Michelle Huneven

In 1972, I took my first job in the real world: waiting tables at Ruth‘s Hickory Mountain Restaurant in Siler City, North Carolina. I’d moved to North Carolina to live on a farm with my boyfriend, grow organic vegetables, raise dairy goats and revel in a backwoods squalor that stupefied......

Twenty-five years ago, when Johnny Romoglia waited tables at Ma Maison, Rex Harrison was one of his regular customers. Harrison insisted that Romoglia looked just like Toulouse-Lautrec — except that the famous French Post-Impressionist was a foot or two shorter. To remedy this discrepancy, Romoglia always knelt to take Harrison’s......

When we walk into Cafe Citron on Lemon Avenue in Monrovia, the first thing we see is a voluptuous display of frozen desserts: A dark black-cherry gelato bursts with huge, wine-dark ripe cherries; embedded in snowy-white coconut sorbet are large shards of a freshly cracked coconut; plump red strawberries are......

When we walk into Cafe Citron on Lemon Avenue in Monrovia, the first thing we see is a voluptuous display of frozen desserts: A dark black-cherry gelato bursts with huge, wine-dark ripe cherries; embedded in snowy-white coconut sorbet are large shards of a freshly cracked coconut; plump red strawberries are......

Thirty years ago, when the 134 freeway became the main artery between Glendale and Pasadena, it bypassed the small foothill community of Eagle Rock, which became a town time forgot. To this day, the main commercial corridor is virtually devoid of chains and franchises, and boasts mostly merchants and local......

Thirty years ago, when the 134 freeway became the main artery between Glendale and Pasadena, it bypassed the small foothill community of Eagle Rock, which became a town time forgot. To this day, the main commercial corridor is virtually devoid of chains and franchises, and boasts mostly merchants and local......

In the world of fine dining -- and specifically in their new restaurant, Josie -- Josie Le Balch and Frank Delzio have a marriage with a perfect division of labor. An experienced, critically acclaimed chef whose resume includes the Saddle Peak Lodge, Remi and the Beach House, Le Balch takes......

For almost two years now, Koichiro Kikuchi has been single-handedly cooking dinner five nights a week at Bistro 21, a 20-seat restaurant tucked into the elbow of a La Cienega mini-mall that also houses a dry cleaner, a martial-arts studio and the Chinese restaurant Rice. The tiny bistro calls to......

For almost two years now, Koichiro Kikuchi has been single-handedly cooking dinner five nights a week at Bistro 21, a 20-seat restaurant tucked into the elbow of a La Cienega mini-mall that also houses a dry cleaner, a martial-arts studio and the Chinese restaurant Rice. The tiny bistro calls to......