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Last week, I started something new. I launched a COVID Comfort Rating system for restaurants. I’m mothballing the traditional star ratings until we get past this pandemic. I’ll be highlighting how restaurants comply with the safe reopening...

Is that restaurant safe? Do the servers wear masks? Are the tables properly distanced? Dining out has changed. And to keep everyone safe and to slow the spread of COVID-19, our state health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and...

The new branch of Silverlake Ramen at the Irvine Spectrum has finally opened, and it’s a welcome addition to the outdoor mall. (The original version in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles is where one of the chefs at Hiro Nori first gained...

A couple of weeks ago, I received a care package of tacos Tuxpeños from my colleague Ben Mims, who cooked them from the recipe in Esteban Castillo’s terrific new cookbook, "Chicano Eats." The chile-stained pork, steeped in a startlingly fragrant...

On a recent Thursday morning, artist Lauren Halsey, dressed comfortably in jeans, sneakers and a straw hat, gathered a small group of volunteers inside a warehouse in South Los Angeles to help unload two refrigerated box trucks filled with some of...

After months of living with COVID-19, many of us feel like we’ve become experts in what we’re supposed to do to stay safe­. We’re washing our hands, wearing our masks, disinfecting our surfaces. But, while we may have thought a great deal about...

What does it mean to be an exceptional Los Angeles restaurant? None of us could have known how complex the question would become in 2020. But Josef Centeno’s adaptive, graceful version of excellence in the maelstrom is one reassuring answer. On a...

Editor’s note: Instead of our usual star system for restaurant reviews, we have instituted a temporary COVID Comfort Rating of restaurants to accompany our traditional criticism of the food, service and ambiance. “That’s too much butter, don’t you...

Warren Luckett likes to say that he grew up around the family dinner table. While he bounced around from St. Louis to New Jersey to South Africa and then Houston, the dinner table was always a safe space to discuss politics, religion and whatever...

Do yourself a favor. Go to the grocery store and buy some high-quality hamburger buns. And maybe a couple of habaneros. Then go home and order the Dr. Pepper barbecue pork from Harley in Laguna Beach. The pork stars in of one of the restaurant’s...