San Francisco Vs. Los Angeles Food Fight

Two West Coast titans duke it out for the title of best food city.
More culinary smackdowns


Coi's Daniel Patterson
Coi's Daniel Patterson


San Francisco: Star wattage

Coi. Fleur de Lys. La Folie.It's no accident that when the Michelin Guide rolled into California, its first stop was San Francisco, not Los Angeles. Stars of the other kind shine here too. Iron Chefs (Mourad Lahlou). Top Chefs (Jamie Lauren). Food Network talent (Tyler Florence). Difference is, diners here can tell a culinary artist from somebody who plays one on TV.


Marrow-stuffed squid with tamarind pork
Marrow-stuffed squid with tamarind pork


San Francisco: New ideas

Food trucks? Check. Burgers? Check. We keep pace, yet we don't rest our laurels on fleeting fashions. The finest of our chefs, like Daniel Patterson of Coi and Jason Fox of Commonwealth, deal in food too distinctive to be called trendsetting. It defies definition, not to mention imitation. But try a dish like Fox's marrow-stuffed squid with tamarind pork, borlotti beans, and black garlic (pictured), and you realize: This is not a fad. It's the new face of California cuisine.


Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market


San Francisco: Great markets

Around here, farmers' markets are as common as gas stations in L.A. We've got the oldest one in the state (Alemany Farmers' Market), and one where every chef worth his volcanic rock salt shops (Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, pictured). Fresh and seasonal culture runs so deep, it spills into neighborhood markets like Bi-Rite in the Mission, where the guy working the deli counter is apt to hold a degree from the Cordon Bleu.


Curry Up Now truck
Curry Up Now truck


San Francisco: Obsession factor

We've got paparazzi too. They're food-ographers with iPhones who treat the cavatelli with braised lamb at Cotogna as if it were one of the Kardashians. Food blogging? It's the bane of office bosses, the scourge of local workplace productivity. And when a Twitter feed goes out from the Curry Up Now trucks, legions of 9-to-5ers leave behind their "duties" and dash into the street for a chicken tikka masala burrito that's brilliant enough to melt their teeth.


All the nuance of fine wine
All the nuance of fine wine


San Francisco: Booze & caffeine

House bitters? Bor-ing. We've got bartender geniuses making black-pepper tinctures and pineapple gum. We've got small-batch booze cred with Distillery No. 209 Gin. And by the time Angelenos were catching onto terms like "artisan roasted," we had moved on to single-origin wash-processed espresso grown on east-facing Andean slopes. Sounds ridiculous. Until you get your first jolt from Blue Bottle Coffee and realize that coffee, in the right hands, has all the nuance of fine wine.
More on drinking in the West


GWAHN-chal-eh
GWAHN-chal-eh


San Francisco: Smug factor

In a city where the average preschooler can ID six varietals of peaches, world weariness sets in prior to puberty. Then come menus saddled with more des­­criptors than The Origin of Species ("oven-roasted, saba-marinated James Ranch lamb loin with organic Chino Ranch Green Tiger tomatoes") and waiters nervy enough to correct your pronunciation of guanciale (pictured). All right already! You know it means pork-jowl bacon; you've been sight-reading the word since the second grade.


Chinatown
Chinatown


San Francisco: Variety / diversity

We'll see your juke joint sequestered in a strip mall and raise you our Richmond District, a micro-continent sustained by Burmese tea-leaf salad and Shanghai-style soup dumplings. We've got a Chinatown, a Japantown, a sprawling Latin quarter, and tiny pockets stuffed with everything from Latvian pierogies to Laotian larb gai. Best part: This ethnic smorgasbord sits within a manageable 7- by 7-mile city where people on their way to dinner have been known to, get this, walk.
More on the San Francisco dining scene


Providence
Providence


Los Angeles: Star wattage
Don't get us wrong--we love our Michelin stars, Mélisse, Spago, and Providence (pictured) among them. But stars mean something else here. It's no coincidence that Los Angeles is the birthplace of the celebrity chef--or that at our food trucks, pop-ups, and unequaled universe of Asian restaurants, you can enjoy 5-star cooking for the price of a movie ticket.


Chef Ludo Lefebvre
Chef Ludo Lefebvre


Los Angeles: New ideas

What non-vegetarian restaurant trend hasn't started in L.A.? The first important pop-up restaurant, at LudoBites (pictured, chef Ludo Lefebvre); the perfectionist hamburger, by Sang Yoon at Father's Office; the first haute food truck, from Kogi; and truly regional Thai, Chinese, Korean, and Mexican. For starters.


Santa Monica Farmers Market
Santa Monica Farmers Market


Los Angeles: Great markets

We may be a bit behind on the artisanal butcher, baker, and candlestick maker, but all the superlatives bestowed on the Ferry Plaza could transfer to our Santa Monica Farmers Market. It's so clotted with chefs, cookbook authors, and strollers on Wednesday mornings that it can take an hour to buy a radiant head of Romanesco from Alex Weiser, a bundle of Vietnamese mint from Romeo Coleman, or a glowing pint of strawberries from Phil McGrath.


MyLastBite.com
MyLastBite.com


Los Angeles: Obsession factor

Is there anybody here who doesn't have a food blog, or at least contribute the occasional item to Squid Ink? Because it really doesn't seem like it if you've ever showed up on fried chicken night at Akasha or a pop-up night at Biergarten. The Bay Area may have a higher concentration of Yelpers, but L.A.'s dedicated corps of restaurant bloggers (MyLastBite, Gastronomy, StreetGourmetLA, etc.) could fill a stadium--and during food-truck festivals, sometimes do.


Seven Grand
Seven Grand


Los Angeles: Booze & caffeine

L.A. may be the birthplace of the White Russian, but we're making amends with style, and at least we didn't peak in 1872. Seven Grand (pictured) sells more bourbon than any other bar west of the Mississippi, and Tiki-Ti, inventor of the mai tai that actually tastes good, remains the greatest tiki bar in the world. And coffee? Heather Perry from Klatch Coffee is the Sandy Koufax of American baristas. Is L.A. home to the 10-minute pour-over cup? Don't be silly. We've got things to do.


Korean live octopus at Masan
Korean live octopus at Masan


Los Angeles: Smug factor
If a fingerling potato falls in a forest, and nobody is there to put it on her TwitPic page, does it make a sound? In a crowd used to seeing movies 3 weeks before they open, and hearing songs months before they're released, it can occasionally feel that if you haven't tried the Korean live octopus at Masan or the foie gras loco moco at Animal, you barely exist.


Olvera Street
Olvera Street


Los Angeles: Variety / diversity

L.A. is, of course, the most important nexus of immigration in the world. Just look at our concentration of Vietnamese, Filipinos, Salvadorans, Samoans, Thais, Armenians, and of course, Mexicans. Huge swaths of midtown have essentially become a district of Seoul. And here, the newcomers cook for themselves--it's not just Chinese, but Hangzhou, Xinjiang, or Shandong cuisine.
More on L.A.'s dining scene


The Winner
The Winner


And the winner is...

Los Angeles (by one point!)

Why it won: 3 spots to convince you L.A. is king

Mozza. The blistered, raised pies at Pizzeria Mozza, developed by bakery master Nancy Silverton, are of no particular Italian style, but are so good they deserve a region of their own. Next door, Osteria Mozza is famous for its roast guinea hen and handmade pasta. The Scuola di Pizza is best known for weekly whole-hog dinners. And locals head to Mozza2Go on Mondays, when the Puglia-style focaccia is sold by the slab. Hollywood; mozzarestaurantgroup.com.

Lou. Have you heard of a single wine on Lou's short list? You have not. Have you been initiated into the cult of stinky, odd-colored, magnificent natural wine? Likely not. There may be 10-year-old cheddar and the sugared bacon called pig candy, burrata with stone fruit, or elaborate Monday tasting menus, but they are all in the service of wines you probably won't taste anywhere else. 724 Vine St., Hollywood; louonvine.com.

Jitlada. The most popular Thai restaurant in town is famous not for its pad Thai, but for its stunning specialties from Thailand's southern tail--curries enhanced with cassia buds or sataw beans, fried fish rubbed with fresh turmeric, mango salad with cashews, and the most awe­somely spicy dishes your tongue will ever meet. 5233 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood; jitladala.com.