It’s always fun to read the LA Times 101 when it comes out, but it’s not really a representation of the 101 best restaurants in LA as they claim. Somni at 50 is a petty snub. Mercado La Paloma is great but…not a singular restaurant. The Hall of Fame is a graveyard that nonsensically puts current stalwarts next to hollowed out shells. And the geographical boundary of LA is tenuous - is it the city, the county, the metropolitan statistical area? Even if the list was more ostensibly the “best restaurants”, it’s still the opinion of just two people.
Therefore, I pose a question to you all:
Should we do an FTC 101 list? There would be plenty of details to iron out (including how long the list is - it doesn’t have to be 101), but before putting any more thought or work into the idea - is that something for which there is sufficient interest?
Unfortunately there’s no “dislike” feature on posts, so comments here would be more useful than likes. A simple “yes” or “no” is plenty valuable, but additional commentary or thoughts are encouraged.
Ah ha! I had a vague recollection of something like that in the past. I even did some brief Googling trying to find it, to no avail. Yes - that’s the general idea!
Ah ha! I had a vague recollection of something like that in the past. I even did some brief Googling trying to find it, to no avail. Yes - that’s the general idea!
i’ll dissent just for the hell of it. i like that the LATimes treated mercado la paloma as one place. all the food i’ve eaten in there has been good. it’s also way more a part of the LA dining scene than Somni. Michelin is already the definitive fine dining list; the LATimes shouldn’t be that. it should account for cost, community significance, and diversity. it should reflect where you’d take family or friends visiting LA. i’d probably take them to Mercado generally and then debate whether to do Holbox or something else, taking line into account (actually i’ve done just that). in short: i agree with Mercado #1 and Somni #50.
Assuming I move forward with this, I plan to build a website to facilitate submitting entries (and eventually viewing results). Shouldn’t take more than a couple hours.
I think it would be far more useful for individuals to post their own “best of 2025” lists. Some kind of statistical consolidation of a bunch of disparate opinions from people with wildly varying experiences doesn’t seem useful to me.
I second OC’s exclusion from any best-of-LA list. Orange County has enough variety in terms of regional cuisines and dining experiences that it should have its own domain
You can’t use the FTC brand for your own project. If you’re creating a web app to compile some top # lists submitted by whoever, you can’t call it an FTC list. Call it Loaxley’s List or the like.
Discourse has a poll feature, but where would you get a list of the hundreds or thousands of restaurants people have mentioned here? And how would you prune out the ones that aren’t in whatever you define as LA?
I have a sanitized list of all 30,237 permitted restaurants in LA County. Native Discourse polls don’t offer the level of data input or output granularity that I would like. The solution I plan to build will be much more streamlined.
