The wondrous complexity of Los Angeles makes it America’s most compelling dining city. As with restaurant cultures around the world, our chefs, restaurateurs and their staffs have faced unprecedented challenges during the pandemic crisis. To sustain the industry, takeout has become the lifeline of restaurants — the necessary means into which our best culinary minds funnel their creativity and maintain a sense of community with diners.
Here are more than 100 restaurants where my colleagues Patricia Escárcega, Jenn Harris, Lucas Kwan Peterson, Garrett Snyder and I have savored takeout since the mid-March shutdown. The list encapsulates the foods that make eating in Southern California singular: kebabs and Iranian stews, smothered oxtails, Ethiopian vegetable platters, regional Mexican and Chinese specialties (including Oaxacan tlayudas, peerless Sonoran flour tortillas, Sichuan toothpick lamb and Macao-style pork buns, for starters), pizza and pasta, Syrian kibbeh. Our palates still travel the globe from our tables at home.
In uncertain times, a carne asada taco or jeweled chirashi bowl can shift a mood, calm a storm, recast the day. For more recommendations, visit latimes.com/food and sign up for our weekly Tasting Notes newsletter. Those who feed us from restaurant kitchens and serve us from takeout windows (or deliver our meals) are on the front lines; please remember to tip generously.
— Bill Addison, restaurant critic
Food Bowl Takeout and Give Back is making financial contributions to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Please show your support and donate now.
