is a magazine for the restaurant community. It was founded on the belief that one restaurant’s story can help or inspire another. Each issue explores a different restaurant culture in a different city, looking at how their businesses connect a neighborhood and how their stories connect to one another.

We hope those in the restaurant industry will find something in this issue to relate to, along with a salt-shake or two of information and inspiration for their own work.

One of the most unique things about Los Angeles is its explosion of food culture in the last ten years, namely Asian food. Now, Los Angeles wouldn’t be Los Angeles without it. But there is much more to Asian restaurants than its food. Each establishment, as Lisa Ling puts it in her intro letter, “is rich in stories of immigration, resilience, perseverance, triumph, innovation, and the preservation of culture.”

In this inaugural issue of Secret Menu, we go deep into the diverse Asian restaurant communities of LA forged by chefs and owners, with a look at how their businesses connect a neighborhood and their stories connect to one another, to make up what is now a cornerstone of LA food culture today.

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