There’s never been a better moment or place to be a food lover than right now in Southern California. Emerging from the pandemic with high ambitions, perseverance and unbounded creativity, L.A. food culture, with its innovators and stalwarts, its traditions and native dishes, is undeniably the country’s most dynamic and diverse.
We come to this conclusion as both observers of the culture and as two of its agents, the general manager and the editor of L.A. Times Food. Today, after months of brainstorming, planning, strategizing — and lots of eating — we are happy to announce our official relaunch of L.A. Times Food, with the best in Southern California restaurants, recipes and food news, plus live and virtual food events.
Our renewed mission is to bring together and reignite a community of eaters and cooks who are passionate about our region’s awe-inspiring cuisines and cultures. We aim to give you a daily serving of the most exciting and relevant stories about the chefs, growers, drink makers, grocers and other personalities shaping the way we eat and cook now.
We’ve been building toward this moment throughout the year, and we hope you’ve already noticed. Our terrific staff writers, columnists and contributors have been generating some of the best work in food journalism, including pieces on the fight for survival waged by Salvadoran street food vendors against the city of L.A., the social media food influencer economy and zero-waste restaurants, as well as an expanded slate of dining guides on everything from classic Mexican restaurants to a personal tour of the best Chinese doughnuts to a dip into savory rice porridge. And, of course, our biggest guide of the year, critic Bill Addison’s 101 Best Restaurants in L.A.
Food editor Daniel Hernandez, left, Food general manager Laurie Ochoa and deputy Food editor Betty Hallock at Mariscos Jalisco in Los Angeles.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Much of our coverage will revolve around our recently completed L.A. Times Test Kitchen at the paper’s El Segundo campus, where cooking columnist Ben Mims develops some of his most inventive recipes and kitchen coordinator Julie Giuffrida brings us the best of our recipe archives. Already, we’ve brought in Alta chef Keith Corbin and Black Pot Supper Club founder and chef Martin Draluck; in the coming months, you can expect to see chef residencies, workshops, cooking classes and a cookbook club as we make key hires and introduce new voices. On our digital homepages, we’ve been testing and honing new features meant to enhance your direct participation with our stories, including opening comments on our recipes so you can interact with our staff and one another on our most popular how-tos. The relaunch also brings a visual retooling, headed by our ace new editors in art and photography. And there’s much more to come.
We hope you will join us. In the kitchen, on the street, and from the ground up, L.A. Times Food strives to bring you the very best in what makes our food culture thrive and shine. Hope you’re hungry!
— Laurie Ochoa and Daniel Hernandez
Meet the L.A. Times Food staff
It’s a new year, and we’ve got a few new faces. Our team spent an afternoon with Los Angeles Times staff photographer Ricardo DeAratanha to capture these portraits.
