Angeles.
Leopardo's Hello Satan Pizza.
A few days later, we visited Yang's Kitchen in Alhambra for dinner. Chef Christian Yang's hearty dishes, such as Hainanese fish (barramundi) rice, Santa Carota beef cheek stew (slowly braised in red wine like the European classic), smoked pork jowl char siu, and dan dan noodles, taste familiar yet new. This is the kind of thoughtful, elegant comfort food that will magically appeal to both Chinese purists and fans of California's new brasseries. (Not coincidentally, Yang once worked under Cassia's boss, Bryant Tong, at The Spice Table.) Every bite tastes pure Los Angeles.
A few days later we headed to El Sereno for the Kamikaze tasting menu at Evil Cooks.
Run by heavy-metal enthusiasts and 2024 James Beard Award semifinalists Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta, Evil Cooks is best known for their popular Smorgasburg stand, but these chefs' skills go beyond the ordinary. As they explain their tasting menu, “Why call it Kamikaze? Because we don't plan the menu, it's a suicide mission. We let the food speak and use our memories and the years of our careers to create exciting dishes.”
Young's Kitchen's smoked pork jowl char siu.
At this latest Kamikaze, Garcia paid tribute to Huerta and her culinary memories with a series of clever, playful and loving dishes. On the eve of her birthday, Garcia treated Huerta and guests to a seven-course menu that included pepperoni pizza croissants, tomahawk steak nigiri and chorizo dumplings. Huerta's favorite dish is also our favorite: a spectacular tom yum aguachile, with shrimp and scallops in a scallop shell. Again, it was quintessential Los Angeles in every bite, a perfect new interpretation of a familiar dish, with the perfect balance of savory, spicy, sweet and sea-y goodness.
On June 22nd, top chefs like Evil Cooks, Barrio Cantina, and Macheen's Jonathan Perez will collaborate for the second year on The Disciples of the Corn, a 32-course dinner representing all 32 Mexican states. It's a vibrant, freewheeling culinary ambition in Los Angeles, a city that never stops rewriting the script.
