Courtney Lichterman

There’s a funny, almost palpable sense of disbelief among the diners at The Bombay Frankie Company restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard, just west of the 405. A...

It’s just minutes past noon but already the San Fernando Valley sun blinds rather than illuminates, giving the air a strange, pearly yellow sheen. The heat is i...

Eric Gitter wants you to try the pistachio butter. “It’s life-changing,” promises the co-owner of specialty food store Epicurus Gourmet, while guiding some regulars over to the store’s tasting bar. Hillary Hirsch, one of Gitter’s co-owners, agrees with his praise of the green Ladurée spread. Although he seems to be overselling it, the butter, which tastes like a glorious mix of Nutella and heavy cream, does actually seem like something that could change one’s life....

Anyone who’s ever purchased a new car knows that between the haggling, the credit checks and whatever else it is car dealers are doing with all that paperwork, the process can easily eat up an entire day. For that reason, a dealership in the San Fernando Valley has run a full-service restaurant for more than 50 years, and although it was originally constructed as a place to kill time, it’s become a sentimental staple of the neighborhood. Not only is it a place to get reliably great food, it’s also a great lesson in the value of inspirational leadership....

Deep in the core of North Hollywood, on a stretch that feels as if it’s composed entirely of storage unit facilities and wholesale kitchen granite warehouses, sits a gas station where most of the people parked at pumps aren’t getting gas. Instead, they’re inside at Cilantro Mexican Grill, a small restaurant run by chef Adolfo Perez, an alumnus of the Pasadena branch of Le Cordon Bleu culinary school....