Amid report restaurant closures, a number of openings and reopenings present it’s exhausting to maintain L.A. down. I’m Laurie Ochoa, basic supervisor of L.A. Instances Meals, with this week’s Tasting Notes.
Discovering pleasure — and hope — in a Japanese breakfast
Chawanmushi, the Japanese egg custard served scorching at Azay in Little Tokyo.
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Instances)
On a current Saturday morning, I ate one in every of my favourite meals in Los Angeles — one which I used to be beginning to fear I’d by no means have once more.
Much less in Little Tokyo, opened in 2019 by the late chef Akira Hirose — a pioneer in L.A.’s Franco-Japanese aesthetic going again to the Nineteen Eighties — closed final yr after a hearth in its constructing precipitated water injury within the restaurant. Renovations had been promised however because the months went on, I anxious that Azay would endure the destiny of many different eating places whose momentary closures turned everlasting.
Then got here the excellent news that in mid-December Azay would reopen for breakfast and lunch (for now, at the very least, the dinners that the proficient chef Chris Ono had begun should not occurring).
I made a reservation nearly instantly — a lot simpler to do on the revamped web site — since there’s nearly at all times a look forward to weekend walk-ins.
We had been greeted with scorching barley tea and rapidly settled right into a comforting welcome-back cup of chawanmushi, the silky egg custard served scorching with hidden bits of shrimp, enoki mushrooms and salmon roe.
I ordered the Japanese breakfast with saba, among the best plates of meals to be present in Los Angeles. The saba, or mackerel, is broiled till its pores and skin is crisply bubbled after which served with a bowl of aromatic, superbly made rice, brightly coloured Japanese pickles, a block of tender tofu drizzled with soy sauce and scallions, heat miso soup, seasonal fruit (half a Satsuma mandarin on at the present time) and the chew I at all times save for final — an expertly rolled omelet or dashimaki tamago.
After chatting with Philip HiroseAkira’s son, and stopping subsequent door on the new incarnation of his household’s Anzen {Hardware}the historic Little Tokyo store that closed in 2023 after longtime proprietor Nori Takatani retired (the shop, relocated inside California Floral Firmis an efficient place to purchase a Japanese vegetable slicer, rather more reasonably priced than a French mandoline), I left completely satisfied and optimistic concerning the new yr forward. As reporter Thomas Curwen wrote some time again in a deep dive on the neighborhood, many historic Japanese companies in Little Tokyo are disappearing or liable to closing, making the revival of Azay and Anzen {Hardware} particularly vital.
Even so, the reopenings come within the midst of a spate of distressing restaurant information.
Closures embrace L.A.’s oldest restaurant
Three weeks after restaurant critic Invoice Addison and columnist Jenn Harris got here out with their picks celebrating the 101 greatest eating places in Los Angeles, reporter Stephanie Breijo put collectively a really totally different listing. This one marked the sobering tally of 101 eating places that closed in 2025.
It was a follow-up to Breijo’s earlier report on the robust financial local weather restaurateurs are going through for various causes, together with the results of the Palisades and Altadena fires and rising labor and meals prices.
“Of the L.A. restaurateurs surveyed” by the California Restaurant Assn., wrote Breijo, “84.8% mentioned site visitors is down in contrast with final yr.”
With the brand new yr, we bought phrase of two extra vital closures. Horseswhich inhabited a historic Hollywood area and survived the notoriety of an acrimonious divorce between its two founding cooks, closed abruptly in late December. Breijo reported that the restaurant was going through vital tax liens and and constructing upkeep points.
And final week, the Authentic Saugus Cafereferred to as the longest-operating restaurant in Los Angeles County, served what many thought can be the historic spot’s remaining meal on Jan. 4. An announcement had gone out that the 139-year-old cafe, run since 1998 by Alfredo Mercado and his household, was shutting down for good. Then on Monday, as reported in a narrative by Jenn Harris and Juliana Yamada, a brand new announcement appeared on a window of the adjoining Saugus Superette saying that the cafe would reopen underneath new administration. The closure, mentioned the signal, was solely a “transient transition interval.”
Now comes phrase that the transition may embrace a authorized battle with the constructing’s landlords. As first reported by Perry Smith of the Santa Clarita Valley Sign, a regulation agency representing the Mercado household despatched a cease-and-desist letter to North Valley Building Co., run by the household of Hank Arklin Sr., who was mentioned to be on good phrases with the Mercados till his Aug. 1 demise. The Mercados say they personal the Authentic Saugus Cafe identify and wish to proceed working the restaurant or be compensated to be used of the enterprise’s identify. A consultant for Arklin household say the Mercados don’t have anything to promote. With the restaurant’s future unsure, for now the Authentic Saugus Cafe has joined the tally of notable restaurant closures.
Michaela Vuong serves meals on the Authentic Saugus Cafe throughout what many thought can be the restaurant’s final day of enterprise on Jan. 4. Vuong has labored on the cafe for about 25 years.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Instances)
New vitality in robust instances
But even with the losses documented by Breijo of so many locations I cherished — amongst them, two L.A. Instances Gold Award winners, Cassia (honored in 2019) and Put up & Beam (honored in 2020), plus Right here’s You, Yangban, Wexler’s Deli, Akasha, Papa Cristo’s, A.O.C. Brentwood, Gucci Osteriathe place Mattia Agazzi made a spectacular model of Massimo Bottura‘s tortellini, and Sang Yoon’s too-short-lived Helms Bakery — I proceed to consider within the resilience and inventiveness of Los Angeles’ cooks and restaurateurs.
Simply final week Addison reviewed two eating places, Betsy and Miyawhich, as he wrote, are “each owned by Altadena residents whose homes had been consumed in flames, and whose companies had been spared sufficient injury that they may reopen final yr.”
David Tewasart and Clarissa Chin’s Miya is among the touchstone locations I used to be awaiting indicators of restoration in Altadena — I’ve once more turn out to be a daily there for each takeout and a straightforward dinner out. And Tyler Wells’ Betsy is a welcome romantic date-night spot so wanted in a neighborhood nonetheless in restoration mode.
Tyler Wells’ reopened and renamed Altadena restaurant Betsy is bringing new life to a block surrounded by burned-out companies a yr after the Eaton hearth.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)
“They’re fully totally different locations,” Addison wrote. “Betsy falls into the class of formidable American bistro, powered by a central open fireplace. Simply throughout the road, Miya is a unusual, two-room Thai charmer with a comparatively concise menu of curries, noodles, soups, salads and greens. Geography and tragedy unite them, as does the purr of consolation inherent of their cooking.”
The week earlier than, Addison reviewed an much more formidable spot, the 10-seat Restaurant Kithe place chef Which Who? presents a contemporary Korean tasting menu. Addison referred to as it one of the best L.A. restaurant to open in 2025.
And of a noodle dish amped with concentrated Dungeness crab inventory at Ki, Addison mentioned it was “the best instance of how, past thrilling talent and narrative readability, Kim carries off the rarest of feats in tremendous eating: He conveys coronary heart.”
At Restaurant Ki in downtown Los Angeles, Keizo’s noodles with pine mushroom and Dungeness crab and caviar.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)
Then, in her most up-to-date column, Harris wrote of the rebirth of chef Josef Centeno‘s pandemic-closed restaurant Bäko Market in his downtown Bar Amá area underneath the brand new identify Le Dräq by Bar Amá and Bäco Mercat.
“It means shapeshifter,” Centeno instructed Harris, “or like Dracula.”
Shapeshifting is actually a great way to explain Los Angeles’ eating scene. The openings and rebirths of Azay, Miya, Betsy, Restaurant Ki and Le Dräq, 5 very totally different however important locations, present the power of L.A. eating places even in robust instances.
The large coronary heart behind Little Flower
Christine Moore visits with clients at her Pasadena restaurant Lincoln in 2015. Moore, who died Jan. 4, ran Lincoln till 2020 and was nonetheless working Little Flower cafe in Pasadena.
(Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Instances)
The final time I noticed Christine Moore at her Little Flower Cafethe chef, sweet maker and entrepreneur behind two important Pasadena gathering spots gave me an enormous hug, introduced me a scone and wished to find out about every part that was occurring in my life. As novelist Michelle Huneven wrote in her pretty obituary for Moore, who died instantly on Jan. 4, this was not an uncommon prevalence.
“Her hugs had been well-known,” Huneven wrote. Moore’s pal and the writer of two Little Flower cookbooks, Colleen Dunn Batesinstructed Huneven, “She offers you a hug and briefly order, you’re speaking on a very deep subject. … She cared a lot. All people was pals together with her.”
Her deep ardour, openness and beneficiant spirit are simply among the causes Little Flower Cafe and the north Pasadena restaurant Lincoln, which she ran for six years till the pandemic, turned important gathering locations. And, boy did she make a imply scone.
For a fuller image about why she’ll be missed, learn Huneven’s obit and take heed to the tribute KCRW’s “Good Meals” host Evan Kleiman put along with a few of L.A.’s greatest cooks speaking about Moore’s impression.
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