restaurant

AROUND the world are some very weird and wonderful McDonald’s and now, some of the best in Turkey have just been revealed.

They have been selected by McDonald’s itself, with one in particular being selected for its incredible views over the Turkish Riviera and it even has evening DJ sets.

McDonald’s has put together a list of its best restaurants in the country calling them the ‘7 Wonders of McDonald’s’.

The seven restaurants were picked for their stand-out architecture, location and overall experience.

One that stands out is one in Yalıkavak on the Bodrum peninsula which was picked for its beautiful views across the ocean.

McDonald’s said: “The restaurant combines the atmosphere of the Aegean with stunning sunset views.

“A remarkable option for those seeking a restaurant with a view in Yalıkavak, it offers a spacious setting for those wanting to take a break for a meal or coffee around Yalıkavak Marina.”

It proves to be popular with visitors too and the McDonald’s has made several appearances on social media.

One visitor made a TikTok about the spot and called it the ‘most luxurious McDonald’s’.

As she walked through, she showed off the beautiful views across the Turkish Riviera with yachts in the marina.

Some of the best views are from the rooftop terrace where guests can dig into their meal while overlooking the marina.

Another TikTok revealed that when the sun goes down, a DJ takes over the terrace and turns the evening into an event.

In the comments, one person wrote: “Wow, make McDonald’s premium.”

Another visitor called the restaurant the ‘best McDonald’s in the world’.

They added: “The restaurant needs to meet the sea view and nature uniquely. I love the landscape and mill; history, nature and sea are a perfect place. The most beautiful McDonald’s restaurant in the world.”

Guests can tuck into McDonald’s classics like hamburgers, chicken burgers and chicken nuggets.

But there are other specialities that you don’t get in the Köfte Burger, the Adana Style Meatball Wrap, onion rings, ice cream sundaes and churros.

There’s also the option to buy McFloat drinks which are Coca Cola and flavoured sprite with ice cream on top.

Aug. 21 (UPI) — Five people were missing feared dead and eight others were injured early Friday after a major fire razed a restaurant with residential apartments above in the Swiss alpine town of Thusis.

Cantonal police in the eastern Graubünden region said in a news release that nearly 100 firefighters from four area fire departments were scrambled to the scene after the blaze broke out on the second floor just after midnight local time.

The release was duplicate-filed under the secondary category of a missing persons appeal.

They said firefighters’ access to the fire was cut off after the stairwell collapsed, forcing them to use a crane to cut open the roof.

Two of the fourteen people who managed to get out of the four story building were seriously injured. Two others sustained moderate injuries and four were slightly hurt.

The injured were taken to hospitals in Chur, Thusis, Ilanz and far away as Zurich.

Images from the scene show flames pouring from the windows of the upper floors, engulfing the top of the building.

Police said they were working with the public prosecutor’s office to investigate the cause of the fire and that they had secured the scene.

After the fire was brought under control emergency responders were seen removing roof layers to enable investigators to search for evidence and possible human remains.

The best part of a Happy Meal is the toy that comes with your food. But now that you’re all grown up, you might be looking for a different type of treat.

In an effort to fill seats during off hours and typically slow nights, L.A.’s restaurants and bars are tempting patrons with discounted burger combos that replace toys with cocktails. It’s an adult take on a kid’s Happy Meal. These deals also address a growing concern among restaurant-goers regarding the price of dining out, a cost that has risen in recent years due to factors such as increased minimum wage, rising rents and inflated food costs.

And because it’s L.A., you can expect global interpretations of the classic comfort dish, including a Mexico City-inspired hamburguesa that’s turned a Monday industry night into a citywide destination, a New York-founded Korean restaurant serving a short-rib burger with gochujang aioli and a French-hued take with cognac sauce and optional fondue.

Treats — er, drinks — run the gamut from classic martinis and house wine to margaritas, ice-cold beer and makgeolli. Often overlapping with happy hour, be sure to take note of the specific days and hours each deal is offered.

Here are 16 burger-and-drink combos for those times your inner kid needs an adult happy meal.

In the grand buffet of problems explaining President Trump’s abysmal approval ratings, reserve a tray for Mexican food.

Americans are rightfully frustrated with the myriad consequences of the war with Iran he plunged us into, the rising cost of living, his pharaonic obsession with monuments to himself and his overall doddering state of mind.

But as this president afflicts the country with a prolonged civic bout of Montezuma’s Revenge, Mexican food’s role in the overall mess Trump has left us with is notable.

One of this country’s most popular cuisines has inadvertently spent this summer embarrassing Trump in fundamental ways — and I’m not just talking about TACO, the acronym referring to how Trump Always Chickens Out on his most bombastic claims and threats. The most prominent — and disgusting — example has been outbreak of foodborne illness traced back to popular Mexican restaurant chains that have sickened tens of thousands of Americans while Trump has shrugged and effectively told us to eat frijoles.

The Food and Drug administration traced an outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a parasite-born intestinal disease, to contaminated lettuce grown in Mexico by Salinas-based Taylor Fresh Foods that made its way to Taco Bell. The world’s biggest Mexican fast food chain quickly put out a statement that it removed all suspected lettuce from its restaurants and that “we encourage all relevant restaurants, retailers, and foodservice operators to do the same.”

If only the Trump administration was as proactive in caring for the well-being of Americans as the creators of Doritos Locos tacos and Crunchwrap Supremes.

It turned out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network told state inspectors last year that they were no longer required to report to the agency any instances of the parasite that causes cyclosporiasis they found in this country’s food supply. This was part of massive cutbacks at the CDC that reduced its staff by a quarter and cut billions of dollars in funding.

When reporters confronted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with these facts, he responded that such criticisms were “invalid” and that the cyclosporiasis outbreak was “under control.”

Make America Healthy Again? More like Make Americans Heave Always.

On Aug. 4, the Food and Drug Administration revealed that a salmonella outbreak traced back to contaminated jalapeños imported from Mexico had left hundreds of Americans sick. But the feds were two weeks late to the news: By July 20, Chipotle had already removed all suspected jalapeños from its stores. Unlike the Trump administration, it had invested in food-safety tracking that quickly spotted the problem, a system implemented after the company suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in sales losses and a $25-million federal fine last decade due to repeated foodborne illnesses originating in its stores.

I’m no fan of Chipotle’s underwhelming hipster vibe or Taco Bell’s over-salted options, but they know what the Trump administration seems to not understand: Americans deserve to eat without worrying about whether they’ll get ill as a result. And they also know Americans especially like Mexican food, a cuisine dependent on exported produce that is now more expensive than ever because of Trump’s misguided tariffs and overall bellicosity to our Latin America trading partners.

You would think Trump himself would know: Remember the infamous photo he posted on Cinco de Mayo during his first term of him smiling at his desk appearing ready to chow down on a giant taco salad bowl?

Which leads to the second section of Trump’s combo plate of bad Mexican food news this year. On the same day the FDA belatedly disclosed the jalapeño salmonella outbreak, Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet posted on social media that a college student complained to him that “a burrito shouldn’t cost $20.” Kolvet correctly pointed out that many people currently feel the cost of living is too high, and rightfully suggested that Republican Party leaders should sympathize with such concerns lest they lose even more voters that they already have during Trump’s second term.

Instead, Trump toadies from Vice President JD Vance to Rep. Dan Crenshaw urged young people to eat instant ramen and live frugally instead of splurge on burritos. That provoked other conservative activists to smack down the MAGA Men for showing how out of touch they are with how expensive everything is right now.

Forget the Consumer Price Index: The cost of a burrito is the best way to judge how much the cost of living actually is. I haven’t regularly bought them for years because they’re just not worth it anymore.

A delicious, slender bean-and-cheese burrito with no sauce at the venerable Al & Bea’s in Boyle Heights is going for six bucks and change right now when it was about $2 cheaper two years ago. The gargantuan breakfast burritos at my favorite place to get one, Athenian III in Buena Park, run about $13. Even my go-to fast-food treat, a half-pound Del Taco bean-and-cheese burrito, costs $2.61 with tax at the closest location to my house.

Remember when they were about a dollar? I do.

As someone whose wife runs a restaurant, I don’t blame businesses for hiking their prices; I blame Trump. He campaigned two years ago on stopping and reversing the runaway inflation that was happening toward the end of the Biden administration and won over a lot of Mexican Americans as a result. But when those voters can’t even enjoy a carne asada burrito for lunch without thinking about whether they’ll have enough money for the rest of the week, that should worry Trump and his team as the November midterms approach.

That they’re collectively still blaming Biden shows how pendejos they are at best, and uncaring at worst.

Back to that 2016 Cinco de Mayo photo of himself enjoying a taco salad sold at his Trump Hotel in Manhattan. It was peak Trump: daring opponents to call him out for appropriating a hallmark of Cal-Mex dining while thinking Americans would see the move as a metaphor for the bounties of riches and good times Trump would usher in for this country.

A decade later, Trump just makes too many Americans want to run to the proverbial toilet and barf from all the slop he and his minions have cooked up for our country.

The Russian River was running low and slowly. A few miles outside Guerneville at Steelhead Beach, several men stepped into the water, laden with flotation devices. A duck, a flamingo, a unicorn …

“Don’t you know?” asked Anna Deurloo, standing by me on the shore. “It’s Lazy Bear Week! That’s why the river is full of bears: big hairy men with beards. And Speedos.”

Deurloo, who lives in Guerneville, had made glittery bandannas for her crew of bears to wear at the annual celebration. Out on the water, Joe Souza of Long Beach adjusted his blinged-out headgear, hollering that he’d been coming to Guerneville every summer for more than 20 years.

“It’s a nice place to meet our friends from all over the country,” Souza said, “and get tricked into this river.”

When the weather is warm, the Russian River draws dawdlers of all kinds, including LGBTQ+ vacationers, longtime locals and Bay Area families. On summer weekends, thousands show up in Guerneville with kayaks, canoes, inner tubes — just about anything that will float, preferably with a cooler attached. Then they spend hours gliding downstream past scenery that might as well be a Northern California highlight reel: vineyards, redwood forests and eventually a beach scene full of driftwood and sea stacks.

They know that time is of the essence. Many places on the river in and around Guerneville shut down November through early May because it gets cold and rainy and the river can run high and fast.

But for now through early October, with little rain and seasonal dams controlling the water’s flow, this might be California’s laziest river.

Still, for plenty of Californians, including me, this corner of Sonoma County is little-known territory. I’ve just gotten my first good look at the area, which is about 85 miles north of San Francisco, and I’m glad I arrived when I did.

For years, as Sonoma County’s wine country has grown ever more pricey and elegant, the communities of the lower Russian River have clung to their rustic, quirky and more affordable ways, in part because of the area’s vulnerability to changing seasons.

But the riverside scene is evolving. Since the pandemic, several new or revamped lodgings have boosted glamping and other upscale elements in a territory once better known for old cabins. At privately owned Johnson’s Beach in Guerneville, where parking was free in the old days, the fee is up to $10 a day. In the Johnson’s Beach lodgings, long known for summer-camp vibes, some rooms now come equipped with luxury linens and a French press. On the menu at the River Electric, there’s a “high-low dog” — a hot dog with black caviar — for $40. In other words, the lower Russian River is edging up-market.

“There’s a lot more new blood up here. A lot of new people in the last five years,” said Robert Baba, who runs Ideal Hardware in Forestville.

“Prices are going up and hotels are getting more posh,” said Michael Rex, owner of Guerneville’s Russian River Bookstore. But still, he said, “there’s a lot to do here where you don’t have to spend a dime.”

Here’s what I found in four days as a Russian River rookie.

Forestville: Stepping into the river

If you want to imagine time standing still, start at Burke’s Canoe Trips, which has been renting canoes and kayaks for decades. At Burke’s, which sits at the edge of Forestville (population: about 3,300), most customers rent a watercraft ($95 per canoe, $60 per kayak) before noon, drift 10 miles down river to Guerneville, then catch a Burke’s bus back to where they began.

The river water is shallow, often 3 to 5 feet deep. The beaches are pebbly. The redwood groves begin within stone-skipping distance of the Burke’s property and follow the river downstream. Drinking water and sunblock are vital. Sightings of blue heron, egrets and river otters are common. (Burke’s also has camping with hot showers and fire rings, at $20 per person per night.)

“People know that no matter how the world is doing, when they come to the river, it’s going to be like it used to be,” said Linda Burke, second-generation owner of the business.

“It could be 1946 when you’re paddling,” said Ted Schroeder, longtime manager at Burke’s.

But even at Burke’s, things change: Demand is up for kayaks, down for the metal canoes, which are heavier.

Along Front Street, Forestville’s tiny commercial core, you could get a corn dog for $3.30 at Carr’s Drive-Inn, which looks like a time capsule from 1979. Or you could get some wood-fired pizza on the big, bright patio of Sonoma Pizza Co., which opened in 2022; or maybe a cup of organic ice cream at Angela’s (since 2023).

If you want to go luxe, you can eat or sleep at the Farmhouse Inn, a 6-acre property on River Road that includes 18 rooms and cottages, a pool and some spa services amid lushly landscaped grounds. Its restaurant occupies an 1873 farmhouse. (Nightly rates start around $440.)

For a lot of people, however, Forestville is just a place to slip into the lazy river — often at Steelhead Beach, half a mile downriver from Burke’s.

As glampers arrive, Guerneville gets fancier

Guerneville (population: about 4,500) is the hub of human activity on the Lower Russian River. River Road becomes Main Street there, and in summer its shops and restaurants buzz with people. Riverfront recreation at Johnson’s Beach is a block away. A network of redwood forest trails awaits 2 miles up the road in Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Preserve.

Be warned, however, that on weekends, Guerneville is often short on parking. Consider parking for the day ($10) in the big dirt lot at Johnson’s Beach, which has food, drinks, rental kayaks, canoes and inner tubes, campsites, historic bungalows, modern tiny cabins, canvas cabanas and a four-bedroom lodge. There are about 35 units in all, open mid-April through October. (The bare campsites start at $55, historic bungalows at $165.)

“It’s a lazy river and walkable to town, so we can camp and eat at restaurants,” said Kim Loda of Oakland as her son, Axel, 10, showed off his juggling skills near the Johnson’s Beach snack bar. “I don’t know why my family didn’t bring me here growing up.”

Guerneville grew up as a 19th century logging settlement, prospered as a weekend getaway for San Franciscans arriving by ferry and train in the 1920s, slumped in the ‘30s and suffered extensive flooding in the 1960s. It entered a new chapter in the late 1970s, when a handful of gay entrepreneurs began buying up and revamping rustic resorts and bars.

First, in 1978, was a riverside getaway called Fife’s. Another early gay-owned venture was the Rainbow Cattle Company bar, still in business on River Road, a.k.a. Main Street. (Every week on Give Back Tuesday, the bar stages raffles, offers $5 dinners and earmarks 10% of revenue for charities.)

When the 1980s and 1990s arrived, Guerneville suffered deeply — from the AIDS epidemic and from repeated floods.

Yet a generation later, the community has gained ground.

Since 2008, entrepreneur Crista Luedtke has built a series of businesses, including Boon Eat+Drink and Boon Hotel+Spa. The Guerneville Social Club, “Russian River’s First Queer-Owned Social Club,” is due to open with a restaurant, bar and shop in 2027. Lazy Bear gatherings have been staged every July since 1996 by the nonprofit Lazy Bear Fund to raise money toward LGBTQ+ community health. There’s also a Russian River Pride parade Sept. 19.

Timing my visit to avoid weekend crowds, I ate a dinner of chicken in tasty mole negro at Three Cultures Kitchen, which opened last year. I got ice cream at Nimble & Finn’s, lunch at Coffee Bazaar and a $15 sandwich to go at the Korbel Winery, which offers a deli, tasting room, wine shop and free tours at its scenic site about 3 miles west of Guerneville. I also browsed at Russian River Books & Letters.

“I ended up here because of the pandemic. It just went on and on, so I decided to open the bookstore,” said bookshop owner Michael Rex. Since that time, Rex said, he’s seen a growing number of remote workers.

Most notable among the new and renovated Guerneville resorts: Dawn Ranch and the River Electric, both with a glamping focus, both with docks on the river.

Dawn Ranch, dramatically upgraded in 2023, is a 22-acre, all-ages property that once held the Fife’s resort. The verdant grounds feature 86 cabins, cottages, chalets and glamping tents (open year-round) that share bathrooms and showers. There’s an upstairs restaurant, spa services, a pool and boathouse bar, along with a dock and private beach at the end of the short trail that feels like a secret path.

The tents, which start at about $300 nightly, have furniture, electricity and Wi-Fi, but if you show up on a 93-degree afternoon, as I did, your un-air-conditioned tent will be about the same temperature. That’s when it’s time to jump in the pool or river.

The River Electric is sited on long-idle, flood-prone 12-acre expanse of riverside land that old-timers remember as the site of J’s Amusement Park in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. In 2025, the current owners unveiled a newfangled resort with a restaurant, two pools (one of them round) and 46 furnished, electrified tent units, which start at about $260 nightly.

The resort stays open until Oct. 31. Then, by design, most of the resort will be carted away or submerged when the river rises.

“Everything except the concrete, we take off-site, Which is wild,” said River Electric’s Jessica Baker, who gave me a tour. The resort also sells day passes for $38 and hosts many weddings and special events.

Yet another glamping option is Guerneville’s Autocamp Sonoma, which opened in 2016. It doesn’t have river frontage, but it includes 25 Airstream trailers and 10 glamping tents in the shadow of a redwood grove.

This is how the river ends: with roaring wind on an empty beach

Heading west from Guerneville, you roll through Monte Rio, seeing more redwoods, cabins and glimpses of river.

You might spot the 11-room Inn on the Russian River, a recently upgraded property whose riverside perch includes a private dock and summer rates of roughly $260 to $430 nightly.

What you’ll need to imagine is the Bohemian Grove, which hides in the nearby forest, serving as a haven for the rich, powerful, famous and all-male members of the Bohemian Club since the 19th century.

Gathering every July at that 2,700-acre compound, club members, who have included Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Bob Weir, are said to stage a ritual “cremation of care,” burning an effigy of “care” in front of a 40-foot owl statue. (Suddenly, Burning Man seems a little less original.)

Anyway, a casual tuber or kayaker can’t float all the way to the Pacific from Forestville. (Obstacles include seasonal dams at Johnson’s Beach and Vacation Beach.) But if you drive the river road past Monte Rio and the historic but touristy shops at Duncans Mills, you reach the coastal hamlet of Jenner. That’s where the water flows into the Pacific, where the Russian River goes from mild (in summer) to wild.

To see the converging waters and feel the roaring wind, you can drive to Goat Rock Road and Goat Rock Beach. Or you could stop for a snack at Cafe Aquatica, whose patio fronts the water’s edge.

Or you could do both, followed by a night at River’s End, where a restaurant and five woodsy guest rooms enjoy sweeping views of the river, sea and sea stacks.

I did that. And on my last morning along the river, I got up early and met Keith Chandler of Jenner-based Watertreks Ecotours at water’s edge. Then we paddled around the estuary on a pre-breakfast kayak tour.

“I never get tired of this,” Chandler told me.

Some tours go out by night, focusing on bioluminescent plankton. We skirted Penny Island, where native Pomo people lived and farmed for generations before immigrants from Europe arrived. In fact, Chandler’s boss, Suki Waters, is part Pomo. Jenner might be small, but river, sea, natives and newcomers all converge there.

For a good chunk of this morning, however, there was just two of us in a kayak, sidling up to egrets, cormorants and harbor seals, watching pelicans glide in formation over the long, empty beach where the Russian River ends.

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At least three people are dead and more than 20 injured after a bomb exploded outside a restaurant in central Moscow. Russian authorities say a woman carrying an explosive device was stopped by a security guard before it exploded. It’s not clear who the target was.

The story of Dan Tana’s, in many ways, is the story of Los Angeles.

In 1980, Dan Tana’s burst into flames. At the time, the Tana family was vacationing on a remote Yugoslav island when a telegram arrived: “The restaurant burned down. Call me, Pearl,” recalls Katerina Tana, one of Dan Tana’s daughters.

Dan Tana flew back to Los Angeles, expecting charred remains. Instead, he found handwritten signs taped to the restaurant’s door: “Rebuild it. This is our home. Don’t change a thing,” recounts Katerina.

News of the fire reached musician Linda Ronstadt, who swore that Dan Tana’s served the best plate of spaghetti in the world. The rock star became the immigrant-run restaurant’s unlikely patron saint, calling on her relationship with then-Gov. Jerry Brown to help clear the way for its reopening. Just six weeks after the fire, Dan Tana’s welcomed customers again, even without a roof.

“They open up the restaurant with no roof on it. There’s no air conditioning unit. It was the hottest day,” says Katerina.

Oddly, the fire ushered in a new era for Dan Tana’s — a rebirth, even. Like Los Angeles, the restaurant endured by reinventing itself. “In a weird way, he rebuilt better than he ever could have, because if the restaurant hadn’t burned down, it might not have lasted this long,” Katerina says.

Stories like these fill the pages of “Everybody Came to Tana’s,” the late restaurateur’s memoir, which chronicles the outlandish journey that carried a young immigrant from communist then-Yugoslavia to the helm of one of Los Angeles’ most adored dining institutions. Dan Tana died last year at age 90, but his legacy lives on — inside the restaurant and now in his own words.

On a summer afternoon, his daughters, Gabrielle and Katerina, sit at the Sunset Marquis bar, recounting their father’s remarkable life — particularly his championing of soccer and his contributions to the sport. With the World Cup now unfolding across Los Angeles, the sisters say they can’t help but feel his presence. “One of his big wishes was to be here for this year’s World Cup. That’s why I know he’s here,” Gabrielle Tana says. “He was very instrumental in L.A. getting the World Cup. Our father was constantly helping connect people,” says Katerina.

In the final years of his life, Tana became determined to tell that story, working with writers in Serbia and eventually a ghostwriter, Todd Gold, who requested no credit; the resulting memoir feels wholly told in Tana’s voice. “Our father, for years, was talking about how he wanted to tell his story,” says Gabrielle. “He was always pinching himself about the life that he had — the stories, the adventures, and his luck.”

Tana had an unusual path to becoming the restaurant owner of the renowned Hollywood red-sauce hideout. Born in present-day Serbia, Tana’s early life was marked by political oppression under Communist rule. His father, a restaurateur, spent years as a political prisoner.

“When you live in a country where political powers are constantly in play, when you own a restaurant, you’re the person who’s hosting somebody who’s having a dangerous conversation,” explains Katerina. From an early age, Dan Tana’s mother made Dan promise not to end up in the restaurant business.

Instead, Dan Tana became a soccer star, touring Europe with Red Star Belgrade before eventually escaping to Belgium — a decision that would set him on the unbelievable path to Canada and then Los Angeles, where he would serve a stint managing a nightclub called Peppermint West and even launch a modest acting career with the help of Natalie Wood.

The chapters follow the restaurant’s improbable success, offering extraordinary anecdotes, such as how a Yugoslavian immigrant happened to open a red-booth, comfort-food Italian restaurant. The answer? Hiring Mussolini’s private chef. “It was one of two chef options that he was given by his partners: Dan Reeves and Clarence Dan Martin, who funded the soccer league. [Dan Reeves] also bought the restaurant,” says Katerina.

Beyond dispatches from his red-and-white-checkered tablecloth joint and name-dropping, Dan Tana’s memoir outlines his significant contributions to soccer. Throughout his life, he maintained deep ties to the international soccer community, supporting Red Star Belgrade long after he retired from the sport. “He became an evangelist for the game because he thought it was a game that this country would appreciate,” says Katerina. “Football was always the biggest love of his life.”

Last November, when England faced off with Serbia for the World Cup qualifying games, the stadium held a moment of silence for Dan Tana’s passing. “There were people within the game who really wanted to acknowledge his contribution to the game,” says Katerina.

“A good restaurant has a good bar, and a good bar has ghosts,” reads the introduction. For Dan Tana’s, as far as ghosts go, they comprise a who’s who of Hollywood royalty. Johnny Carson once called it his favorite restaurant. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Marilyn Monroe and other A-list stars were known to haunt the bar.

Even with its reputation as a watering hole for Hollywood’s biggest names, Dan Tana refused to pander to celebrities. “Everybody was treated the same. He never wanted the restaurant to be full of celebrities. He wanted to make sure that there were doctors, lawyers and teachers,” Gabrielle says. “He was almost a democratic socialist in that way.”

A revealing anecdote from the early pages of the book: Tana turned away Barbara Sinatra’s offer to buy out the restaurant for a night for Frank Sinatra’s birthday at $25,000. Tana refused. It wouldn’t be fair to his regulars. Frank Sinatra never set foot in the restaurant again.

In many ways, Tana was one of Hollywood’s quiet power brokers, earning influence through humility and respect rather than status. In 1972, mysterious mafia members came into the restaurant to ask Tana to procure early-screening tickets for “The Godfather.” Naturally, Tana obliged. The mafia returned to report they loved the now-classic film.

The proximity to the Troubadour also made the restaurant a hangout for up-and-coming names in rock music. “He fed so many of those musicians. He wouldn’t charge them. These were kids that had nothing,” says Gabrielle. She recounts a night when musicians from the Troubadour celebrated the end of the Vietnam War at Dan Tana’s; the event went undocumented, lost to history.

Rock stars aside, the place is a writer’s joint too. Eve Babitz — who was a close friend of 93-year-old Deanne Mencher, who still makes the cheesecakes at Dan Tana’s — was known for socializing at the restaurant. “If you got hungry, you had to walk over to Dan Tana’s. Tana’s was delicious and evil — all that garlic,” Babitz once wrote in her semi-autobiographical novel, “L.A. Woman.” Screenwriters, journalists and famed L.A. writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne were also known to frequent the restaurant.

In fact, Gabrielle and Katerina attribute the restaurant’s early colossal success to a Los Angeles Times review. It was 1966, and the restaurant was struggling. Art Ryon, a columnist at The Times, happened to stop at the restaurant before a screening at the Writers Guild of America and ordered mushrooms. “The L.A. Times made the restaurant,” Katerina says. “The next day there’s a line around the block, and my father has no idea what happened.” Tana was informed that he received a rave five-star review in The Times. Success soon followed.

The next generation of Hollywood — including comedy stars like Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock — has continued the tradition. “SNL” cast member James Austin Johnson expresses his fondness for the restaurant. He discovered the restaurant after hearing Ed Begley Jr. rhapsodize about it. “The first intrigue is finding out who Dan Tana is,” says Johnson. “It has a West Hollywood mystique, like Chateau Marmont — like when Hollywood, the place and the business were all the same.”

Johnson loves restaurants that feel preserved in time. “It’s the idea that you can build something right the first time and then preserve it, so that people can be a part of your good idea when it happens,” says Austin Johnson.

Gabrielle and Katerina credit the enduring appeal of Dan Tana’s to its persistent lack of pretentiousness. The atmosphere evokes a Sinatra-era simplicity. “I think celebrities felt safe. They weren’t photographed, and they would be left alone,” says Gabrielle. The restaurant has kept its dim pink lights, which Gabrielle notes, “made everybody look good.”

The food has also remained consistent, with large portions and comfort food. “It’s not fancy, but it’s the best chicken Parmesan,” says Gabrielle. Over the decades, Dan Tana was approached about expanding the restaurant and opening second locations. He always refused, the restaurant’s humility always mirroring the man behind it. The restaurant, which felt like an anomaly, could not be replicated. “He always said: if I knew what I did right, I would do it again,” says Katerina.

Dan Tana’s originality continues to capture the city’s attention, its legacy now preserved in a memoir and carried on by its new owners, Mihajlo and Sonja Perenčević, who were friends of Dan Tana. Within its pages, the reader becomes one of Dan Tana’s beloved ghosts. “In a town that’s always trying to be something that’s not, it’s not trying to be anything,” says Katerina. “Dan Tana’s is longevity in the midst of ephemera.”

Connors is a culture journalist in L.A. She covers books, food, entertainment and offbeat Los Angeles. She’s currently at work on a book of essays about tourism in all its forms.

A SPRAWLING golf course has undergone a multi-million pound transformation – and it’s set in the heart of the English countryside.

The lakeside location has now been upgraded to a luxury “world-class” getaway.

The Fairmont Cheshire, The Mere in Knutsford, has completed its £70million renovation, transforming the site into a 5-star countryside retreat.

Works done to the previously-named The Mere Golf Resort & Spa, included upgrading the 81 exisiting guest rooms into luxury suites, with an additional 35 rooms added to the property.

Located on the shoreline of Lake Mere, the 157-acre site now features an 18-hole championship golf course, originally designed in the 1930s by James Braid and George Duncan.

Guests will also be able to luxuriate in the property’s on-site spa and wellness resort, which boasts three pools, seven thermal experiences – including a sauna, salt room and hammam – alongside three cold plunge pools.

A Technogym fitness studio also offers spin and HIIT sessions, with a covered outdoor class area ideal for training under open skies.

Further upgrades include a new restaurant to be operated by Gordon Ramsay, featuring lakeside dining and seasonal British ingredients – as well as the chef’s signature beef Wellington.

Enhancements have also been made to the existing orangery, which now incorporates a champagne and freshly-shucked oyster bar, as well as an afternoon tea atrium.

Located just 10 minutes from Manchester Airport, and just half an hour from the city centre, the property has said “it is one of the North
West’s leading destinations for conferences, weddings and corporate retreats”.

As a result, the site offers a separate conference and events centre with ten dedicated spaces, the largest of which – the Grand Ballroom – has a capacity up to 1,000 guests.

The resort, which opened last Friday (July 10), is managed by the French multinational hospitality company, Accor.

This marks Accor’s fourth Fairmont-branded property in the country, joining Fairmont Windsor Park, Fairmont St Andrews and The Savoy.

Israr Liaqat, group CEO for Select Group, said: “From the outset, Russell WBHO brought the skills, experience, and dedication that this project demanded, and the result speaks for itself.

“The development sets a new benchmark for five-star hospitality in the North West, offering opulent accommodation, world-class spa and golf experiences, exceptional dining and grand event spaces.”

NewsFeed

Volunteers in La Guaira have transformed a fast-food restaurant into an emergency clinic since hospitals were damaged or destroyed by Venezuela’s earthquakes.

I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with a packed summer vacation edition of Tasting Notes.

On a roll

Norway is not only the land of the Viking Row, one of the most captivating national fandom displays to emerge during this year’s World Cup — and certain to be seen when Erling Haaland and the Martin Ødegaard-led team battle five-time champs Brazil. Norway is also home to one of the world’s greatest cinnamon rolls.

Until I went to Oslo recently, the best cinnamon roll I’d ever eaten was in Chicago — at the venerable Swedish-American diner Ann Sather, where a milky sugar glaze used to be drizzled onto the still-warm, pillowy pastry right at the table. (These days the rolls are glazed in the kitchen after they’re baked.)

Los Angeles, of course, also has show-stopping cinnamon rolls. This spring, Food senior editor Danielle Dorsey, with help from Stephanie Breijo, Jenn Harris and Angela Osorio, put together a guide to 11 of L.A.’s most intriguing cinnamon rolls, including the hip-hop-inspired over-the-top creations at All About the Cinnamon, the sweet-savory buns with honey and sesame seeds at Modu and the tallboy “cinnamon goo”-filled rolls topped with caramel-toffee sauce from SweetBoy. Harris also recommends the especially decadent cinnamon roll served during brunch at Baltaire in Brentwood, where the cake-size roll is wheeled out on a cart and “slathered with frosting at the table.”

In Oslo, however, I discovered a cinnamon bun that stripped away the excess and let the essence of the spiced dough reveal itself.

Daegens, a tiny cafe and bakery hidden away in Oslo’s pretty Lilleborg neighborhood, is run by Anta Stinnerbom, a young entrepreneur who spent several months sharpening his coffee knowledge and barista skills at the acclaimed roastery Tim Wendelboe and is now deep into his explorations of sourdough baking. It’s the sourdough, in fact, that gives the Daegens cinnamon bun its character.

Even more than Stinnerbom’s cardamom bun — which some praise as the best in Oslo — the more elemental cinnamon notes, enhanced with lemon zest and juice, allow the sourdough’s multifaceted dimensions to come through. Not just tang, but the taste of time.

The discovery of a great sourdough cinnamon bun is just one of the reasons I love to travel.

Lately, I’ve been absorbed in the world of Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard, both for his most recent novel, “The School of Night,” which features a grand-scale narcissist captured in a Faustian downfall, and for “So Much Longing in So Little Space,” which documents the author’s search for the meaning of art through his encounters with the work of Edvard Munch. At Oslo’s boldly vertical, 13-story Munch museum and Bergen’s more contemplative Munch collection at the Kode museum’s Rasmus Meyer galleries, I was able to see for myself the wild stylistic leaps taken by the artist before and after “The Scream,” including the paintings he did for the women’s cafeteria at Oslo’s Freia chocolate factory.

But it was only after the first of many good meals in Oslo that I started to get a feel for the city. As I wrote in the introduction to our new collection of summer vacation dining guides, traveling with an eater’s mindset gives us a deeper understanding of places we’ve read about in cookbooks and novels or seen in movies and paintings. Wandering markets, eating at food stalls, sitting among locals and fellow travelers at the restaurants that embody a city or its surrounding countryside … these are the ways we absorb the rhythm of a place. Its flavors and ways of living are revealed to us over dinner or even a simple morning coffee accompanied by a beautifully baked cinnamon bun.

If you go …

For those of us lucky enough to write about food for a living, each vacation is a chance to add one more spot on our individualized maps of the world’s great places to eat. And this year, we’re sharing our personal maps and notes on places we’ve loved during our wanderings with readers.

Restaurant critic Bill Addison explored Melbourne, whose “modern dining moment,” he says, “derives from the immigrant communities that have rooted in the city since its founding,” making it “innately familiar to Angelenos, and also something wholly distinct to experience.” Then he shared 25 Melbourne restaurants, coffee shops and bars that showed the ambition of its dining scene.

Addison, restaurant critic Jenn Harris, deputy food editor Betty Hallock and I shared a personal list of 33 Paris restaurants and bars we love. Reporter Stephanie Breijo and senior food editor Danielle Dorsey wrote about their 15 favorite London pubs, food halls and bake shops. Addison and Hallock detail 17 splendid Tokyo dining suggestions. I detail 9 reasons Michelin-ignored Lima is one of the world’s greatest restaurant cities and came back from Hong Kong with 10 great eating experiences. And food editor Daniel Hernandez filed three reports from Mexico: an updated guide to 17 new and old favorites in Mexico City, a to-do list for exploring often-overlooked Colima, Mexico’s smallest state, and a fascinating look at how palm wine from Colima is at the heart of “a flourishing culinary movement rooted in its 250 years of trade with the Philippines.”

Given that these suggestions are not meant to be definitive — they are our personal favorites — we know that there are many other worthy places to explore. We’d love to hear from you if you have your own personal picks. We’ve built a form for entering your favorites from around the world and will publish the results in the coming weeks.

And if you’re staying closer to home, check Danielle Dorsey and Stephanie Breijo’s guide to the 23 best new L.A. bars, Dorsey’s choices for the best new L.A. rooftops for drinking and eating and the entire food team’s picks for 50 essential L.A. dining experiences.

We’ve also introduced a new way to save your favorite recommendations and build your own custom guides. Times senior product manager Jeff Poirier explains the new feature, which includes maps and is as simple to use as hitting the “save” button on any individual entry.

Introducing …

We are thrilled to introduce our new cooking editor Cody Reiss, who learned most of what he knows about cooking professionally at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley and did time behind the counter at Murray’s Cheese in New York. He also had a part in Eva Victor‘s “Sorry, Baby” and played himself in the very funny “narrative cooking short” “Breakfast for Liz.” Read more about Cody in his hello to readers, which describes the teaching approach he’s aiming for in the food videos he’ll be doing. And check out the videos he released this week on why you should throw away your salt shaker and how to cut a tomato. Finally, with Cody taking over our Cooking Newsletter — which is moving from Sundays to Fridays so that you can have more time to plan your weekend cooking — now is an excellent time to sign up for the free weekly dispatch if you’re not already a subscriber. This week, he provides two crucial lessons on salt and why you might be using it wrong.

Chilaquiles heaven

Restaurant critic Jenn Harris’ latest review is about Pico Rivera’s Taquearte, which happens to be one of my favorite places to get chilaquiles and a loaded Mexico City-style taco campechano, which made our 101 Best L.A. Tacos list. I first heard about Taquearte from my mom and her friend Pablo. (She went to high school in Pico Rivera and lives in nearby Whittier.) Harris bookmarked the place when Eater’s Bill Esparza wrote about the chilaquiles as L.A.’s best. Harris wholeheartedly agrees and loved how “the chips … were noticeably thin, delicate but sturdy enough to retain their crunch. They hovered in a magical state of limbo between wet and dry, crisp and wilted.”

More restaurants recommendations: 7 L.A. spots for bandeja paisa, Colombia’s classic lunch platter by Angela Osorio, 9 great places to try Midwest-style tavern pizza in L.A. by Kelly Dobkin and the best places to eat and drink in July, according to our Food writers.

The loss of two trailblazers

Joshua Gil, who “helped recontextualize and reimagine Mexican food in L.A.,” as reporter Stephanie Breijo wrote, died last week after a four-year fight with cancer.

Gil, who is credited with helping the late Joe Miller‘s now-closed Joe’s Restaurant in Venice gain a Michelin star, and went on to co-found the much-missed Tacos Punta Cabras and Hamburguesas Punta Cabras, as well as the pop-up Supper Liberation Front, established the Alta California restaurants Mírame in Beverly Hills, which closed in 2023, and the still-running Mírate in Los Feliz, which Gil left after a legal dispute. He also established the rooftop raw bar Mother of Pearl, which is closed at the moment, and the teppanyaki restaurant Maison Kasai, both at the downtown L.A. dining collection Level 8.

In an extensive story about Gil opening the now-closed Three Flames in the midst of cancer treatment and his drive to continue mentoring chefs, such as Macheen‘s Jonathan Perez, he told Breijo, “I’m a very stubborn a—. I like telling people, ‘I’m Mexican. I don’t know how to give up.’”

Late last week, we also got word that Katsuya Uechi, the sushi master whose name has become synonymous with the global Katsuya brand, has died at the age of 67.

“The Okinawa-born chef altered the DNA of the L.A. sushi scene with his innovative, genre-bending creations,” writes Melody Xu of the chef who first came to prominence for many L.A. diners at Sushi Katsu-ya in Studio City, which he opened in 1997. “Spicy tuna crispy rice, which he debuted in the early 2000s, has since become a modern staple in sushi restaurants across the U.S.”

Also …

• Many were hoping that the World Cup would provide an incentive for downtown Los Angeles’ city leaders and other stakeholders to invest in the area’s infrastructure. But it’s sobering to read reporter Angela Osorio’s look at the sad state of downtown’s once-bustling Olvera Street — with even taquito mecca Cielito Lindo facing a precarious financial situation that has left it shuttered … we hope only temporarily.
• Melody Xu talked with the owners of some of L.A.’s prominent Venezuelan restaurants about how they are connecting people and fundraising for survivors of the twin earthquakes. At publication time, the parents of Full Arepas’ Kelly Montano, writes Xu, “who were on vacation in La Guaira when the quakes happened, [were] among the more than 40,600 people still unaccounted for.”
• “For the first time in its history,” writes Stephanie Breijo, the Michelin Guide awarded a Mexican restaurant three stars.” That honor went to Val Cantú‘s Californios in San Francisco. Breijo has all of the news from the announcement of Michelin’s California guide, including the new two-star designation for Los Angeles’ Kato.
• More from Breijo: As the Boyle Heights fire burned, restaurants depended on which way the wind blew.
• The legal fight over who can sell a white nectarine variety, reports Claire Rush, led central California farmer Cesar Mora to give away more than 100,000 pounds of the fruit.
• And Hailey Branson-Potts has the story of the beer queen of Mendocino County, Lost Coast Brewery’s Barbara Groom, one of the country’s first female microbrew owners, who turns 80 this year.

Visit Medellín, and everyone will tell you to try one dish: bandeja paisa.

Translated as a “countryside tray,” you’ll find the loaded meat platter at any restaurant in Colombia’s second-largest city. The spread is loaded with savory red beans; white rice; ground beef or grilled steak; a long, curved strip of crispy chicharrón; chorizo; morcilla (blood sausage); a fried egg; golden lobes of sweet plantain; a mini arepa; and a slice of avocado.

Though its origins lie in the mountainous, coffee-growing region of Antioquia, known as the home of the paisas (derived from the Spanish word for countryman), the dish is widely celebrated and eaten across the country. It’s a hearty lunch meal meant for one person, a combination of flavors and textures that transport you straight to Medellín, known for its rich coffee landscape, blooming flowers and eternal spring weather.

“The bandeja paisa is the seal of the Colombians,” said Gloria Hernandez, owner of Nene’s Colombian Food in Lawndale.

The dish is believed to have started as a filling, nourishing meal for campesinos (field workers), providing strength to get through a day working in the fields. “There’s a gathering of various dishes to make a bandeja paisa,” said Cesar Gutierrez, owner of Arepa’s Colombianas in Redondo Beach.

Over 40,000 Colombians live in L.A., according to the Los Angeles Almanac. Three-thousand miles from home, the city is host to several Colombian restaurants, food trucks and even a rooftop night market in downtown L.A.

From a longstanding restaurant in Larchmont to a favorite for modern Colombian cuisine in Long Beach, here are seven places where you can devour a bandeja paisa.

WASHINGTON  — Licensed gun owners have a right to carry a concealed firearm into stores and other private places unless the owner objects, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The 6-3 decision extends gun rights and strikes down laws in Hawaii, California, New York, New Jersey and Maryland.

Those measures would prohibit carrying guns onto private property that is open to the public unless the owner has expressly authorized them.

“This regime hobbles what the 2nd Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives. We hold that the law is unconstitutional,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said for the court.

The new laws, if upheld, would “impose severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the state’s rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit. When these permit holders leave home in the morning, … they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops, drug stores, grocery stores, ‘big box’ stores, home improvement stores, barber shops or hair salons, dry cleaners, and laundromats.”

The three liberals dissented, saying the law would protect property owners who don’t want guns in their stores.

“There is no constitutional right to enter private property without the owner’s permission, let alone with a firearm,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Trump administration lawyers had joined a coalition of Hawaii gun owners in urging the court to strike down these blue state laws in the case of Wolford vs. Lopez.

They said the laws, if enforced, would mean “a person carrying a handgun for self-defense commits a crime by entering a mall, a gas station, a convenience store, a supermarket, a restaurant or a coffee shop.”

This litigation is part of much broader debate over where guns may be permitted or prohibited.

Four years ago, the justices ruled that law-abiding persons had a right to obtain a permit to carry a concealed gun when they left home. They also agreed there are “sensitive places” where guns may be prohibited, such as schools, courts and other government buildings.

In response, lawmakers in California and Hawaii adopted their own lists of “sensitive places.” They imposed restrictions on concealed weapons at parks, beaches, playgrounds, places of worship and public transit as well as bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Gun owners sued but the 9th Circuit Court refused to block most of those restrictions in a single 83-page opinion covering Hawaii and California. Both states would prohibit carrying guns onto private property open to the public without the owner’s consent.

The 9th Circuit upheld that measure in principle but said California went too far by requiring the owner to post a prominent sign expressly authorizing guns.

“While today’s ruling in Wolford is disappointing, owners still have every right to decide whether firearms are allowed in their stores and businesses,” said Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment Litigation at Everytown Law. “The Supreme Court may have changed the default rule, but it cannot take away a private property owner’s authority over their own land.”

The Firearms Policy Coalition said the court had properly protected gun rights and barred states from carving out their “own regional version of the 2nd Amendment.”

“The historical record does not support forcing peaceable people to obtain advance permission before carrying for self-defense in places held open to them,” the group said.

Last week, the court upheld gun rights in a Texas case and said the government may not make it a crime for an “unlawful user” of a drug such as marijuana to own a gun.

The giveaway that Lima should be on every food lover’s wish list is not just that it is home to the reigning No. 1 restaurant in the world according to the most recent World’s 50 Best Restaurants ranking. Maido in Lima’s famed Miraflores neighborhood, a longtime magnet for fine dining, is where chef Mitsuharu “Micha” Tsumura is transforming Peru’s traditional Nikkei cuisine, integrating the flavors of the Amazon in his own blockbuster style.

But it’s what’s happening one neighborhood over, just about three miles away in Lima’s Barranco district that make Peru’s capital more than a stopover for a single splurge meal on your way to Machu Picchu. The epicenter of the food lover’s Barranco is the garden-lush culinary complex, Casa Túpac, home to Virgilio Martinez’s Central, named to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ “Best of the Best” list after its No. 1 ranking in 2023, and to Pía León’s Kjolle, the current 50 Best’s No. 9 restaurant in the world.

Beyond those walls, several other food hubs have emerged. There is the growing constellation of Barranco restaurants that chef Juan Luis Martínez runs with his wife, designer Michelle Sikic. Their Mérito is currently No. 26. on the World’s 50 Best list; Demo is a morning-to-night cafe with beautiful breakfast dishes; and more recently they opened Clon, with accessibly priced a la carte expressions of Martínez’s Venuezulan-Peruvian cuisine.

A few short blocks away are Ricardo Martins’ pair of restaurants, Siete, a romantic spot with beautiful food and cocktails, and La Perlita, devoted to the chef’s nostalgic take on criolla cuisine. Then there is the venerable Canta Rana, run by an Argentine devoted to soccer and ceviche, and, more recently, the Chilean and American partners who created a mecca for coffee and chocolate lovers.

This is just a hint of the culinary activity happening in one of the world’s great food cities.

It’s puzzling, then, why the Michelin guide doesn’t waive its requirement that tourist boards or local governments pay a fee to have its inspectors visit the city. On the other hand, Lima is doing just fine without Michelin stars.

See for yourself with your own visit to Lima. The suggestions that follow are a delicious way to begin your adventure.

A fine place to stop for a milk tea-centered breakfast or lunch after exploring the labyrinth of African, Indian and other international shops and food stalls inside Chungking Mansions — one of the last remaining film locations in Wong Kar-wai’s iconic “Chungking Express,” where Brigitte Lin’s drug-dealing retired actor is seen conducting her business in a blond wig, trenchcoat and sunglasses. Lan Fong Yuen, in the basement of Heath Mall (which is technically part of Chungking Mansions but has a separate street entrance), has its own historic pedigree. Late founder Lam Muk-ho is credited with originating silk-stocking milk tea (it’s strained through a long cloth filter), and possibly yuenyeung (milk tea mixed with coffee), at the still-operating Gage Street stall he opened in Central in 1952. He’s also said to have popularized the thick-cut Hong Kong-style French toast and pork-chop buns so familiar in our own San Gabriel Valley cafes, as well as “lo-ding” instant noodle dishes, especially the chicken-chop version. The Tsim Sha Tsui location opened in 2009 but has an older diner aesthetic that attracts tourists and locals who line up for the scene and affordable Hong Kong comfort food.

Heath Mall basement, Shop No. S09, Chungking Mansions, 44 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Tokyo isn’t one city. It’s many cities, and each is its own universe.

Occasionally — at a certain subterranean bar big enough for only seven people, or a sushi counter on the fifth floor of a random office building — I feel as if I’m stepping into another time or dimension.

Finding your way to any of the millions of restaurants, cafes, bars and shops (some are micro-businesses in an alley in a village in the city) can be like figuring out a many-layered puzzle. Like Tokyo, each experience is dense.

The Japanese word for hospitality is omotenashi. But its meaning goes far beyond just customer service. Even the translations “wholehearted, selfless hospitality” or “flawless care” don’t cover all of the philosophies that make up omotenashi: magokoro (“true heart” or “sincere feeling”), ichigo ichie (“one time, one meeting”) and kuuki wo yomu (“reading the air”). The last refers to the intuitive ability to anticipate guests’ needs before they ask — an idea rooted in tea ceremony, which is rooted in Buddhism. It’s hard to grasp that level of selflessness.

Here are some of our favorite places to lose yourself in Tokyo. — Betty Hallock

If You Stay

When you live in Los Angeles, there are far worse fates than being stuck in the city all summer. Our thriving food capital draws diners out with sunlit farmers markets, midnight taco stands, multigenerational kebab shops and serene sushi dens. Community-oriented breweries, stylish wine bars and glimmering rooftop destinations round out the scene.

Whether you’re a lifelong Angeleno, new transplant or just passing through, you’ll want to get to know the 50 essential dining experiences that define eating in L.A. right now, from a pastrami sandwich at an iconic deli near MacArthur Park to a char-spotted tlayuda at a burgeoning food bazaar in West Adams and an L.A.-shaped churro from a rising Highland Park panadería.

Don’t miss our guide with nearly two-dozen new bar openings across the city. Finally, a handful of sparkling rooftops recently debuted across the city, offering vistas into neighborhoods we rarely spy from up above.

Thoughtfully compiled by our Food staff over the course of several months, we invite you to return to these lists whenever you’re seeking an answer to that perennial question: Where should I go next? — Danielle Dorsey

If You Go

There’s no easier way to get to know a new place than through its food. Wandering markets, eating at food stalls, sitting among locals and fellow travelers at the restaurants that embody a city. Its flavors and customs and ways of living are revealed to us over dinner or even a simple morning coffee.

And for those of us who are lucky enough to write about food for a living, traveling with an eater’s mindset gives us a deeper understanding of places we’ve read about in cookbooks and novels or seen in movies.

Each of us at L.A. Times Food keeps a running list of our favorite restaurants in some of the world’s great cities — and we want to share what we know with you. The recommendations that follow are not meant to be definitive for any given place. These are personal guides by dedicated eaters to some of the places we’ve loved during our wanderings around the globe.

If you’d like to share your own personal favorites with us, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below. — Laurie Ochoa

With more than a dozen locations across the United Kingdom and its first stateside location landing in Manhattan next year, Dishoom is hardly a secret. But each outpost offers a distinct vibe and set of influences, with the location in Shoreditch recalling an eccentric Iranian cafe by way of Bombay with mismatched furniture, bamboo blinds and gently frayed rugs. For breakfast, there are stuffed naan rolls, date and banana porridge or a Bombay-inflected take on a full English breakfast with akuri, bacon, peppery Shropshire pork sausages, masala beans, grilled field mushrooms, grilled tomato and buttered buns, best paired with fresh juice, chai or a sesame espresso martini. The all-day menu features well-established hits such as chicken ruby, lamb and veggie samosas and the famous black daal that’s slow-cooked for 24 hours, with a range of lassi yogurt drinks, Indian beers and cocktails that put a spin on the classics, such as the thandai mai tai with rum, almond milk, black pepper, cardamom bitters and house thandai syrup. The restaurant doesn’t accept dinner reservations, and lines can get notoriously long, but hospitable servers help pass the time with free chai and sherry samples.

7 Boundary St., London E2 7JE

I sat down recently and counted — surprising myself — that I’ve notched visits to 24 of Mexico’s 32 states, for leisure or while reporting. Querétaro is a highland charmer. Nuevo León is the country’s muscular northern colossus. Campeche, a verdant beauty. Everywhere I go in this country, I find new wonders. Then I visited Colima, and it hit me that Mexico is an endless cornucopia that will never vanquish a traveler’s curiosity.

Never heard of button-sized Colima? Don’t fret. A lover of Mexico may be vaguely aware of its important port at Manzanillo, or the state’s spectacular volcano complex. Otherwise, Colima is not commonly on visitors’ radar. The tourism industry is consistently ranked among Mexico’s smallest.

Yet it is a refreshingly contained and relaxed culture, with foods that are only found here. The depth of its riches are laid out in an ambitious recent series of culinary guidebooks by a group called Colima Sabe.

The state has international airports in Manzanillo and Colima, which you might call Burbank-sized, largely serviced by connecting flights from Mexico City. Weekend travelers also come in by road from Guadalajara. There is a smattering of mid-tier or boutique hotels in central Colima or the nearby village of Comala, and a few resort hotels in Manzanillo. If you go, here are a handful of to-do’s for a sure-to-be-surprising Colima journey.

Taste the tuba

Colima’s traditional devotion to tuba, the coconut palm ferment imported from the Philippines hundreds of years ago, comes into focus as you traverse the region and notice vendors congregating on busy street corners or central plazas with gourds or jugs of a milky liquid. It is tart, crisp and infinitely cooling for tropical temperatures. Embrace the “compuesta” style: tuba poured over ice and adorned with crumbled nuts and ruddy red fruit chunks, turning the liquid pink. El Camellón de la Tuba, a well-known stand near central Colima, made the best that I tasted on my visit. Avoid tuba that looks too brown or tastes too vinegary. * El Camellon de la Tuba, Avenida Constitución 2008, Centro, 28017 Colima, @camellondelatubaoficial

Savor Nico Mejía’s restaurants in Manzanillo

La Sal, breezy and surprising in a former carport at his mother’s home in Manzanillo, launched the fame of chef Nico Mejía as a destination cook in 2020. Earlier this year, he moved La Sal (Colima’s coastal lagoons produce excellent salt) to a plot directly on a beach facing the Pacific. The restaurant makes refined regional favorites like ceviche colimense and his tostada de pozole seco, and mixes cocktails with tuba. The white-walled Casa Rangel is Mejía’s power-meeting magnet for internationally inspired local fare. Not too far away, Mejía’s partner Melissa Santamaria Mora runs an excellent bakery called Santamaria. These are restaurants on par with any you’d see in Guadalajara or Mexico City. * La Sal Playa, Avenida Lázaro Cárdenas 797, Playa Azul las Brisas, 28217 Manzanillo, @lasalplaya_

Sip the prizewinning beers of Cervecería de Colima

Winner of the Copa Cerveza México 2025 for best large brewery, Cervecería de Colima has been my go-to for quality, consistency and innovation since I first tasted its pale ale, the Páramo. I’d hold it against any other in this style. Over the years, I’ve found that just about everything Cervecería de Colima brews is satisfying. I’ve enjoyed the session IPA called Piedra Lisa, the bright pilsner Colimita, and the brewery’s recent entrant in the nonalcoholic market, Colima Cero. The headquarters just outside Colima city offer tastings, and in February, co-founder Esteban Silva and his team opened a taproom in the city called Estación Colimita. When a restaurant anywhere in Mexico offers these beers, I know they know what they’re doing. * Estación Colimita, Avenida Constitución 1401-local 1, Jardines Vista Hermosa IV, 28017 Colima, @cerveceriadecolima

Take in coffee and casual dining in Comala and Colima

Comala is a postcard-ready pueblo a few miles north of Colima. Those familiar with Mexican literature will recognize the name matching the fictional town in Juan Rulfo’s 1955 novel “Pedro Páramo,” the groundbreaking book that Gabriel García Márquez said inspired his magical realism masterpieces. The connection is coincidental, yet a certain air of enchantment hangs over Comala’s cobbled streets and tiled rooftops. According to Silva, who lives near Comala, the restaurants worth noting here are Cuaxiote, De La Suerte, and Hacienda Pascual Nogueras with chef Alan Ramos. In Colima city for coffee and a nice meal, visitors should bookmark Puerto Café and Cumbre, a restaurant and bakery that stands out in a scene of growing maturity and ambition. * Cuaxiote, Degollado 81, Centro, 28450 Comala, @cuaxiote

Bite into Colima’s iconic pozole seco

It is Colima’s most famous regional specialty: all the ingredients and most of the preparation of a traditional white pozole, only without the liquid that makes it a stew. Its origins are uncertain, with one tale suggesting that a cook at Manzanillo’s mercado left a pot of pozole over fire and forgot it. When she returned to find the broth dried out, the lore is the cook slathered the remaining mass of meat and hominy on a tostada, and pozole seco was born. Find it at the local markets, cenadurías, comedores, and the sit-down restaurants that ring Colima city’s central plaza, such as Ramos’ new ¡Aquí Es Colima! * Aquí Es Colima! Portal Morelos 1, Centro, 28000 Colima, @aquiescolimaporgloriadedios

Explore Colima’s ancient history

Colima’s major pre-Hispanic site is La Campana, a grid of streets and structural bases that is believed to have been settled as early as 1870 B.C. in Mexico’s Pre-Classic period. The archaeological zone sits right beside urbanized Colima. At the former hacienda community Nogueras near Comala, an impressive museum features historical and archaeological artifacts, and the restaurant Pascual mentioned above. The museum holds ceramics of a dog from ancient times that is native to Colima, similar to Mexico’s more well-known native hairless dog the xoloitzcuintle. Colima’s tlalchichi breed is similar, with shorter legs. Though now sadly it is extinct, the tlalchichi is the state’s unofficial mascot, incorporated in signage, marketing and touristy knickknacks. * Museo Universitario Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo Nogueras, Nogueras s/n, 28450 Nogueras, Comala, @alejandrorangel_udec

Civic pride, sure. But what is it really worth to the city of Anaheim to have its name on the hometown baseball team?

Hundreds of millions of dollars, the city has said. As the Angels’ stadium lease approaches its end, and as Anaheim prepares for negotiations either with Arte Moreno or a potential new owner, it’s worth keeping in mind.

So too is a concept floating around City Hall in Anaheim: What if we could put a new stadium and a youth sports complex next to one another?

Nothing is imminent, and even a bill winding its way through the state legislature would not necessarily require the Angels to return Anaheim to the team name.

It’s leverage: If the Angels’ owner wants to build atop the stadium parking lots, the city can pursue an exemption to a state law that currently restricts what can be built there, which could mean more money for the team and its development partners. In exchange for the exemption, the team name would revert to the Anaheim Angels.

If that’s the carrot, this is the stick: The city would have to approve the zoning changes that could make the land “two to three times more valuable than it is as a parking lot,” Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said.

Said Aitken: “There are no gifts. For an ownership to truly be a partner to the city in what that property could be, there is going to have to be some realization that Anaheim is not Los Angeles.”

The Angels’ stadium lease expires in 2032, and the team can extend it through 2038. A new owner could move the Angels — or at least leverage the threat of a move — but Anaheim offers a 150-acre site with what every owner in pro sports covets: land around the venue to turn the property into a year-round money-making operation.

The standard ballpark villages include restaurants, shops, hotels, homes, offices and entertainment venues. The Ducks are launching one, called OC Vibe, around Honda Center, and within walking distance of Angel Stadium.

What intrigues the city, for at least part of the parking lots around Angel Stadium: a youth sports park for all those travel ball teams. Ontario is building a 199-acre one around a minor league ballpark; Irvine has a 194-acre one up and running at its Great Park.

Katie Wright, who books sports events for Anaheim’s tourism bureau, said there would be a market if her city built a sports park.

“The demand for, specifically, soccer, baseball and softball is tremendous,” Wright told the Anaheim City Council in April. “They would be filled every single weekend, I think.”

What Anaheim has that Ontario and Irvine do not: Disneyland down the street for visiting families, a variety of restaurants within walking distance, and hotel rooms aplenty. In Anaheim, 40% of the city’s general fund comes from taxes on hotel rooms.

“With Angels baseball right next to a youth sports facility, to have the synergy of hotels and restaurants, and players interacting with the Little League kids and soccer fields,” Aitken said, “I just think it’s a unique opportunity.”

Everything old is new again: In 1996, Anaheim pitched a youth sports center called the “Little A” in part of the stadium parking lots as part of a ballpark village that never materialized.

What might be in the best interest of the city now might not be in that of the developer, whether that turns out to be the Angels or a real estate partner. While a sports park might drive tax revenues to the city, a developer might pay the most for land used for hotel and retail properties, said Louis Tomaselli, the Irvine-based executive managing director at JLL, a nationally prominent commercial real estate brokerage.

“A youth sports complex would likely be at or near the bottom from a land value perspective,” Tomaselli said.

That’s all part of the negotiation, and for now the city of Anaheim has no party with which to negotiate. That leaves room for all sorts of brainstorming, including Aitken’s curiosity about flanking the development with high-rise residential buildings, similar to the condominiums that have risen next to Petco Park in San Diego. In some of them, you can watch the game from your balcony.

But let’s get back to the value of the Anaheim name on the baseball team.

“A lot of times, we get the question, ‘Exactly where is Anaheim?’” Wright, the Anaheim tourism official, told the City Council. “We’re always fighting to say, ‘We’re not L.A.’”

In 2005, when Anaheim sued the Angels after Moreno slapped the Los Angeles label on the team, the city commissioned experts that testified the name change would cost Anaheim nearly $200 million over the following decade and close to $400 million through 2029. The Angels dismissed both numbers as wildly high, but that is what the city presented in court.

I asked Sean Moran of Los Angeles-based Innovative Partnerships Group for an update. Moran estimated the worth of the Anaheim name at $26.5 million per year — or more than $500 million over the life of a 20-year deal — based on the value of references to the city on game broadcasts, digital and social media, highlight clips, betting sites, in fantasy leagues, and more.

“I don’t think you can put a monetary value on civic pride and respecting your fan base,” Aitken said. “So, if a new owner wants to come in and start fresh and really respect the fan base in Orange County, the name should not even be a negotiating point.

“It should be the first thing you do, out of respect for where this team is located, and the fan base that is so loyal in good times and bad.”

Perhaps. But, if I’m the new owner of the Angels and the city is on record saying its name on the team is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the first thing I say to the city in negotiations is: You can get your name on the team for that $500 million, which would help me build a new ballpark that could cost $1.5 billion.

Who else could benefit from that? Moreno, as the need for a new owner to pay for a ballpark could lower the sale price.

Even without that exemption from state law, a new owner could pursue a fair amount of development on land Anaheim has failed to develop for 60 years, on a site the city’s own land use plan envisions as “an exciting mix of high energy uses while providing additional housing.” Or a new owner could simply inherit the existing lease and deal with potential development later.

You can start to get the shape of what the bargaining might look like. Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim), the assembly member who introduced the bill in Sacramento intended to spur the return of the Anaheim Angels name, included a provision that says resolution would take precedence over legislation.

“If there is another outcome that takes place, in negotiations or deal-wise, there would be no need for this, right?” Valencia said.

All of that could be years down the road, so no sense arguing all the finer points now. Aitken promises a series of community meetings first, so that Anaheim residents can share how they envision the future of the Angel Stadium property, with or without a baseball stadium.

This should come up for discussion too: The Anaheim Angels name might be ideal for the city, but what, if anything, should the city give up to get it? The last time the city asked, Moreno just said no. If a new owner would be willing, should the taxpayers of Anaheim consider subsidizing the name?

Daiki Kaneko had only 24 hours before his World Cup journey took him to Dallas, where his home country’s squad will take on Sweden.

The Japanese soccer fan was making the most of it on Tuesday in Inglewood, snapping pictures of SoFi Stadium before taking in a different kind of monument: a space-age, two-story branch of the chicken chain Raising Cane’s, complete with a 308-square-foot screen, a mirrored dog sculpture and a massive halo hovering around the exterior.

For Kaneko, 25, who lives in the Tokyo suburbs, it was the perfect encapsulation of American grandeur.

“All this for chicken,” he said. “I love America.”

Inglewood is already diverse — most residents are Latino or Black, and nearly a third are immigrants. But during the World Cup, it’s looking more like the United Nations. English, Japanese, Swiss, Iranians, Paraguayans, Bosnians, Belgians and others are flocking to the city of about 102,000, where eight matches are being played at SoFi Stadium.

Though visitors from abroad may not have heard of Inglewood until now, they’re soaking up the vibes of a city that has long been a major sports and entertainment hub, home to venues such as the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome, and a crucible of Black culture, immortalized in hip-hop songs by artists such as Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre.

“We’re an international city now,” Mayor James Butts said.

Butts said locals were already proud of what the city has become, but the World Cup has put the celebratory feelings over the top.

“We have people from so many different countries migrating to Inglewood, and there’s an explosive sense of community pride,” he said.

City officials are doing everything they can to embrace the spirit of the tournament, including speeding up permits so small businesses and neighborhoods can hold World Cup gatherings and watch parties, Butts said. During the U.S.’s opening match against Paraguay on June 12, the city hosted the Wood Cup, a block party on Market Street that brought in more than 5,000 people.

Businesses across the city are embracing the tournament as well, vying for a piece of the roughly $17 million the city expects to haul in. For a few weeks, concerns about skyrocketing housing costs and gentrification, brought on by the city’s increasing popularity as a place to settle down, are taking a back seat to the sheer fun of international soccer.

The supersized Raising Cane’s had its grand opening on June 11, the first day of the tournament. During the USMNT’s opening match, Cinepolis, a luxury movie theater down the road from SoFi Stadium, turned into a global sports hub, according to CEO Luis Olloqui.

Maddy Daversa, a bartender at the Meeting Spot, a restaurant near the stadium, said 2,000 people poured in when the Americans played Paraguay.

“I was selling beers for five hours straight,” she said. “It was crazy.”

Daversa said the restaurant is usually closed on Mondays but opened in hopes of getting some spillover fans from the Iran-New Zealand game at SoFi.

“Every table was full,” she said. “We’re taking advantage.”

Tuesday was an off day for Inglewood, with no games at SoFi. But the energy was still palpable, with locals sporting soccer jerseys and tourists popping up across the city.

“I just want to be where the fans are,” said David Meier, a Swiss fan in town for his home country’s match against Bosnia-Herzegovina on Thursday.

Meier, 45, plans to explore L.A. via bars, restaurants and watch parties, taking in every game that his schedule will allow before heading north of the border to Vancouver, where Switzerland will face Canada on June 24.

“Everyone has been so kind,” he said. “Soccer and beer turns strangers into friends.”

The energy carried over to Market Street, a historic shopping district about a mile from SoFi Stadium. Businesses set up signs, posters and international flags to lure locals and tourists alike, while the Miracle Theater hosted a watch party for the match between France and Senegal.

Owen Smith, who co-owns the theater with his wife, Mariana, said a Senegalese friend who grew up in France asked if he would be willing to show the game on the big screen. A day later, fans of both teams assembled inside, snapping photos in front of a giant inflatable World Cup trophy in the lobby.

“The Miracle is a cultural event theater. It’s about accommodating the community,” Smith said.

Benyam Woldegiorgis, who co-owns the Nile Bar on Market Street, is showing every single World Cup match — all 104 of them.

“It brings in business,” he said. “Usually it’s just football, basketball and baseball, but now we’re adding soccer to the mix.”

Dionte Johnson, owner of the streetwear store Kingsrowe, partnered with Adidas to hold a watch party for the U.S. team’s opener and said the turnout was massive, bringing in loads of Mexico fans who are local residents, even though their team had already won their opener the day before.

“The downside of the World Cup is that tickets are so expensive, so a lot of locals can’t go check out the games themselves. That’s why we’re hosting events,” Johnson said. “The games are in our backyard, so this is something people have had on their calendar for a long time.”

Homeowners are cashing in as well, with some renting out their places on Airbnb for a small fortune, figuring that crashing on a friend’s couch or booking a hotel room elsewhere is well worth the lofty payouts brought by World Cup demand.

Across L.A., hotel demand lagged compared with initial expectations, but short-term rental prices still jumped 56% compared with typical rates, and more than 70% of rentals were booked by December 2025.

In Inglewood — especially for rentals walkable to SoFi Stadium — prices became dizzying.

Peggy Orenstein and her husband, David, own a home steps from the stadium that typically rents for $400 a night on Airbnb. For the U.S. team’s opener, the nightly rate shot up to $3,000.

For other matches, the four-bedroom house is going for $1,200 to $1,500 a night. Orenstein said the high demand and international crowds are a teaser for what’s to come.

“Next up is the Olympics,” she said. “This is a great learning lesson for what we can expect.”

Los Angeles is the best food city in the United States. When considering breadth and scope, quality of ingredients and cooking, diversity and innovation, and sheer volume, it just can’t be beat. There’s no beginning and no end to its wonders.

But it’s more than that. Although our city can feel chronically fractured, our foods and restaurants may be the only possible glue that binds us. So we asked our Food writers, what are the local dining experiences that define living in our city?

This is our answer. The following are not the definitive “best” restaurants or meals in L.A. — we have a proper critics’ list for that each year. Instead, these experiences are the foundation for understanding what it means to love L.A. through its foods.

Tell us if you disagree, or if there’s anything you think we missed. Whether you’re a hard-boiled native or a first-time visitor with a big appetite, we’re confident that any combination of these 50 dining experiences will make your heart sing with love for L.A.’s invincible food scene. — Daniel Hernandez