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What goes into making The Times’ 101 Best Restaurants guide? Our critic shares his secrets

101 Best Restaurants Poster
(Los Angeles Times)
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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Dec. 6. I’m Bill Addison, restaurant critic for The Times. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

The secrets behind our 101 Best Restaurants guide

Every year for a decade, The Times has published its annual guide to 101 remarkable restaurants across our region.

The project’s goal is to point readers toward excellence while also shaping a big-picture narrative about Los Angeles: its communities, its tastes, its nonstop evolution. This is my fifth year writing or co-writing the list, the newest edition of which published online last night and will appear in print this Sunday. (You can also purchase the magazine from the L.A. Times shop.)

I never tire of the city’s endless possibilities — the sense that corner taco stands, tiny strip-mall dining rooms and hushed special-occasion destinations hold equal potential for deliciousness and meaning.

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How do I piece together this ever-shifting puzzle of restaurants? A lot of eating, mostly. As The Times’ restaurant critic, I’m usually out to dinner six nights every week, driving to all corners of the metro area.

Our city’s size brings the advantage of specificity. For the regional Mexican cuisines and sushi and pasta alone, we’re a privileged bunch.

A taquero can differentiate himself by recreating the smoky carne asada techniques passed down in his Sinaloan family. One chef finds fulfillment perfecting the classic Edomae-style nigiri she studied in Tokyo; another takes Californian liberties, dolloping caviar over tuna and slipping in a course of spring vegetables hand-picked from the nearest farmers market. An obsessionist can revive a thin, rectangular variation of ravioli that turns emerald-green in the center from Swiss chard.

The same potential awaits for Korean barbecue, dan dan noodles, smoked brisket, stewed oxtails, crab curry … on and on.

Your next great meal is two blocks away, at the other end of Los Angeles County, behind an unmarked door, at roving trucks or weekly events or capricious pop-ups. And while L.A. is the obvious focus, we also highlight a handful of further-afield neighborhoods, such as Orange County’s Little Arabia and Little Saigon with their dense, singular mix of restaurants.

I’ll tell you two secrets before sending you off on your own culinary adventures.

The official title is “101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles,” but I compile the guide more with the word “essential” as my governing philosophy. It seems more honest and ultimately useful for me to ask: What assembly of outstanding restaurants most joyfully reflects our culture?

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Also, restaurant rankings might be fun for readers, but they’re agony for the writer. A plea, then, to consider there are thousands of places to dine across the L.A. basin. The number of slots feels smaller every year; each of the places on this list deserves your attention. This is always an imperfect, subjective exercise and everyone has strong opinions: I’m sure you will have yours.

If you love restaurants you’ll likely recognize many of the expected greats, but a quarter of names make their first appearance this year. I’ll also nudge you to check out our ongoing Hall of Fame list, with 10 names newly added — among them is arguably our city’s most famous Thai restaurant.

Yes, a Hall of Fame is a little bit of a cheat, a way to both pack in a few more deserving inductees while also making room for fresh entrants. Truly, though, these luminaries surpass the notion of annual list-making. There’s plenty to debate but I hope you’ll agree these restaurants have a place of honor in L.A. for all time.

Read more here:

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Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Bill Addison, restaurant critic
Elvia Limón, multiplatform editor
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Laura Blasey, assistant editor

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