Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants

Daikokuya
Parts of Los Angeles, currently experiencing a ramen phase, have become warrens of secret ramen parlors and shiny ramen chains, high-end ramen in supermarket food courts and low-rent ramen in Beverly Hills, ramen thick with MSG and even self-described molecular-gastronomy ramen, which comes in chicken soup. We’ve heard all the arguments about authenticity — one of the area’s most active food bloggers writes about nothing else — and we’ve seen Tampopo too many times to count. But when the yen for ramen strikes, you’ll usually find us at Daikokuya, set-decorated to resemble something from an old Imamura movie, where the broth is made from carefully simmered Kurobuta pork bones, the noodles have both snap and vigor, the tiny gyoza are plump, and the condiment jars on each table are filled with pure, minced garlic. (Ask for your ramen “kotteri-style,” with extra-rich broth.) Some connoisseurs may try to talk you out of Daikokuya, but they’re wrong. Let them gripe: It means the line will be that much shorter after a concert at Disney Hall up the street. 327 E. First St., dwntwn., (213) 626-1680. Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-mid., Fri.-Sat., 11 p.m.-1 a.m., Sun., noon-8 p.m. Beer, wine. Takeout. Street parking. AE, MC, V. 

* Drago Centro
If you should happen to wander through the sprawling kitchens of Celestino Drago’s newest restaurant, you are likely to see the chef up to his elbow in one kind of carcass or another, surrounded by a heap of pigeons to be boned out, or preparing elaborate salmis that may never make it onto a menu. Some chefs love to parade through dining rooms, but Drago — whose style is defined by a light touch, wild flavors and deftness with fresh pasta — is never happier than when his starched chef whites are spattered with blood.

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Anne Fishbein

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Angeli Caffe

7274 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Hollywood

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Angelini Osteria

7313 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Melrose/ Beverly/ Fairfax

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Drago Centro, carved out of a former bank in a Bunker Hill office plaza, is a new kind of restaurant for Drago, less specifically Italian than Italian-inflected, perhaps less driven by the good, handcrafted pasta than by crisped risotto with octopus tentacles, truffle-crusted chicken, and steaks sourced from the one guy in America ranching real Piemontese cattle, less by the veal chop — though it is very good — than by foie gras crème caramel. Since the 1930s, the grandest restaurants in L.A. have tended to be run by Italians whose menus respect few borders. Drago Centro is a new sort of luxury restaurant, skyscrapers blazing outside the big windows, wine towers reaching to the sky, a grand gesture that seems to be exactly what downtown needs. 525 S. Flower St., dwntwn., (213) 228-8998, dragocentro.com. Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Mon.-Sat., 5:30-10:30 p.m. Full bar. Evening valet parking on Figueroa between 5th and 6th streets, includes free shuttle to Staples Center, Music Center or Nokia Theatre. AE, MC, V, DC, D.

8 oz. Burger Bar
Hammered by poor reviews in Manhattan and the closing of his Miami restaurant, with his new Los Angeles Table 8 still nowhere to be seen, hometown hero Govind Armstrong is in a rebuilding phase. But his 8 oz. is still rocking on, a loud, cheery hamburger bar where solace may be found in a mug of microbrew or a perfect rye Manhattan, a plate of chicken-confit buffalo wings or little wagyu-beef cocktail-weenie corn dogs, fried potato skins sprinkled with truffle salt or a grilled cheese sandwich stuffed with braised short ribs. The burgers are of the drippy, bloody school, especially the burger made with roasted mushrooms and grass-fed beef — if you concentrate, you can taste every blade. Is it a drag to pay a buck extra for ketchup, no matter how organic, heirloom and artisanal it may be? Kind of. But there are s’more tarts for dessert. 7661 Melrose Ave., W. Hlywd., (323) 852-0008. Sun., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Mon.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-mid. Bar open until 2 a.m.

El Huarache Azteca
Highland Park is developing as the local center of chilango cooking, with a half-dozen restaurants specializing in the meats and snacks from the area around Mexico City. El Huarache Azteca was the first, and its huaraches are still the industry standard: concave troughs of fried masa piled high with beans, meat and soured Mexican cream — the cabeza, meat from a roasted cow’s head, is probably the way to go, and the house green salsa is splendid. Weekends are probably the best time to visit the cramped storefront, joining the families guzzling gallons of house-made horchata and watermelon drink at the pol cloth–covered tables or picking up tacos and sopes by the dozen to bring home to their families. Don’t miss the burning-hot huitlacoche quesadillas — fried turnovers stuffed with musky, jet-black corn fungus — made on weekends by a stone-faced woman who mans a fry cart outside the entrance. 5225 York Blvd., Highland Park, (323) 478-9572. Open daily 9 a.m.-10:30 p.m. No alcohol. Street parking. Takeout. Cash only.

El Parian
For almost 20 years, many of us were sure that El Parian served nothing but birria, Guadalajara-style roasted goat in a consommé made from its amplified drippings, because when you sat down at one of the well-battered tables, the waitress didn’t offer you a menu, she simply asked whether you were having a full order or were only hungry enough for a small bowl. Well that, and the fact that the chips and salsa were worse than anything you could find outside a Del Taco. El Parian’s superb birria ranks amongst the best regional Mexican dishes in L.A., but the kitchen was clearly not into multitasking. Then Chowhound posters discovered the carne asada tacos, and El Parian began to pull a crowd of people less interested in goat than in the sweet, garlicky charbroiled steak. The taco people are eating well — the carne asada is well blackened and peppered with delicious pockets of liquified fat, and the thick corn tortillas are strictly homemade. 1528 W. Pico Blvd., L.A., (213) 386-7361. Open daily 8 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Beer. Takeout. Cash only.