Health

Garlic sauce has gone mainstream, with the condiment reaching far beyond Lebanese restaurants to American grocery stores such as Costco and Trader Joe’s. (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) The condiment shelf in my refrigerator is a chaotic place. I am no Marie Kondo, but I could argue that each jar, squeeze bottle and tube … Read more

Plenty of L.A. restaurants are supplying takeout spreads or offering festive dinner menus for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, including Michael Mina’s Orla restaurant in Santa Monica, where dessert might include a tableside dessert with a baklava-and-Greek yogurt sundae. (Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Holiday pop-ups have taken over some of L.A.’s favorite bars and other venues, including Frosty’s Christmas Bar in Hollywood. (We Love Pop Ups)

Review: L.A.’s most polarizing restaurant returns after four years. Is its outlandishness worth the splurge? No restaurant in the history of Los Angeles has been dissected, derided and defended like Vespertine, the modernistic experiment housed in the four-story Culver City building called “Waffle” by its architect, Eric Owen Moss. From the outset in 2017, chef … Read more

Want to eat at all the best restaurants in L.A.? Start here For 12 years, The Times has released an annual guide to the 101 most remarkable restaurants in Los Angeles. The ranked list provides a snapshot of the the most vital places in our city’s dining scene, from newcomers to stalwarts and every cuisine … Read more

Every 101 Best L.A. Restaurants list since they began in 2013 For decades, this paper has entrusted its restaurant critics with the job of deciding the city’s best restaurants. In the 1990s, critic Ruth Reichl, followed by S. Irene Virbila, put together Top 40 Restaurants, an unranked list of the year’s best “special occasion places,” … Read more

The Rose, which has served millions of customers since its founding in 1979, will close Dec. 15. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) This month a local landmark is expected to close in Venice: The Rose, né the Rose Café, lived a few culinary lives during its 45-year run. It opened as a charming cafe … Read more

The best cookbooks of 2024 The year 2024 had us hugging our cookbooks. They brought us solace, nostalgia, inspiration, delight, reclamation, beauty and deliciousness when much of the rest of the world seemed to offer only chaos. Our list of favorites for 2024 includes something for every kind of food book lover. Recipes came from … Read more

(Courtesy of Clarkson Potter.) I’m curled up with one of my favorite cookbooks of the year, “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts” by writer Crystal Wilkinson. Wilkinson is former poet laureate from Kentucky and a member of the Affrilachian Poets collective who has helped shift perceptions of Appalachian culture and rural Black America. Her writing about … Read more

Americans will throw out 316 million pounds of food on Thanksgiving. Here’s how it fuels climate change Each day, an army of trucks delivers tens of thousands of pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables to Mexico City’s Central de Abasto, one of the world’s largest wholesale food markets. Most of the produce finds its way … Read more