San Francisco Vs. Los Angeles Food Fight
Two West Coast titans duke it out for the title of best food city.
More culinary smackdowns
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.