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After years of cooking at the Spanish restaurants of humanitarian-chef José Andrés in L.A. and D.C., including Minibar, the Bazaar, Café Atlántico and Zaytinya, chef-owner Joshua Whigham has opened Casa Leo, a sun-drenched restaurant in Los Feliz dedicated to celebrating Iberian cuisine with gambas al ajillo, seasonal gazpacho, boquerones with potato chips and pan con manchego. Weekend brunch brings Catalan flatbreads topped with tuna conserva and fire-roasted eggplant, along with scones and a Spanish tortilla.

While northern Spain may not attract as many tourists as it’s resort-packed neighbours in the south, one city is attracting a whole new set of visitors looking to try some of the best food the country has to offer

For many people, the best bit about going abroad is eating and drinking your way through a new place, trying all the local dishes and bringing home your favourite recipes.

While millions of foodies may head to tourist hot spots of Rome, Barcelona or Paris to eat their weight in pasta, tapas or pastries, one hidden gem has actually gained the title of Europe’s culinary paradise.

Nestled on the coast of Northern Spain, and just a few miles from the French border, is the small port and fishing city of San Sebastian. Lining the turquoise ocean of the Bay of Biscay, it made its living from catching fish, and is now making its fortune cooking it.

The Basque city has the highest proportion of Michelin Star restaurants of anywhere else in the world. Despite a population of just 180,000, the city is home to 12 Michelin-starred restaurants, including three highly coveted three-star restaurants and three two-star restaurants.

While getting a table at the prestigious Arzak, Akelare, and Martin Berasategui may be easier said than done – and out of many of our budgets – the foodie culture is something that has seeped down to the streets.

The city’s picturesque Iberian streets are lined with pintxos bars (pronounced pEEn-chos), delightful little watering holes filled with locals that serve you bite-sized pieces of bread served with local meats, cheeses, fish and anything else the chef fancies, perfect when paired with a cold beer or glass of sangria.

An evening can easily be spent hopping from bar to bar, tucking into the delicious bites, with the odd slice of tortilla or other tapas classics, before finishing it off with a famed slice of Basque cheesecake.

But for those wanting something much more filling, the region is home to what has been described as the “best steak in the world”.

On a trip to the city, Isaac Rodgers from the Steak Society went on a hunt around the city to try to find the best Txuleton steak around.

The Txuleton steak is a regional delicacy that is served from much older cows than you’d normally find – usually about 18 years old – from the specific Rubio Gallegia breed.

Having eaten so much steak, he gained 4.5 pounds on his trip, Isaac concluded his favourite came from Gandarias Jatetxea.

He wrote: “This wasn’t my first visit to Gandarias. I discovered Gandarias after searching for Steakhouses back in 2014 and was thrilled by a very reasonably priced and delicious melt-in-the-mouth steak. I’ve been wanting to go back ever since.

“We ordered Octopus and a 1.1kg ‘Old aged T-Bone steak’, a delicious new take on surf and turf, I suppose.

“The steak was unexpectedly tender as well as being quite beefy (but not as much as expected). The steak closest to the bone was also the most tasty. Given the cut of steak and the breed of cow, there were copious amounts of fat. Combining some of the chunks of fat with the beef created an insanely pleasurable taste.”

Flights from the UK to San Sebastian are relatively expensive and infrequent, but budget flights from the UK to nearby Bilbao can cost as little as £21, with similar costing flights available to Biarritz in France, requiring just a short hop over the border.

Los Angeles has many valleys, but only one is the Valley. You know it as soon as you crest over the 101, 405, 170 or 5 freeways, its bordering hills verdant or golden depending on the time of year. Pull off almost any exit and you’ll immediately be greeted by shopping centers, strip malls, mom-and-pop markets and fine-dining dens serving up some of the city’s most ambitious and heartfelt meals.

Bounded by mountains on all sides, the San Fernando Valley spans 260 square miles and is home to nearly half of L.A.’s population, around 1.8 million people. Across its expanse, it assumes many identities.

Long before its peaks and basins were crisscrossed with highways and miles-long boulevards, the Tongva people lived along the water-rich and wooded areas of the Valley for more than 7,000 years. In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers by way of Mexico traversed over the Santa Monica Mountains into what is now known as Encino.

More than a century ago, the citrus orchards began to give way as Warner Bros., Walt Disney and Universal studios built out their filming lots. A tinge of Tinseltown and tourism followed, while room to grow brought a midcentury housing boom to the region. Themed restaurants and tiki haunts popped up to keep diners entertained. Now, it’s difficult to find a Valley establishment that hasn’t made a TV or film appearance.

As Valley dwellers began settling in — immigrants, suburban families, celebrities — its food scene flourished in step.

On Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, you’ll find Casa Vega, its dim interior practically untouched since Rafael “Ray” Vega first founded it in 1956. The son of Tijuana-born immigrants who ran popular Cafe Caliente on Olvera Street beginning in the 1930s, Vega introduced many Valley diners — including a flock of silver screen regulars — to Mexican-American staples such as fajitas and enchiladas.

Farther south in Studio City, take your pick from a parade of Japanese restaurants along Sushi Row. The stretch of Ventura Boulevard became a hub for high-end Japanese cuisine after pioneering chef Kazunori Nozawa opened his Edo-style sushi restaurant Nozawa in 1987. Though that location has since closed, Nozawa has spawned a global restaurant empire with his KazuNori, Nozawa Bar and Sugarfish chains.

Pull off the main drag and you’ll find hidden gem burger shacks, taquerias, hot dog joints, kebab shops and neighborhood delis. Meanwhile, Valley residents are spearheading new concepts.

“We’re born and bred Valley kids, so we had to do it in the Valley,” said Marissa Shammas on opening Yala Coffee, a Middle Eastern-inspired cafe, with her husband Zain Shammas in Studio City. “[People] commonly think [the Valley] is where things go to die — and we think that that’s where things go to be more.”

There’s more to discover than ever when it comes to dining in the 818 (or 747). Eight Times food writers spent months exploring the Valley in search of the best for this guide, reconnecting with old favorites and finding new surprises.

For me, it was also an exercise in nostalgia. Old shortcuts returned like muscle memory as I reacquainted myself with the Woodland Hills blocks where I navigated young adulthood. In North Hollywood, my home for several years into my early 30s, former standbys suddenly returned to the forefront of my mind: The tiki bar across the street from my old apartment, a hole-in-the-wall Puerto Rican restaurant where salsa music draws you in, a vibrant Jamaican bistro that now sits in Sherman Oaks. I found myself wishing I could linger in the Valley longer.

Here are our favorites, spanning Filipino-Mexican fusion in a Northridge car wash-turned-restaurant, a DMV-adjacent street-stand for lamb barbacoa in Arleta and a fast-growing mini chain of Sephardic pastries. It’s time to dig into the Valley.
— Danielle Dorsey

ASPIRING cook Brooklyn Beckham serves up a crispy-looking spaghetti carbonara.

The 26-year-old, who has fallen out with his parents, David and Victoria, showed off his Italian dish on Instagram.

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Brooklyn was seen chopping up the ingredients and later insisted it was not burnt, saying: “Guanciale has a lot of sugar in, that’s why it’s darker.”

At 15-years old, Brooklyn got a job as a barista in a London coffee shop.

He has since tried his hand as a chef, model and photographer.

He produced his own eight-part series on Facebook called Cookin’ with Brooklyn.

He claimed to have learnt a few tricks from Gordon Ramsay, who is a family friend to the Beckham.

Recently he has set up a charity dog shelter with his wife Nicola Peltz.

He has been in the headlines due to a toxic fallout with his family — laid bare during the festivities for dad David’s milestone birthday.

Meanwhile, footballer David, 50, read a map on a motorbike as part of a photoshoot to promote his eyewear range.

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After a raucous night out in my 20s, the real afterparty was always at BCD Tofu House — hunched over bubbling Korean tofu stew and a sizzling-hot stone bowl of steamed rice. After I’d scooped most of it out, a server would pour warm tea into the bowl, loosening the rice clinging stubbornly to the bottom. Scraping up those crispy-chewy bits of scorched rice, known in Korean as nurungji, quickly became my favorite part of the meal.

Long before electric rice cookers, Koreans traditionally cooked rice over an open flame in an iron cauldron called a gamasot. As it steamed, the bottom layer would crisp up against the hot metal, forming golden-brown nurungji.

“Today, nurungji simply means the crispy layer of rice that forms at the bottom of any pot or cooking appliance,” says Sarah Ahn, who co-wrote the Korean cookbook “Umma” with her mother, Nam Soon Ahn. “Personally, and within Korean culture, I see nurungji as a deeply nostalgic food, especially for Koreans of my mom’s generation.”

Chef and cookbook author Debbie Lee adds, “Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s from overcooking — what I call a great culinary accident.”

Korea isn’t alone in its love for scorched rice. Persian tahdig is the crust that forms at the bottom of the pot, flipped and served with the crispy layer on top. Chinese guoba is crispy rice paired with saucy stir-fries to soak up every bit of flavor. In West Africa, kanzo refers to the caramelized layer left behind after cooking, often found in dishes like jollof rice. Spain’s socarrat forms the base of well-executed paella.

And in Korea, nurungji is endlessly versatile — enjoyed on its own, steeped in hot water or tea as sungnyung (thought to be a soothing palate cleanser and digestive aid), or transformed into nurungji-tang, where the rice becomes the crunchy base for a light broth with seafood or vegetables.

With its nutty, toasted flavor that highlights the grain’s natural aroma, nurungji is comfort food born out of practicality. “Like so much of Korean food, it represents our resourcefulness — nothing goes to waste! — and our ability to find flavor in humble things,” says Sarah. Rather than discarding it, Koreans embraced the crunchy layer as a snack or meal.

“My parents are from Pyongyang and fled during the war,” says Lee. “My mother told me that they’d find an abandoned house to rest in, and nine times out of 10, there was rice. They lived off porridge, steamed rice, and ultimately nurungji as a snack.”

SeongHee Jeong, chef and co-owner of Koreatown’s Borit Gogae, remembers eating it sprinkled with sugar — a delicious treat when sweets were scarce. While there’s no single way to make it today, Sarah and her mom swear by the traditional method. “Nothing compares to the flavor of rice cooked in a gamasot over a wood fire,” Sarah says. “That taste is so iconic, you’ll even find packaged snacks trying to replicate it.”

In L.A., some restaurants keep it old-school by serving nurungji simply steeped in tea or hot water, while others are getting creative with it. Think: nurungji risotto at Jilli, an iced nurungji crema at Bodega Park or a fried chicken and nurungi dish at Fanny’s. At her Joseon pop-up last year, Lee even spun it into a nurungji crème brûlée.

“It’s truly amazing how humble ingredients born from hardship always find their way back,” says Sarah.

Here are 13 of the best restaurants in L.A. serving nurungji in both traditional and unexpected ways.

A good plate of Sinaloa-style aguachile starts with liquid hot peppers, lots of lime, and freshly butterflied, raw shrimp. The flavor and heat build like a strong corrido: dramatic and full of contrast, tension and release. The chiles, the lime, the crunch of cucumber, the bite of red onion — it’s all deliberate. Bold, loud and alive. Just like Sinaloa.

In “Mexico: The Cookbook,” author Margarita Carrillo Arronte asserts that aguachile began in the sun-baked ranchlands of inland Sinaloa, not the coast. She says the original version was made with carne seca (sun-dried beef), rehydrated in water and jolted awake with chiltepín peppers. Picture ranchers grinding the chiles by hand, mixing them with lime and water, and pouring it over dehydrated meat to revive it like a delicious Frankenstein’s monster.

Francisco Leal, chef-owner of Mariscos Chiltepín in Vernon and Del Mar Ostioneria in Mid-City, shares a slightly different origin story. “According to legend, aguachile was invented in the hills of Los Mochis [Sinaloa],” he said. “The poor would mix tomatoes, onions and hot water with ground chiltepín. That’s why it’s called aguachile — chile water. They’d dip tortillas in it because that’s all they had. Naturally, when it reached the cities, people added protein.”

In both stories, aguachile migrated west to the coast — in particular, Mazatlán — where shrimp replaced carne seca. From there, it crossed borders and eventually took root in cities like Los Angeles, where it now thrives as both a beloved mariscos staple and a canvas for regional creativity.

Despite the comparisons, aguachile is not ceviche. The fish or shrimp in ceviche may marinate in citrus for hours. Traditional Sinaloa aguachile shrimp stay translucent, kissed but not cooked by the spicy lime juice.

The dish is popular across L.A.’s broader Mexican food scene, thanks to the city’s deeply rooted Sinaloan community. Many families hail from Mazatlán, Culiacán and Los Mochis and have been living in areas such as South Gate, Huntington Park, Paramount and East L.A. for decades. With them came a seafood-first sensibility that prioritizes freshness, balance and bold flavors in everyday cooking. That foundation helped aguachile thrive across generations and zip codes.

Chefs like Leal have expanded on the dish while staying true to its roots. At his Vernon restaurant, aguachile is more than a menu item — it’s a form of expression. Leal experiments with ingredients like passion fruit and tropical chiles but maintains an obsessive commitment to sourcing, texture and balance.

You’ll now find aguachile made with scallops at Gilberto Cetina’s Michelin-rated marisqueria Holbox or carrots at Enrique Olvera’s restaurant Damian in downtown L.A., but the rise of these variations is less about fleeting trends and more about the dish’s adaptability — its ability to hold complexity and evolve. Many chefs are drawing inspiration from seasonal California produce and veggie-forward palates, pairing traditional heat with a lighter, fresher profile.

But sometimes I crave the aguachile I grew up with.

My Sinaloan mom Elvia and my Sinaloan-American nephew Angel make the best aguachile I’ve ever had. They do it with high-quality shrimp that’s cleaned and butterflied just before serving, fresh-squeezed lime juice and chiles blended to order. Cold, sharp and so spicy it makes you sweat. Whether they make the dish as a quick snack with tortilla chips or an appetizer for a weekend asada, the goal is always to feed their family food from the heart.

As I explored L.A.’s aguachile scene, I was moved by how many places carried that same spirit. From front-yard mariscos stands to neighborhood institutions, here are 10 Sinaloan-style aguachiles to snack on all summer long.