Saffy’s is Simple Middle Eastern Dining Perfection

It’s hard to forget Ori Menashe’s hummus after tasting it for the first time. He achieves a creaminess, writ in chickpeas and tahini, on par with Jöel Robuchon’s famous pommes puree. His mastery of the dip rewired diners’ synapses when he and his...

The seriousness of a Middle Eastern restaurant rests in its hummus. Grainy, vaguely sour hummus is OK to send off in your children’s brown-bag lunches, and the mayonnaise-y over-garlicked stuff may be exactly what you want to see alongside a...

Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis are husband and wife, chef and pastry chef, and the visionaries behind two of L.A.’s most celebrated and successful restaurants: Bestia and Bavel. The culinary power duo, who met in 2005 when Menashe was cooking...

Weiser potato and kimchi pizza from Olivia It’s hard to pinpoint chef Mario Alberto’s style of cooking. He grew up preparing traditional Mexican foods with his mother and he’s spent time in the kitchens at the decidedly Californian Gjelina, the...

In a ceremony in New York on Tuesday, local chefs Ori Menashe of the downtown Italian restaurant Bestia and Carlos Salgado of Costa Mesa’s tasting-menu restaurant Taco Maria were named Best New Chefs by Food & Wine, an award the magazine bestows...