Ahh I follow them on Instagram but didn’t realize they were on the boards! Hi!
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Howlin’ Ray’s was on last year’s 101 and Addison mentions it in the Hotville blurb. He had to drop something to make room for new places.
Publishers love arbitrary numbers, they think it drives sales. Reviewers, not so much, since it means making arbitrary choices and leaving places off the list that are just as good as the ones that made the cut.
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I think Fishing with Dynamite should be on the list instead of The Arthur J, but what do I know…
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Addison says in his newsletter today that he ate at each restaurant on the list between July and October, so that cutoff date might explain why some places are missing.
warrior: our dinner at otium this year was excellent and memorable and much better than dinners at otium in past years. better than our dinners at majordomo and rossoblu this year.
warrior: another restaurant that i noticed is not on the list: bicyclette. has it lost its luster so quickly?
another disappointing omission: angelini osteria.
too new
Addison put 9-1/2 Italian places on the list and I’m sure Angelini just didn’t make the cut. I enjoyed a good meal there at in August, but it wasn’t in the same league as Bestia, Bari, Gjelinia, Chi Spacca, or Osteria Mozza. Maybe the food was better before they quintupled the number of covers by adding the huge sidewalk seating area.
Last Wednesday, I finished my final bit of writing for this year’s 101 Best Restaurants in L.A., and then I met a friend for dinner at Bicyclette in Pico-Robertson. … Spoiler: Bicyclette is not on the list. The latest project from République’s Walter and Margarita Manzke is really two restaurants: a downstairs bistro that opened in June, and a more formal dining room upstairs that will likely debut in the first half of 2022. I’m waiting to write a full review until both elements are up and running.
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warrior: is Golden Delight really Vietnamese? It seems they have a small Vietnamese menu and others mostly Chinese dishes.
yes, it’s actually vietnamese own by a vietnamese family… many vietnamese are also teochew and identify as both. i didn’t inquire to see if they were chinese vietnamese. but that’s what sorta makes them unique --not that they have both chinese and vietnamese food, but that they do both really, really well.
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warrior: thanks. people on yelp talk about long lines. if we went there at 6:30 or so, how long do you think the wait would be?
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honestly can’t say, we’ve only been to dinner between 5-6 or breakfast/lunch and had no issues. its not a huge restaurant and from what some have said, they stopped doing outdoor dining. hopefully you can go on weekday that may help.
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im still laughing about Antico somehow managing to get on this list. They cannot be serious about those pizzas…
“Last year many of us gorged ourselves on chef-owner Chad Colby’s focaccia pizzas…Still, it was hard to shake the success of the pizzas… In a nod to their popularity, the restaurant recently announced it would continue selling those two carryout items for an hour each afternoon pre-service.”
Are these reviews or PR statements? I miss Jonathan Gold soooo much 
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That is a very odd choice indeed.
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Addison liked Antico’s focaccia pizzas. People who think pizza should be thin and crisp probably wouldn’t.
He’s not the only critic who raved about it…
https://www.theinfatuation.com/features/los-angeles-best-takeout-pizza-antico
The ice cream was delicious. I’d go back for that.
Unfortunately they seemed to have mixed the sugar from the ice cream in with the tomato sauce bc it was easily the most disgustingly overly sweet pizza I’ve ever eaten. Nothing to do with the style of pizza. Like a knockoff of Pizza Hut or Domino’s. Bleh!
To me, it’s obvious they are fond of the chef there. I have been very disappointed with the 101 lately there are some egregious snubs here when this somehow gets on the list. Does a disservice to the LA food scene…
Warrior: the addition of sugar / corn syrup to tomato for any purpose is an abomination, because a good tomato already has a right balance between sugar and acid. This, by the way, is the right balance for wine as well, which California winemakers (probably ketchup eaters) need to learn. You have a lot of great ideas.
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thank you! That was a great way of putting it. I miss the former writer as well at LA Times who left bc of pay issues, she helped balance out a lot of this bias which has now gone into this year’s list in so many ways.
Colby is not putting sugar in his tomato sauce.
Escárcega quit because she was unhappy when she found out that Addison was getting paid more, but if she’d read up on the experience-based classifications in her union-negotiated contract it would have come as no surprise that with three years of experience she was paid less than someone with 17 years.