Lisa Ling on why Asian food in Los Angeles matters.
A black cod goes from the Pacific to Shibumi.
Keeping cool when the kitchen gets hot.
One restaurant’s many pandemic pivots.
Two different takes on Indian food.
Every day’s a hustle at Woon.
From Asian farms to Los Angeles restaurants.
Why in L.A. they’re not boring.
Three restaurants breaking boundaries.
Mastering values at Yang’s Kitchen.
Two chefs go behind the blade.
Omakase and ramen join the neighborhood.
The coronation of soju and makgeolli.
Three women open the bar they want to walk into.
Indonesian community through cuisine.
On working with Mom and Dad at Anajak Thai.
Los Angeles before sushi.
Inside the staff ritual of eating together.
Three Vietnamese restaurants expand the city’s palate.
One chef has some thoughts.
Waking up Los Angeles to Burmese cuisine.
The couple behind Shiku goes with the flow.
An ode to those who keep them going.
Michelle Bernstein embraces the competition.
One restaurant’s epic journey from debt to success.
The couple behind Boia De and Walrus Rodeo play by their own rules.
Vermouth gets a bar of its own.
On the business of BBQ in Miami.
Recipes for navigating an uncertain economy.
The secret to never getting old in a town obsessed with what’s new.
How two pioneers of omakase introduced Miami to a new way of dining out.
Chasing a childhood memory one arepa at a time.
Why Miami’s mainstays of Middle Eastern food aren’t phased by the influx of glossy newcomers.
David Foulquier on his shapeshifting ambitions.
The Black chefs behind a vegan movement in Miami.
Two Cuban sandwich masters talk shop.
A new generation’s take on the classic Jewish deli.
Miami’s mavericks of sustainable growing and dining.
An intimate glimpse inside restaurants after the last customer leaves.
Creating a culture where employees stick around.
A new kind of bottle service takes root in Miami.
The art of staying put in a changing city.
The city’s ventanitas created a culture all their own.
Philadelphia Magazine’s food critic on the irrepressible attitude that is the key ingredient of the city’s restaurants.
How one restaurant gave birth to many.
The cheesesteak may be the global mascot of Philly. But a contingent of pioneering chefs and restaurateurs have made the city a hub of vegetarian innovation.
The city’s Eritrean-Ethiopian restaurants serve up more—way more—than delicious food.
How Juan Carlos Aparicio baked his way to running a restaurant (that isn’t a bakery).
How Alex Tewfik went from being a food editor in Philly to owning one of the best restaurants in town.
Two restaurants that share a belief in how cooking can be force for change.
How Chutatip Suntaranon channeled her upbringing in Thailand—and life spent flying around the world—into one of Philly’s most singular restaurants.
Stopping by the warehouses in Kensington where artisan upstarts are breathing new life into the city’s food scene.
The Ongoing Evolution of Philly’s Classic Sandwiches.
Chloé Grigri, Amanda Shulman, and Ellen Yin on upending the rules of the game.
Mike Solomonov takes stock of his journey.
When a customer becomes a friend.
Ange Branca was forced to close her beloved restaurant in 2020. That was just the beginning.
How do you build a restaurant in a space that was never meant for a restaurant? In Philly, a city of Revolutionary Warera buildings and colonial row houses and ancient warehouses, it can be a bit like playing Tetris with Benjamin Franklin.
Three Philly couples get frank and intimate in sharing their recipes for romance.
Inside the world of homespun pop-ups and unexpected collaborations that have made Philly’s dining scene like nowhere else.
The classics are easy enough to master by anyone with fine liquor and a recipe.
The city has long been a vibrant hub of Vietnamese food. Today, a new generation is striking a balance all their own—between creativity and tradition, innovation and memory.
An ode to the unsung heroes of restaurant kitchens from a comedy writer who couldn’t take the heat.
A cell phone has been invented that allows you to send one text message to your younger self. What do you write?
The multi-step saga of how a single black cod goes from swimming in the Pacific Ocean to being served at Shibumi, a Michelin-starred restaurant in downtown L.A. specializing in Japanese kappo-style cuisine.
1
BLACK COD, also known as sablefish, are not actually part of the cod family. They live in deep waters along the continental slope of North America, where they grow to three feet in length and can live up to age 90. They are typically around 20 years old when they meet fishermen.
2
AT MIDNIGHT three days a week, Scott Breneman, owner of West Caught Fish Company, boards the Circle Hook, a 31-foot fishing boat docked in Newport Beach’s harbor. The boat is named after the fishing hooks used, which catch the corner of a fish’s mouth, allowing for survival and maximizing freshness. Before every outing, 10,000 baited hooks are manually tied to the line.
3
ALONG WITH A CREWMAN, Breneman heads into the Pacific, toward the Southern Channel Islands, where the Circle Hook is steered around San Nicholas and San Clemente Islands looking for black cod, rockfish, halibut, swordfish, yellowtail, and tuna. Each trip lasts 24 hours and can bring in 2,000 pounds of fish.
4
WITH THE FISH STORED in saltwater tanks, the Circle Hook returns to Newport Beach at midnight the following day. The catch is unloaded and transported a few miles away to the Dory Fishing Fleet and Market, which has been in operation since 1891. Breneman’s great-grandmother sold fish here in the early 1900s.
5
SEIICHI YOKOTA, the owner of Yokose Seafood, arrives at the market at six a.m. Originally from Japan, where his family has worked in fish purveying for seven generations, he moved to California in 2011 and sources fish for restaurants like n/naka and Hinoki and the Bird, in addition to Shibumi.
6
WORKING QUICKLY, Yokota, who trained at Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji Fish Market, searches for black cod he deems right for Shibumi; sparkly eyes and red gills are the signs of a strong fish. He kills the fish using a Japanese technique called ikejime—threading a thin metal line through the fish’s spine to disable the central nervous system. Yokota believes this is the secret to Japan’s magnificently flavorful fish.
7
AFTER BREAKING THE BLACK COD DOWN—removing the scales and guts with a heavy iron knife, cleaning the blood—Yokota wraps each individually and places them on ice in Styrofoam coolers. They are then transported to his warehouse, near the Los Angeles International Airport, before he makes his deliveries in the afternoon.
8
YOKOTA REACHES SHIBUMI at three p.m., where chef David Schlosser receives the black cod less than 24 hours after it was caught. He believes it’s a misconception, however, that fish are best served immediately. “Think of it like hunting,” he says. “The meat is tastier after it’s had some time to hang and tighten.” To achieve this, Schlosser filets the cod and then places it in a dry aging machine for 14 to 17 days.
9
IN PREPARATION for cooking, the fish is moved to the fridge, where it rests in a zaru, or bamboo basket, for a few hours. Once ordered, it is steamed for two minutes at high heat.
10
FINALLY, the black cod arrives in a state worthy of a museum: resting in a pool of katsuo dashi broth, covered in uni and grated wasabi, and meeting diners at a counter cut from a centuries-old piece of cypress as part of their multi-course feast.
Sign up for notifications about future issues