Adam Fleischman

New Online Dining Club: Truffl

It's arguable whether we've fully arrived at Web 3.0, but there has been a progression in the recent history of online companies trying to bring us food and drink -- whether as a product or through an event. Foodzie morphed from an online marketplace to shop for small-batch products into the web equ ... More >>

Roadhouse L.A.: A New BBQ Concept From Umami Restaurant Group

Umami Restaurant Group, in partnership with Levity Entertainment Group, this is not a pop-up and chef Robbie Richter, will be opening a new restaurant this year at the Improv in West Hollywood. Roadhouse L.A. ostensibly is a barbecue concept, although the players involved hope to take barbecue to a ... More >>

800 Degrees Opening in Santa Monica this Fall

A new 800 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria will set up its wood-burning oven in Santa Monica this fall, just a little over a year after the first one opened its doors in Westwood Village. Slated for a 5,000-square-feet space at 120 Wilshire Boulevard, the latest outpost will feature a take-out area and a ... More >>

Umami Burger Gets $20 Million Investment, Plans World Domination

Nation's Restaurant News is reporting that Umami Burger has received a $20 million investment from New York-based Fortress Investment Group. The investment is being characterized as a "direct loan." The article goes on to say:

Umami Burger Pasadena Now Open

Umami Burger's Pasadena location opened yesterday, making it the 14th location of the chain -- if you count Umamicatessen. The original opening date had been slated for Oct. 17, but it seems that the restaurant took a little longer than expected to come together.

Umami Burger Opens Today at The Grove

Umami at The Grove opened today at 11 a.m., bringing the number of locations in the chain to 12, plus Umamicatessen. The new location will act as the chain's flagship. Says owner Adam Fleischman, "This is the start of more local food at The Grove, the mall that put mid city on the map."

Deliverance: On the Road With a Domino's Delivery Guy

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. Sixteen-year Domino's veteran Mark Porter drives like my old driver's ed instructor. In fact, Porter's maneuvering of his red Hyundai on a recent Wednesday afternoon reminds me, viscerally, of that long-ago driver's ed class. Mayb ... More >>

10 Best Pizza Restaurants in Los Angeles

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. 10. 800 Degrees Not since Bill Walton led the Bruins to a 30-0 record have UCLA students had such good reason to rejoice. Westwood's newest pizzeria, a fast-casual concept dreamed up by Umami guru Adam Fleischman, is open until 2 ... More >>

Life of Pie: L.A. Celebrates Its Pizza Moment

From our 2012 Restaurant Issue, celebrating everything pizza in L.A. On a Wednesday evening, 10 students sit along the counter at the Scuola di Pizza, the, yes, "School of Pizza" at L.A.'s premier pizza joint, Mozza. I'd like to say we're a varied lot, but that wouldn't be true -- we're uniformly w ... More >>

Adam Fleischman Takes Over L.A. Creamery Introduces Bizarro Flavors

Umami Burger owner Adam Fleischman has added another asset to his ever-expanding food empire, which includes 800 Degrees Pizza and Red Medicine, acquiring an ownership stake in the 2-year-old, Chatsworth-based L.A. Creamery. Fleischman plans to expand distribution (the ice cream is already availab ... More >>

Umami Burger's Fancy "Pink Slime" Burger

This morning the mad meat scientists over at Umami Burger announced their most Frankenstein creation yet: a gourmet "Pink Slime" burger that will debut at the Taste of the Nation Los Angeles on June 10. In fact, this particular specimen above was whipped in founder Adam Fleischman's home kitchen. Yu ... More >>

Cochon 555: "Porkapalooza" Hits the House of Blues

If the air seemed a bit heavier with the scent of bacon along the Sunset Strip last night, it was due to the pork-centric carnival that rolled through the House of Blues on Sunday: the second annual L.A. stopover in the nationwide Cochon 555 tour, an event combining five chefs, five whole heritage-b ... More >>

Phil Rosenthal, Creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, on His Journey Through the World of Food

March Roundup of Restaurant Openings and Closings: Endless Tequila, Beer & More

Springtime is upon us -- you can tell by the pastel-colored clothing and cocktails around town. Hopeful newbies and restaurant industry pros to look out for this season include, Japanese ramen noodle shop owner/comedian Menji Miyata, bibimbap peddler/Bibigo project manager Matthew Kim, mixologist Sa ... More >>

[Updated] UCLA's Science & Food Series: Or, Why There's A Modernist in Your Soup (or at Your Dinner Table)

Update: The lovely folks at UCLA have just told us that there are still spots available for the June 9 lectures. Maybe go reserve one now. General admission is $20; UCLA students get in free with a valid student ID. This semester is a pretty good time to be a "non-science student" at UCLA: 50 lucky ... More >>

Waiter-Free Dining? Umami Expands to the Grove and Westwood With "U-Mini"

Adam Fleischman is a busy man with seven Umami locations throughout California, the launch of Umamicatessen downtown and recent announcements of the chain's expansion to Westwood (this summer) and the Grove. With the restaurateur's roots already established in Westwood Village, 800 Degrees opened ... More >>

Umamicatessen: Meating Place

A "soft open," in restaurant parlance, is a kind of dress-rehearsal period, wherein the establishment throws open its doors and hopes for a manageable trickle of customers to walk in, allowing the kitchen and waitstaff to work out kinks in the menu and service. In the Twitter age, however, a soft o ... More >>

UMAMIcatessen: Now Open Photo Gallery

Up until Saturday, Broadway Street in downtown L.A. was a great place to be if you were in search of a bedazzled quinceañera dress, a solid gold watch, an art deco architecture tour, or a decent torta. But it terms of modern dining, Historic Broadway wasn't quite the hot bed of hipsterdom that the ... More >>

800 Degrees: A Sneak Peek Into Westwood's Newest Pizzeria [Photo Gallery]

If Adam Fleischman is aiming to become the Henry Ford of the pizza world, he's made a good start of it with 800 Degrees, the Westwood pizzeria he officially opens on January 3rd. It features a long counter where diners choose from dozens of toppings in a process more common to Subway or Chipotle tha ... More >>

$100 Umami Burger: Money Is No Object

V. Rathbourn​An 18-course truffle dinner for $350, a multi-chef foie gras feast for $175. What's next? A $100 truffle burger. Last week, Umami debuted the MNO Burger, as in "Money is No Object." Created by Umami owner Adam Fleischman, the MNO Burger is a variation on the ever-expanding chain ... More >>

Umami Burger to Open in Hermosa, Laguna Beach

​Umami Burger, which already has so many locations around greater L.A. we've stopped counting, announced it will open two more locations: Hermosa Beach and Laguna Beach. Located within a block of the pier, the Hermosa Beach location will open by the end of 2011. The Laguna Beach location, whic ... More >>

Q & A With Red Medicine's Jordan Kahn: Food as Art, Abstract Oddities Why Vietnamese Food

A. FrougChef Jordan Kahn plating a dessert at Red Medicine​ To the outside observer, Jordan Kahn's career doesn't make a lot of sense. He worked at some of the most prestigious restaurants in the country (The French Laundry, Alinea, XIV), the kind of places that become pilgrimage sites for the ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Umami Burger

A Recipe From the Burger King: Adam Fleischman's Pasta Rags with Marsala Sauce

A. ArmstrongAdam Fleischman's pasta with Marsala sauce​ As readers learned in the second part of Squid Ink's recent interview with Umami Burger's Adam Fleischman, the burger king (can we call him that?) likes to maintain a sense of adaptability in his projects. That adventure and experimen ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 3/28-4/1

Flickr/Lauren Manning​ In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "Whatever the current style in Los Angeles restaurants ends up being named, all of it -- from the small-plate thing to the fixation on local, organic produce; the off-center proteins to the internat ... More >>

Q & A with Adam Fleischman of Umami Burger, Part 2: the Drawbacks of Standardization, a Certain Controversy Umami Universality

photo courtesy of Adam FleischmanAdam Fleischman​ In the first part of our interview with Umami Burger founder Adam Fleischman, he discussed Umami's origin -- which coincided with L.A.'s burger mania -- how Umami Burger's going national won't change its identity, and why In-N-Out can claim rea ... More >>

Q & A with Adam Fleischman of Umami Burger, Part 1: The 5th Taste, In-N-Out The Quest for Global Domination

photo courtesy of Adam FleischmanAdam Fleischman​ Given that we're deep into Los Angeles' full-blown Golden Burger Age, with the evidence amply documented on this site, it's almost hard to remember a time before it. The burger landscape was just on its way to becoming fully fleshed out (pun in ... More >>

[Updated] Unmasked LA Times Critic Virbila Responds to Red Medicine Fracas

Update: Yesterday, December 23rd, shortly after we posted Virbila's response, her photo and the explanation of why she was booted from the restaurant were removed from Red Medicine's Tumblr site. From Red Medicine's site.​Since we broke the story yesterday that Los Angeles Times restaurant c ... More >>

Restaurant Recognizes & Outs LA Times Reviewer: Red Medicine Hates Virbila

A screen grab from Red Medicine's Tumblr site.​Restaurant reviewers like to believe they operate incognito. That's no easy task in the internet age, and it just got much more difficult for Los Angeles Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila (@sirenevribila) who was outed by an angry restaurat ... More >>

Red Medicine Update: Look, Grandma, No Ho Chi Minh

For everyone eagerly awaiting the opening of Red Medicine, the new "punk Vietnamese" restaurant coming soon to the ethnic food epicenter of Beverly Hills, you can now go get your bowls of Fugazi-inspired phở without having your Vietnamese grandmother, or your friends' Vietnamese grandmother, promp ... More >>

Y Tu Umami, Tambien: Now in Los Feliz, too

Umami Burger Expands to Los Feliz and Fred Segal Santa Monica

Umami Burger has helped spread word of the so-called "fifth taste," and now it's time for its own second and third locations. After all, the La Brea streamlined burger joint has been as packed as an ambitiously-built burger since it opened in February. Photo credit: Umami BurgerUmami: coming to a n ... More >>

The Fifth Element: The Umami Burger Challenge