Inside L.A.’s Modern Korean Moment: 3 Spots to Visit Right Now

Los Angelesis the best city in America for old-schoolKorean food, like the perfectly grilled烧烤, deeply flavorful stews, and many renditions of delightfully fatty bo ssam that you’ll find all over Koreatown. But Korean food is also an ever-changing cuisine that’s being showcased in modern neighborhood restaurants all over L.A. Here are three new spots that are exploring Korean flavors while bringing their own brand of 2018 funk.

Wolfdown, located in a Silver Lake bungalow with a storied past that spans decades (there are rumors that comedy legends Laurel and Hardy and hard-partying band Korn lived here, obviously not at the same time), is an enchanting neighborhood restaurant. It’s a lively big-city hot spot in a structure that resembles a hidden woodsy cabin.

To dine here, you walk up upstairs into the old raised house (which locals might tell you was once home to some wild music-industry parties) or a table on the patio. On the night we visited, there were was a table of four scenesters inside; they were discussing how they’ve wanted to visit this place for a while. There were fashionable couples on double dates, sipping sake and cocktails in between bites of fragrant steamed sea bass with myulchi gukmool (anchovy broth that’s stewed for hours). On our way out, we sawNick Krollpull up to valet.

Our favorite dish of the night was a mushroom ssam that happened to be vegan. (Sometimes, this dish isn’t vegan, depending on which one of the half-dozen housemade kimchis Wolfdown serves with it.) The ssam is a plant-based delight that feels meaty and substantial, a lettuce wrap that bursts with flavor, texture, and the heft of grilled king trumpet and oyster mushrooms. The accompanying ssamjang adds tremendous umami and funk with its mix of gochujang and fermented soybean paste (doenjang) along with sesame oil, sesame seeds, scallions, and whipped silken tofu.

When Wolfdown opened in 2017, Korean-Angeleno owners Jason and Chrissy Kim (who also operateForagein Silver Lake) offered a menu that leaned Asian but had more of a global theme. (Dishes included, as former洛杉矶周刊food critic Besha Rodell pointed out, “‘Ethiopian-style’ steak tartare with crackers the shape of the Wu-Tang logo.”) But the more Jason, a chef who previously worked at L'Orangerie and Lucques, cooked at Wolfdown, the more he delved into the food he “really wanted to cook and started leaning more Korean.”

Originally, he had doubts about opening a Korean-inspired restaurant because L.A. has such a vibrant Koreatown.

“Korean food is already so good in L.A.,” Kim says. “It’s hard to open a modern or a second-generation restaurant because there’s giant traditional elements.”

Kim补充说，一方面，顾客在像Wolfdown这样的餐厅里有可能说：“我可以去Koreatown付出一半的价格，并拥有三倍的食物。”vwin德赢ac米兰

It’s not dissimilar to the internal conflicts that pioneering Korean-American chefs罗伊·崔andDavid Changhave had as they’ve taken Korean food to new places in America. But as some time passed at Wolfdown, Kim decided he was ready to put his spin on Korean food and not hold anything back.

他说：“我说，‘你知道，我要全力以赴，’我不在乎。”“这家餐厅发展了。那正是我想做的。”

Make no mistake: What Kim wants to do and what he does extremely well is Korean-Angeleno food, which he’s been showcasing on a new menu that launched this year.

Kim and new co-chef Susan Yoon (formerly atBaco Mercatand71Above）正在菜肴，例如脆皮猪肚ddukbokki。ddukbokki，糖果糖蛋糕的甜味红酱，是韩国流行的街头食品。vwin德赢ac米兰金和云通过添加熏制的番茄酱，脆皮佩里拉种子和亚美尼亚编织的弦奶酪来制作自己的菜。Kim在尝试Oaxacan弦奶酪和新鲜的芝士之后选择的奶酪是对洛杉矶多样性的致敬，以及Wolfdown与亚美尼亚社区的接近。但是，奶酪的主要原因是因为韩国的千禧一代现在痴迷于奶酪。

金说：“在过去的几年中，绿色的奶酪在一切方面都有这种趋势。”“我们想以韩国人现在的饮食方式保持联系。这与10年前韩国人的进食方式完全不同。”

这是Kim想在Wolfdown中提出的更大要点的一部分。他和出生于韩国的元均在洛杉矶的韩国镇（Koreatown）长大，并意识到，无论是1970年代，1980年代，1990年代还是Aughts，许多韩国餐厅都是代表他们开业一年的时间胶囊。

“Since we’re both from L.A., we want to put our timestamp on L.A. Korean food,” Kim says. “This is what Korean food looks like in 2018.”

This means blending Korean influences with local produce and flavors from assorted cultures in exceptional dishes like silken tofu with cherry tomato, strawberry, puffed buckwheat, and minari vinaigrette, and crispy sweet potato with smoked soy tonnato, aonori, and Sichuan peppercorns.

Wolfdown, 2764 Rowena Ave., Silver Lake, 323-522-6381

Bites & Bashes, an all-day café in the South Bay that grew out of an A-list catering company, takes co-owner Crystal Coser back to her L.A. childhood in many ways.

“All of these dishes are literally what my mom cooked for me growing up,” she says. “My mom never once made us buttered penne. She made us galbijjim.”

Bites & Bashes, which opened in Lomita in June, doesn’t define itself as a Korean restaurant, so the word galbijjim isn’t on the menu. But the braised short ribs with carrots and smashed fingerling potatoes are what Korean-born chef Julie Coser has served her own family for decades. The only difference is that it’s plated as an elegant-looking entrée instead of being served family-style.

Julie, who moved to Los Angeles when she was 20 and immediately started working in restaurants, also used to make bulgogi for Crystal and her brother Ryan’s school lunches.

“We’d be so embarrassed to eat that at school that I would trade the bulgogi for Lunchables,” Crystal says.

It’s a story that isn’t uncommon in families with immigrant matriarchs. The children find ways to reject their heritage before realizing that their heritage is something they should savor and that they can use it to create a livelihood and legacy for their family. So now Crystal and Julie are business partners with a restaurant that serves modern takes on Korean food like bulgogi Philly cheesesteaks and spicy pork bánh mìs. (Their catering business, with clients that have included Facebook, Beats by Dre, Uber, Nike, Porsche, and Bill Clinton, makes a lot of tacos filled with bulgogi and Korean spicy pork.)

您还可以将Bulgogi与纯素食韩国玻璃面条一起用红薯淀粉制成。（当然，这道菜是japchae，但菜单上也不是。）这些丰盛的面条装有蘑菇，胡萝卜，葱，胡椒粉，白菜和豆芽等农产品。他们还加冕为Coser家庭农场的可食用花，该农场由Russ Coser（也称为爸爸）经营。这在各个方面都是家族企业。拉斯还在种植草药和所有柑橘味，以叮咬和狂欢，朱莉将在可时的蔬菜中旋转，以便像她的玻璃面条这样的菜肴。

而且由于这是一家洛杉矶餐厅，而不是其他任何东西，所以朱莉（Julie）没有界限。除了韩国食品，叮咬和狂欢之外vwin德赢ac米兰，还提供杰出的菜肴，例如明亮而泥土的沙拉三明治，彩虹鹰嘴豆泥（由三种不同种类的鹰嘴豆泥，用甜菜制成，甜豌豆和辣椒豆）以及灵魂招募的Spaghetti bolognese。那个博洛尼斯是水晶和瑞安在放学后和泰山之前经常吃的东西。同时，在Crystal的敦促下，Bites＆Bashes将黄油Penne放在孩子们的菜单上。

Growing up, Crystal, who started baking crème brûlées and souffles when she was in elementary school, didn’t watch cartoons or the Disney Channel. She watched the Food Network. She remembers being eight years old and seeing Emeril Lagasse make profiteroles on TV and crying to her mom: “How was I supposed to make profiteroles if I don’t have a KitchenAid?” Julie, happy to indulge Crystal’s interest in food, bought her a Kitchenaid mixer that Christmas.

“我从来没有烤烤箱，”水晶说。“我妈妈刚给我买了一个厨房。”

当水晶15岁的时候,她开了一家餐饮企业s, C&J's Catering & Events, with Julie. Crystal later got into Harvard after writing an essay about how she started the company. She was a manager at the university’s Cambridge Queens Head pub while also being the chair of the Harvard College Events Board and taking classes like food science with Ferran Adrià and José Andrés. Then, after graduating and working in the events and food industries, Crystal (who is also the associate editor of Eater in L.A.) teamed up with her mom again and created the Bites & Bashes catering company in 2015.

自Crystal将Bulgogi换成午餐时间以来，发生了很多变化，而且很多事情都保持不变。新旧的平衡，家族史和对现代化的渴望，是Bites＆Bashes的原因之一，是一家引人入胜的餐厅。例如，所谓的“杯子里的裂缝”是一种甜美的亚洲风格咖啡饮料朱莉（Julie）制作了三十年。她曾经用冷冻干燥的浓缩咖啡来制作它，但Bites＆Bashes是从当地特色烘焙兰米尔（Lamill）购买全咖啡豆，并将黑色Onyx Drip Coffee和Reservoir Espresso混合在一起。在这家全天的咖啡馆中，没有更好的方法可以开始新的一天。

Bites & Bashes, 25600 Narbonne Ave, Lomita, 310-892-1251

马卡尼,Korean-Angeleno厨师凯文·李的uncompromising food paired with tropical rum drinks at a buzzing indoor/outdoor space that attracts the attention of pedestrians and Bird-scooter riders, opened in May, and it has quickly turned up the heat on Venice’s chic Rose Avenue.

在这个社区，硅海滩企业家与百万富翁扑克玩家混合在一起，并吸引了健康的健康。这也是人们拥抱美味的创意食物的社区，因此上周三，马卡尼的内饰和露台都被挤满了餐馆，而食客们浸入了原始和燃木的季节性杂物，例如西瓜萝卜vwin德赢ac米兰和紫色花椰菜，进入了ssamjang。我们还喜欢将膨化的米片（Nurungji）浸入辣茄子中。有多个桌子上覆盖着出色的牡蛎煎蛋和绿豆煎饼（Jeon）。

This is one of the best places in L.A. to share many items. When Lee says he thinks that “dining is an experience that you share together” and that it’s about “bonding and happiness,” you buy into his philosophy because his food is so tantalizing and fun.

Makani’s skirt steak ssam with horseradish turmeric cream, scallion salad, perilla, and gem lettuce is one of those lovely dishes that manages to taste simultaneously familiar and original. Lee, who worked under Josef Centeno at both Lazy Ox and Bäco Mercat, understands the kind of flavor combinations that L.A. palates enjoy. Lee’s crispy duck confit, made with half an organic Pitman Farms duck, is served alongside kimchi-bacon rice that adds the ideal amounts of spiciness, salt, fat, and funk to the sizeable entrée.

李在韩国出生。他的妈妈是一位才华横溢的厨师，他小时候就做韩国菜，也是披萨和意大利面。vwin德赢ac米兰李搬到了洛杉矶San Gabriel Valleywhen he was 16. He ate burritos and bánh mìs in L.A. and thought that they were American food. He befriended Chinese and Vietnamese teenagers in the SGV. He realized that L.A. is great because it’s a place that blurs so many of the lines all the time, and now he’s got a restaurant where he can serve clams with Chinese black beans, Mexican chiles, Thai basil, chicharrones, and wood-fired ciabatta. It’s a fantastic dish.

So when you ask Lee how he describes his cooking, he’ll call it “Angeleno food.” Given where he was born, it makes sense that his menu at Makani (the word Makani means wind in Hawaiian, and it’s a term used to describe free spirits) skews Korean. But this is also a restaurant where you can come for braised lengua or lamb-and-beef skewers with curry lebni. You can enjoy classic tiki cocktails like a Painkiller and a Dark & Stormy or Makani creations like Another Broken Vow (mezcal, pineapple rum, habanero, rojo vermouth, and citrus). Whatever you do, you are at a restaurant that expresses so much of what’s wonderful about L.A. dining in 2018. Order a lot of food and share it with your friends or family. Soak up the freshness, fire, and fun. And maybe sit outside and enjoy how the wind’s blowing in Venice.

Makani, 512 Rose Ave., Venice, 424-645-5410