Best Food Writing 2010 Part 4

"Originally, tofu came from China," Yos.h.i.+da-san explains. "It was first brought to Nara, which was then the capital of j.a.pan. There were a lot of priests there, so it became a.s.sociated with Buddhism. When the capital moved to Kyoto, the priests came, too, and brought tofu culture with them."

Whenever you talk to people about tofu in Kyoto, this is what they mention: the city's history, the vegetarian diet of monks, the mountains that surround the city, and the clean water that runs down from those mountains. One night, I sleep at a 191-year-old ryokan ryokan, or traditional inn, called Hiiragiya. Each room is a sanctuary: tatami mats, wooden baths, and sliding doors that open onto a little private garden. Samurai slept here. Charlie Chaplin had stayed in my room.

In the morning, I sit wrapped in my yukata robe and eat the traditional dish called yudofu-squares of tofu boiling in a nabe pot over a small flame. Later, I follow the Path of Philosophy to the grounds of the Nanzenji Temple, where there is another kind of shrine: Okutan, a 360-year-old tofu restaurant. Here, charcoal is brought in, as well as a bowl of broth to simmer tofu.

The mood is meditative, yet even in my contemplative state I think maybe that's enough simmered tofu for a while. But this is before I go to dinner at Kichisen, where chef Yos.h.i.+mi Tanigawa proceeds to blow my mind.

Michael Baxter, an American who lives here and writes a blog called kyotofoodie.com, introduces me to Kichisen. Baxter is sort of obsessed with the place-and the chef-and it's easy to see why. Tanigawa is an intense, funny genius who once defeated an Iron Chef on the j.a.panese program, and whose kaiseki kaiseki restaurant is run with martial precision. Baxter and I eat Tanigawa's version of restaurant is run with martial precision. Baxter and I eat Tanigawa's version of yudofu yudofu : a clay pot with tofu that's whiter and s.h.i.+nier than any I've seen. The tofu is dipped into das.h.i.+ with : a clay pot with tofu that's whiter and s.h.i.+nier than any I've seen. The tofu is dipped into das.h.i.+ with kujo-negi kujo-negi (local scallions) and covered in bonito flakes. The broth is rich, but the smoothness and taste of the tofu itself is remarkable-bright, creamy, sweet. The tofu, Tanigawa tells us, comes from Morika, a famous shop on the outskirts of town. Instead of (local scallions) and covered in bonito flakes. The broth is rich, but the smoothness and taste of the tofu itself is remarkable-bright, creamy, sweet. The tofu, Tanigawa tells us, comes from Morika, a famous shop on the outskirts of town. Instead of nigari nigari, Morika uses calcium sulfate as the coagulant, which for some reason produces a smooth tofu that holds its shape in the hot bath of yudofu yudofu.

"We opened Morika about the time Commodore Perry came to open j.a.pan," Genichi Morii tells me when I visit him the next day at his shop. Perry's arrival in the 1850s ended two centuries of self-imposed isolation. When he sailed home, Perry's s.h.i.+ps are said to have delivered to America its first soybean plants. A century and a half later, soybeans are America's biggest crop, supplying much of j.a.pan's demand, and Morika is still here making tofu. "Whatever you do, you must love it," says Morii. "You've got to love tofu to make it."

I think about that love and dedication-centur ies of bean curd!-when I find myself at Yubahan, a small yuba yuba maker in an old maker in an old kyo-machiya kyo-machiya on a placid backstreet in the center of town. Here, early in the morning, a young man tends to two dozen large vats of simmering soy milk. Slowly, a skin forms on the milk's surface. And slowly, slowly, the kid deftly runs a wooden dowel over the milk and pulls up a thin, delicate sheet of tofu skin, as his family has been doing here since 1716. I eat a bowl of on a placid backstreet in the center of town. Here, early in the morning, a young man tends to two dozen large vats of simmering soy milk. Slowly, a skin forms on the milk's surface. And slowly, slowly, the kid deftly runs a wooden dowel over the milk and pulls up a thin, delicate sheet of tofu skin, as his family has been doing here since 1716. I eat a bowl of yuba yuba and watch the boy watching the vats. I think about the ritual slowness of this work. The and watch the boy watching the vats. I think about the ritual slowness of this work. The yuba yuba is warm and soft on the tongue. This is what Kyoto does so well: coaxing the boring-looking soybean to greatness, bringing out its essence, and finding there something simple, pure, and is warm and soft on the tongue. This is what Kyoto does so well: coaxing the boring-looking soybean to greatness, bringing out its essence, and finding there something simple, pure, and ois.h.i.+ ois.h.i.+-delicious.

TIME TO RESPECT THE RAMEN.

By Kevin Pang From the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune

Tribune dining reporter Kevin Pang's eclectic background-born in Hong Kong, raised in Seattle, college and first job in Southern California-makes him a natural for navigating Chicago's multi-faceted food culture. A dose of hipster humor comes in handy too. dining reporter Kevin Pang's eclectic background-born in Hong Kong, raised in Seattle, college and first job in Southern California-makes him a natural for navigating Chicago's multi-faceted food culture. A dose of hipster humor comes in handy too.

Not too long ago, I stared longingly out the window of a Tokyo hotel, my eyes laser-focused on a ramen noodle cart by the train station.

A half-dozen people stood in line, mostly men in dark business suits. They waited and waited, then plopped themselves onto stools outside when summoned by the ramen chef. Sufficiently intrigued, I found myself in line among the suits. Ten minutes later, the cook presented a perfectly composed bowl, primary colors popping, a half-dozen ingredients resting in their respective nooks atop a steam-billowing tangle of noodles.

The bowl satisfied every taste sense man is blessed to experience. The soy-sauced broth was savory and pure. The noodles: smooth on the intake with an appealing chew. Alternating bites of bean sprouts, braised pork, seaweed and hard-boiled egg ensured every bite highlighted a different flavor.

My brows beaded with sweat, my heart rate rose, my virginal experience of real j.a.panese ramen shook me to the core. Ramen was the first food I learned to cook at age 10-drop noodle brick in boiling water, empty sodium packet-and here it was, in the middle of Tokyo's s.h.i.+nagawa neighborhood, a dish redefined.

This following statement I shall defend to the death:When ramen is good, it's in the top three of the most extraordinary, soul-satisfying foods in the world. Admittedly, ramen gets a bad rap stateside. It conjures images of college dorms and food-drive donation bins. When you can get Sapporo Ichiban noodles-10 for a dollar-at Walgreens, there's a whiff of cheapness ramen can't escape.

But the last decade has seen ramen's street cred rise in cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. It's a mystery why Chicago isn't a ramen hotbed.

Two theories as to Chicago's underwhelming ramen representation: Among Asians in Illinois, there are more Indians, Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos than j.a.panese. A bigger reason is that ramen is a laborious, time-consuming dish that, to prepare well, a restaurant has to pretty much make the dish its singular focus.

There's this terrible movie called "The Ramen Girl," in which Brittany Murphy's character apprentices at a Tokyo ramen shop. There was one memorable line from the ramen chef, though: "A bowl of ramen is a self-contained universe with life from the sea, the mountain and the earth, all existing in perfect harmony. What holds it all together is the broth. The broth gives life to the ramen."

As great broths go, three in our area are worth noting.

Takas.h.i.+ Yagihas.h.i.+'s cooking can be described as white-tablecloth j.a.panese through a French prism, but the Sunday brunch menu at his Bucktown restaurant, Takas.h.i.+, is closest to his native roots. It's the one day of the week he serves ramen.

For Takas.h.i.+, growing up in Mito, a town outside Tokyo known for its abundant pink plum blossoms, ramen was omnipresent.

"My house was on the same block as a ramen shop. We'd get so hungry after baseball practice we'd go there for a snack, then I'd eat dinner again," Takas.h.i.+ said. "I wanted to introduce what you can eat in j.a.pan if you traveled there."

The number of regional ramen styles in j.a.pan number in the dozens, but the most prevalent is Tokyo-style shoyu, the j.a.panese word for soy sauce. Like a Chicago hot dog, you'll always find the same six ingredients atop a shoyu ramen: bamboo shoots, scallions, seaweed, hard-boiled egg sliced lengthwise, braised pork and Naruto-style fish cake (characterized by its pink swirl design).

The day I visited, it so happened that Rick Bayless and his wife, Deann, were also dining at Takas.h.i.+, sharing a bowl of the shoyu ramen ($13). I could hear him from a few tables away raving about the noodles. We compared notes after the meal.

"There's something so elementally true about getting and understanding what role broth plays and how incredibly satisfying that is," Bayless said. "I like the very gentle spicing in it, that hint of star anise. It's gentle, doesn't hit you over the head. That to me is the perfect Sunday morning: that Tokyo ramen."

Takas.h.i.+'s name is attached to the noodle bar on the seventh-floor food court inside Macy's Loop store. The ramen at his Bucktown restaurant, though, is miles better, because he's overseeing the broth's 24-hour cooking process.

Chicken and pork bones are boiled for hours. Bonito flakes (cla.s.sic j.a.panese flavoring agent of dried shaved tuna), kombu (kelp) and dried sardines are added, giving the stock that savory taste sensation of umami. From there, the stock base goes in any number of directions-the popular shoyu, or the version I ordered, miso ramen. (True miso is a thick paste made from fermented soybeans, not the gunky powder turned soup.) The miso ramen ($13) arrived studded with sweet corn, bean sprouts and wakame, sweet strips of seaweed.

I slurped louder than culturally appropriate. This is, in fact, acceptable behavior. Slurping accomplishes two duties: It cools the noodle, and the extra intake of oxygen supposedly amplifies flavor, the same way it would with wine.

A sure sign of unadulterated slurping was the dots of broth that soon splattered on the table and my s.h.i.+rt. The broth had a nutty, earthy flavor that soothed on that chilly day (miso ramen is indigenous to Hokkaido, j.a.pan's northernmost island, known for its long, frigid winters). Therein lies the difference between 10-cent instant ramen and Takas.h.i.+'s broth: One is just salty, the other a deep, resonant flavor made possible by a secret ingredient called Father Time.

Bill Kim's most excellent Urban Belly Urban Belly offers a lighter take on ramen ($13). Authenticity is not a concern for Kim, a Korean-American who can deftly meld far-off Asian flavors. His das.h.i.+-based pork broth (bonito flakes and kombu) features Vietnamese pho spices, lime juice and fish sauce. Kim's ramen tilts more refres.h.i.+ng, though the richness from the pork belly tips it back the other way. offers a lighter take on ramen ($13). Authenticity is not a concern for Kim, a Korean-American who can deftly meld far-off Asian flavors. His das.h.i.+-based pork broth (bonito flakes and kombu) features Vietnamese pho spices, lime juice and fish sauce. Kim's ramen tilts more refres.h.i.+ng, though the richness from the pork belly tips it back the other way.

Kim tipped his hand: "We all go to Santouka. A good Asian will know to go to Santouka Santouka in Mitsuwa." in Mitsuwa."

Santouka is the chain ramen franchise from j.a.pan, inside the food court at Arlington Heights' Mitsuwa Marketplace. Its special toroniku s.h.i.+o ramen was so spectacular I asked the Santouka manager its secrets. I was. .h.i.t with a big, fat "no, thanks."

The manager is a young j.a.panese fellow who allegedly speaks no English. Even with the lure of positive press, the manager's English-speaking subordinates claimed that he was under no authority to divulge proprietary company secrets and, therefore, get off my lawn! get off my lawn!

This much I could derive: Their special toroniku s.h.i.+o ramen ($8.99) has b.u.t.tery, luscious slices of pork cheeks that fell apart with no teeth resistance. The broth is wintry white, as if the noodles were soaked in b.u.t.termilk, then flecked with sesame seeds. It's reminiscent of tonkotsu ramen, the Southern j.a.pan-style broth made by boiling pork bones for a long time long time (not to be confused with tonkatsu, the panko-breaded fried pork cutlets). (not to be confused with tonkatsu, the panko-breaded fried pork cutlets).

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: In the ramen world, tonkotsu is king among kings.

The top of the broth glistened; an emulsified pork fat spillage that would put Greenpeace volunteers on high alert. The toppings came separately on a side plate-wood-ear mushrooms, scallions, bamboo shoots, fish cake and the fatty pork-to be dumped into the ramen by the diner.

It was profoundly delicious. The broth's porkiness was so rich and intense I inhaled every last sip. The toothsome noodles were made using alkaline salt, which gives them an eggy-yellow hue. Beneath the savoriness, there's a gentle sweetness to it all. In all my visits to Santouka, it accessed the same lobe and cortex that flooded back memories of ramen carts outside Tokyo train stations.

After I slurped the last of the noodles, a residue of slick, porky balm had formed around my lips. That was my favorite part.

WORLD'S BEST SOMMELIER VS. WORLD'S WORST CUSTOMER By Frank Bruni From Food & Wine Food & Wine

Former New York Times New York Times dining critic Frank Bruni-author of the memoir dining critic Frank Bruni-author of the memoir Born Round: Secret History of a Full-Time Eater Born Round: Secret History of a Full-Time Eater-knows a thing or two about restaurant impersonations. Here he deliberately sets out to test the mettle of a top Manhattan wine steward.

I vetoed the Champagne that Le Bernardin's Aldo Sohm suggested at the meal's start, telling him my mood wasn't so bubbly. Rejecting his advice again, I insisted on having a red instead of a white for the charred octopus, then I staged a tabletop tantrum over the price of the Montrachet that he initially paired with the monkfish. vetoed the Champagne that Le Bernardin's Aldo Sohm suggested at the meal's start, telling him my mood wasn't so bubbly. Rejecting his advice again, I insisted on having a red instead of a white for the charred octopus, then I staged a tabletop tantrum over the price of the Montrachet that he initially paired with the monkfish.

As dinner progressed and Sohm's face turned an increasingly fl.u.s.tered shade of red, I accepted only one of his recommendations, a sake for a smoked-salmon carpaccio bejeweled with glittering salmon caviar. Otherwise, I grimaced and protested while he stammered and perspired. I wanted to see how well the "world's best sommelier" could roll with the punches-and just how many of them he could take.

That's what had brought me and a companion to Le Bernardin, one of Manhattan's most esteemed restaurants for more than two decades. We were staging a sort of contest, which pitted a pesky, deliberately obnoxious naysayer (i.e., me) against a wine savant of world renown. The restaurant's venerated chef, Eric Ripert, and a few of his lieutenants knew about our ploy. But they hadn't informed Sohm, whose reactions to me would ideally reveal something about the flexibility of wine pairings and the deliberations of a master sommelier.

Sohm, 38, is certainly a master. Born, raised and educated in Austria, he moved to New York in 2004 to work with Kurt Gutenbrunner at Wallse and the chef's other restaurants, then left to take charge of the wine program at Le Bernardin in 2007. While working full-time there, he boned up for sommelier compet.i.tions and bested rivals from around the globe in Rome in 2008, winning top honors from the Worldwide Sommelier a.s.sociation. He was judged on his ability to recognize wines in blind tastings, to edit a wine list and to suggest pairings for food.

It was the last of these talents that I focused on, a.s.sessing the agility and inspiration with which he navigated Le Bernardin's list of about 750 wines from 14 countries. The wine list emphasizes France, but I wasn't going to let Sohm do that. Nor was I going to let him return too frequently to his homeland, which he's been known to do.

"We're yanking you out of the Alps, Aldo," I made clear at the start, when he tried to subst.i.tute an Austrian Muskateller for the spurned gla.s.ses of Champagne. So he toggled to the island of Santorini and a 2008 Thala.s.sitis from Gai'a Wines. He likened the body, bite and citrus notes of the Greek white to a French Chablis. But why was it the right wine for our canape of raw tuna pressed in briny kombu seaweed?

"Acidity and minerality," he said, explaining that the wine should brighten and sharpen the taste of the fish the way a splash of lemon and a scattering of coa.r.s.e salt would.

Bit by bit, Sohm detailed his philosophy on wine-food pairings, saying that not only should the wine burnish the food, but also the food should burnish the wine.

"Food and wine are in a marriage where both should get better," he said. "It's a two-way relations.h.i.+p."

"But shouldn't it be a three-way?" I asked. He blushed. I explained: "Shouldn't you consider the drinker, too, and what his or her taste in wine is?"

"That's true," Sohm conceded, then added that he was only now learning what kind of wine drinker I was.

I accelerated his education, telling him I'd long been prejudiced in favor of drier wines. That inclination, not just orneriness, was why the Greek white had worked better for me than the Austrian.

It was also one reason I waved away the floral Tramin Gewurztraminer from the Alto Adige region of Italy-the Alps, mind you-that he paired with the exquisite octopus, a Mediterranean-meets-Asian dish combining Bartlett pear with fermented black beans and a squid ink-and-miso vinaigrette. I told him to give me something drier and demanded a red to boot. So he presented two California Zinfandels, which he said would be fruity enough to match the dish. But the first one-a 2006 late-harvest wine from Dashe Cellars-had definite sweetness. The second, a 2005 from Martinelli's Jacka.s.s Vineyard, didn't, though there was a price for that.

"Seventeen percent alcohol," Sohm noted, thus commencing a tutorial on another crucial aspect of wine pairings during a meal that includes a half dozen courses or more: pacing. The wines, in sequence and aggregate, shouldn't exhaust a diner's palate or leave him too tipsy.

Without being asked to, Sohm chose as many wines for under $100 a bottle as wines that hit or exceeded that mark, even though roughly 80 percent of Le Bernardin's list falls in the higher-priced category.

But for another stunner of a dish, supple pan-roasted monkfish in a gingery sake broth studded with hons.h.i.+meji mushrooms, Sohm got a little bit ritzy: He wanted to pour gla.s.ses of a premier cru 2006 Cha.s.sagne-Montrachet from Domaine Bernard Moreau Les Chevenottes. It was white Burgundy at its most regal, and it cost $150 a bottle.

"Too much!" I declared, trying for the vocal equivalent of a pout.

So he trotted out another white Burgundy, because he said the sake in the dish called for a wine with soft tannins. This one, a 2005 Philippe Colin Maranges, was $75, and, though it paired beautifully with the fish-making the broth's flavor seem deeper and earthier-it had less elegance than its regional kin. Sohm studied me as I registered the difference.

"When you've driven a Ferrari and you go back to a Mercedes, you can feel a little lost," he consoled me. "That doesn't mean the Mercedes isn't any good." The Maranges was in fact excellent, and its crispness made it in some ways a better match for the monkfish than the Montrachet. We also preferred it to a California Pinot Noir that he threw into the mix at the last minute.

I noticed that the redness in Sohm's face had faded somewhat, and that he now seemed much too calm. So I became even more strident and implacable for Ripert's final savory course, an upscale surf and turf of grilled escolar and Kobe beef with pungent anchovy-b.u.t.ter sauce.

"No Bordeaux!" I said, dismissing his pick. "No red wine, period.

"And no white, either," I p.r.o.nounced, my voice turning sinister. "In fact, no wine. I want a pairing of hard liquor. It can be in a c.o.c.ktail. It can be served neat. Your choice."

Sohm looked baffled. Nervous. Then he vanished.

When he reappeared-too soon, and with a stride too brisk and steady-he had in his clutch a bottle of Zacapa rum from Guatemala, aged up to 23 years. He said it just might work with the Kobe and escolar, and sure enough it did, providing precisely the sweet-with-unctuous charge that distinguishes a cla.s.sic union of Sauternes and foie gras. And because the rum had been aged so long, it was gorgeously smooth.

By that point, Sohm had taken us to eight countries, presented us with about a dozen grape varietals and, most impressive, maintained extraordinary grace under pestering. What could be left?

As it turned out, beer. In part because of its carbonation, which can cut richness and settle a full stomach, Sohm sometimes likes to throw it in toward the end of a long meal, and on this night he offered a Westmalle Dubbel Trappist beer from Belgium for a milk-chocolate pot de creme topped with maple-syrup caramel. The dessert neatly underscored the vaguely chocolaty aspect of many dark brews. Sampling the food and the beer together, I was put in mind of a chocolate egg cream.

Visions of a Jewish deli staple at a haute French restaurant? The evening's last laugh belonged to Sohm, who bid us good night with beads of perspiration on his forehead but a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

NIGHTS ON THE TOWN.

By Patric Kuh From Saveur Saveur

Author of The Last Days of Haute Cuisine The Last Days of Haute Cuisine, chef / writer Kuh-otherwise known as the dining critic for Los Angeles Los Angeles magazine-here opens a nostalgic window on the glamour days of L.A.'s restaurant scene. magazine-here opens a nostalgic window on the glamour days of L.A.'s restaurant scene.

I love dusk in LA, that moment just before restaurants open for dinner. A waiter runs to work, toting his white s.h.i.+rt on a hanger. A kitchen crew wolfs down a quick meal at the empty bar. A parking valet rolls out the pavement stand. The scent of night-blooming jasmine is in the air, and all over the city, against an evening sky whose colors are unique to this part of Southern California, the lights are coming up. They click on in the recessed nooks of a sleek sus.h.i.+ joint. They sparkle on a chandelier in an old-school French restaurant somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. They s.h.i.+ne from sconces in a west side bistro. And, everywhere, there's the neon: "c.o.c.ktails," "Steaks and Chops," "Seafood." Night falls, and, feeling the first pangs of hunger, you are faced with that most pleasant of quandaries in LA: Where should we eat? love dusk in LA, that moment just before restaurants open for dinner. A waiter runs to work, toting his white s.h.i.+rt on a hanger. A kitchen crew wolfs down a quick meal at the empty bar. A parking valet rolls out the pavement stand. The scent of night-blooming jasmine is in the air, and all over the city, against an evening sky whose colors are unique to this part of Southern California, the lights are coming up. They click on in the recessed nooks of a sleek sus.h.i.+ joint. They sparkle on a chandelier in an old-school French restaurant somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. They s.h.i.+ne from sconces in a west side bistro. And, everywhere, there's the neon: "c.o.c.ktails," "Steaks and Chops," "Seafood." Night falls, and, feeling the first pangs of hunger, you are faced with that most pleasant of quandaries in LA: Where should we eat?

As a restaurant critic, I spend hours each day driving around this city, asking myself that very question, the same one Angelenos have asked themselves since the earliest days of fine dining in LA. And I spend just as much time sitting in crowded restaurants, considering the service, the food, the setting, and wondering what makes restaurant culture here so different from that of any other city in the world. It's no secret that LA's upscale restaurants tend to be more casual and more outwardly trendy than those you find in other great food cities, or that the cuisine here is often lighter and more far ranging. But, why? What made it so?

It's okay not to have too much of a history in Los Angeles. In fact, being without one is something of a tradition. The past here need reach no further back than the moment the lead character (in drop-dead heels, please) steps off the 20th Century Limited at Union Station and onto the palm-lined street. Over the course of the past hundred years or so, when it came to restaurants in LA, things could quickly get funny. Nothing was native here, so borrowed themes took on their own, distinctive character.

Consider L'Orangerie, the venerable and now defunct French restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard. Until it closed, a few years ago, you could treat yourself to a fine meal there, s.h.i.+elded from traffic by boxed hedgerows, and find that the evocation of the court of Versailles was in no way hampered by the working oil wells down the street. And still today, in the At.w.a.ter Village neighborhood, one can have a good prime rib at the Tam O'Shanter, an inst.i.tution that dates from 1922 and has an interior modeled after a Scottish peasant hut: sagging roof, bulging walls, soot-darkened mantel. The original designer, Harry Oliver, didn't have any actual link to the Scottish Highlands; he'd perfected the look on Culver City movie lots.

Some call that superficiality; I call it lightness, the defining characteristic of LA dining. The knock against us as a city is that we're not real epicures, that we are health-obsessed weenies who care only if there's a star in the vicinity and will hardly eat because we must be doing squat thrusts at dawn up a canyon. The truth is that we are engaged by food but pair that pa.s.sion with a sense of fun. It's not fakeness that bothers us but fakeness without heart.

True, like every other place in America, we once had our potted-palm dining rooms where cla.s.sical French food might be enjoyed, but one can only wonder whether the Angelenos who ate at those places took all that saucy food at face value or whether they thought it was just a bit of show business. With the rise of the motion picture industry in the 1920s, fantasy became part of the landscape of everyday life in LA, and the theme restaurant took root. At the Jail, a restaurant that opened in 1925 in Silver Lake, the waiters dressed as inmates. At Ye Bull Pen Inn, which opened in 1920 downtown, customers dined in rows of livestock stalls. No matter what the theme, most places served comfort-food cla.s.sics, like fried chicken and steak. But at Don the Beachcomber, which opened in 1934 and kicked off a nationwide tiki trend, the Polynesian menu matched the setting.

And while not every eatery in town banked on fantasy-downtown LA in the 1920s was crowded with sterile-looking cafeterias that catered to the sober tastes of the hundreds of thousands of Midwesterners who were flooding into the city at the time-the movie business was the engine that drove our fine-dining culture for much of the 20th century. In the early years, the stars gathered at night in places like the sw.a.n.k Cocoanut Grove, in Midtown's Amba.s.sador Hotel, where their comings and goings, doc.u.mented in newsreel images in thousands of movie palaces, kept the rest of the country fixated on what was happening out here. In those flickering images was the inkling that Los Angeles, once a remote, dusty pueblo, was now a place with a vibrant culture all its own. It would take a few years, however, for that culture to find expression in food.

WELL INTO THE 20TH CENTURY, the fanciest restaurants in LA, like those in the rest of the country, were still looking to Europe for their models. Places like Perino's-an Italian-owned restaurant on Wils.h.i.+re Boulevard with a lengthy, haute-Continental menu-were still considered the epitome of stylishness in the 1940s and 1950s. When it came to food, imported cuisine was fine, but Angelenos of certain means eventually came to expect something more-a little sleight of hand, a memorable character. Romanoff's, which opened in 1941 on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, delivered both, in the person of owner "Prince" Mike Romanoff. The self-styled Russian royal was actually Herschel Geguzin, an orphaned son of a Cincinnati tailor. Everyone knew he was a fraud, but no one cared. On the contrary, guests seemed to admire him for his chutzpah.

Mike Romanoff's success also owed to this: he knew that for all of Hollywood's glamour, the inner workings of the city amounted essentially to a bunch of hard-nosed men eating lunch. Romanoff's, accordingly, was a boys' club, complete with stiff drinks, deep booths, rich French food, and waiters who were models of discretion. Cigarette girls roamed the big back room; the coveted five tables opposite the Art Deco bar were reserved for the real movers and shakers, and for Romanoff himself. In 1949, M.F.K. Fisher, not yet a doyenne of the food world but a recently divorced sometime screenwriter, expressed admiration for the restaurant's breeziness and pragmatism. "The att.i.tude seems to be," she wrote in her book An Alphabet for Gourmets Alphabet for Gourmets, "that all humans must eat, and all humans must make money in order to eat, and therefore the two things might as well be combined."

Romanoff had recognized an essential facet of LA culture, but an older restaurant had already begun to break through and represent something even more intrinsic about Los Angeles. The Brown Derby had opened across the street from the Cocoanut Grove back in 1926; with its exterior shaped like a giant bowler hat, it seemed to hint at the extravagances of the theme restaurant, and, filled with movie stars, it certainly had elan, but over the years it had gained a reputation for its tasty food. It wasn't fancy: pan-fried corned beef hash was a popular dish, as was the grapefruit cake with cream cheese frosting. The most famous dish, the Cobb salad, didn't skew European at all. It is hard to think today of iceberg lettuce, watercress, chicory, romaine, bacon, and avocado as being original, but it was a brilliant combination, as perfect as blinis and caviar, hollandaise and filets de sole filets de sole, and certainly more interesting than any ersatz European grandeur hashed up under dusty chandeliers.

While the Brown Derby had begun to unmoor LA's fine dining from Europe's, it took a restaurant called Chasen's to cut the ropes. In the 1950s, by which time LA had become an important enough city that the Dodgers decamped there from Brooklyn, this low-slung Beverly Hills restaurant was becoming the place to be seen. Its most famous dish wasn't coquilles St-Jacques coquilles St-Jacques or chicken quenelles; it was a bowl of chili sprinkled with diced raw onion. Running a close second was the hobo steak, a New York strip steak cooked tableside in copious amounts of b.u.t.ter. Like Romanoff's, Chasen's had a manly brusqueness, but unlike Romanoff's, it rejected dynastic pretensions. Actually, Chasen's wasn't really very good. (My aunt, a onetime Vegas showgirl and not one for moist-eyed nostalgia, once summed matters up saying, "Patric, the only things worth having at Chasen's were the garlic bread and the decaf.") or chicken quenelles; it was a bowl of chili sprinkled with diced raw onion. Running a close second was the hobo steak, a New York strip steak cooked tableside in copious amounts of b.u.t.ter. Like Romanoff's, Chasen's had a manly brusqueness, but unlike Romanoff's, it rejected dynastic pretensions. Actually, Chasen's wasn't really very good. (My aunt, a onetime Vegas showgirl and not one for moist-eyed nostalgia, once summed matters up saying, "Patric, the only things worth having at Chasen's were the garlic bread and the decaf.") The only time I ever visited Chasen's was in 1999, four years after it closed. The restaurant where Ronald Reagan had proposed to Nancy, where Orson Welles had hurled a flaming chafing dish at the producer-actor John Houseman, was auctioning off all its furnis.h.i.+ngs. I walked into the ma.s.sive structure on Beverly Boulevard, with its weird white columned exterior and its green-and-white-striped awning that stretched to the curb, and there it all was: the silver crab forks, the b.u.t.ter holders, the golden c.o.c.ktail stirrers, laid out and tagged with lot numbers. In the dark, wood-paneled interior, I got a sense of why that bowl of chili with diced onions had been so important. It announced that fine dining, with all its trappings, could be made in America. What remained to be figured out was whether fine dining in Los Angeles could be made to reflect not just America but this particular corner of California.

IT COULD BE ARGUED THAT LA's unique brand of California cuisine was born on a patch of farmland outside Los Angeles, where a Cordon Bleu graduate named Michael McCarty and a chef named Jean Bertranou, who'd brought nouvelle cuisine to LA with his West Hollywood restaurant L'Ermitage, began farming ducks for foie gras. McCarty had fallen in love with French cuisine as a teenager but was intent on expressing that love in a local dialect. He opened Michael's in Santa Monica, three blocks from the ocean, in 1979. In a complete departure from the upscale chop house vibe of places like the Brown Derby, Michael's had a back garden that was suffused with sunlight in the afternoon. Yes, there was foie gras, but it was served by waiters in pink b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rts alongside California-made chevre chevre and wines. Whereas Chasen's could have been mistaken for Manhattan's '21' Club, Michael's couldn't have existed anywhere but Southern California. and wines. Whereas Chasen's could have been mistaken for Manhattan's '21' Club, Michael's couldn't have existed anywhere but Southern California.

The confluence of graceful outdoor living and expensive modern art, of baby vegetables and understated affluence, was the s.e.xiest encapsulation of modern American cooking yet. But McCarty was more than a showman. He was a mentor who believed in his mission of channeling the rigors of French cooking into something new. The LA pastry chef and restaurateur Nancy Silverton-one of a number of now famous alums of Michael's, including the chefs Jonathan Waxman and Ken Frank-recalls McCarty's taking her aside and saying of the mousse she was making, "It's too French." The dessert was over-aerated, he explained; he wanted more concentration of flavor. The moment was an epiphany, Silverton says, a turning point that would lead her toward her signature, rustic style of baking. "Suddenly, I understood that there was a difference between a good French pastry and a good pastry based on French technique."

Michael's had started a transformation, but to start a revolution, it would take a chef who really had something to rebel against. In fact, it took a European truly to see Southern California's singular lifestyle and incomparable natural bounty for what they were. A few years before McCarty got his restaurant off the ground, a 30-year-old Austrian cook named Wolfgang Puck was living in a rented room with sheets on the windows and an Emmanuelle Emmanuelle poster on the wall. Puck was a culinary hired gun. Before coming to LA, he'd worked at dowagers of haute cuisine like Maxim's in Paris and the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo; once here, he got a job at Ma Maison, a Melrose Avenue restaurant that was the height of style in the mid-1970s. Certainly, the place was a change of pace for Puck: the dining room had an Astroturf floor, and the owner, a Frenchman named Patrick Terrail, was known to sport an elegant suit with sandals and white socks. But by Puck's own admission, the kitchen was still doing a b.u.t.ter-with-more-b.u.t.ter style of cooking. poster on the wall. Puck was a culinary hired gun. Before coming to LA, he'd worked at dowagers of haute cuisine like Maxim's in Paris and the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo; once here, he got a job at Ma Maison, a Melrose Avenue restaurant that was the height of style in the mid-1970s. Certainly, the place was a change of pace for Puck: the dining room had an Astroturf floor, and the owner, a Frenchman named Patrick Terrail, was known to sport an elegant suit with sandals and white socks. But by Puck's own admission, the kitchen was still doing a b.u.t.ter-with-more-b.u.t.ter style of cooking.

Puck became famous at Ma Maison anyhow, publis.h.i.+ng a popular book on French cookery in 1981 called Modern French Cooking for the American Kitchen Modern French Cooking for the American Kitchen. But with Spago, which he opened the following year, he became a legend. The first iteration of the eatery was located on Sunset Boulevard in what had been a Russian-Armenian restaurant. Puck saw it as something casual-the dining room had checkered tablecloths-and while there were certain connections to Alice Waters's Chez Panisse (the same German bricklayer had made both restaurants' pizza ovens, and they had the same enthusiasm for the produce of California), at first glance there wasn't anything momentous about it. But Spago was unlike anything LA had seen before. Here was a chef who had been raised on the French "mother sauces" and had chosen not to use them. Instead, he installed a grill and had a truckload of almond tree wood delivered weekly. In the kitchen, he fostered an atmosphere of pure improvisation. The chef Mark Peel, who had come over from Michael's to work as head chef, recalls the manic opening night. "We cooked with the menus propped in front of us to remember what the ingredients in the dishes were," he says. This was not cooking from a playbook that had been slavishly pa.s.sed down from one chef to another.

BY THE TIME I MOVED HERE, in 1988, Los Angeles's role as a brilliantly inventive restaurant city had been cemented. I came as a cook, not a critic, carrying with me well-worn knives from Dehillerin in Paris, where I'd worked for Guy Savoy, and from Bridge Kitchenware in New York, where I was a line cook at the '21' Club. Now the energy was pointing west. Everything seemed to be in flux when I got here. Even at the city's older, well-loved places like Valentino, in Santa Monica, chefs were changing their stripes. When Valentino's owner, Piero Selvaggio, opened the place back in 1972, it was a typical high-end ristorante ristorante with plenty of tableside pyrotechnics. "We didn't use anything like buffalo mozzarella," he recalls. "Mozzarella was something breaded and fried." But by the time I visited, Selvaggio was wheeling an olive oil cart around his dining room, pouring samples over bruschetta so that customers could appreciate the differences between regional oils. with plenty of tableside pyrotechnics. "We didn't use anything like buffalo mozzarella," he recalls. "Mozzarella was something breaded and fried." But by the time I visited, Selvaggio was wheeling an olive oil cart around his dining room, pouring samples over bruschetta so that customers could appreciate the differences between regional oils.

I got a job on the line at Citrus, a new restaurant that the French-born chef Michel Richard had just opened among the production houses and sound stages in the raggedy southern end of Hollywood. At Citrus, Richard wasn't just mining the local terrain for the freshest beets or handmade charcuterie; he was going to the Thai grocery down the block and coming back to the kitchen with lemongra.s.s and coconut milk. He was shopping at Armenian markets and bringing back things like katafi katafi (shredded phyllo dough), which most of us had never seen before, and wrapping local Dungeness crab cakes with the stuff. One day, he became fascinated by watching one of the Salvadoran prep cooks eating a chayote salad. A few days later, we were plating up chayote slaw. (shredded phyllo dough), which most of us had never seen before, and wrapping local Dungeness crab cakes with the stuff. One day, he became fascinated by watching one of the Salvadoran prep cooks eating a chayote salad. A few days later, we were plating up chayote slaw.

That you could play with culinary genres like that had become a given. Everyone was blurring boundaries: there was Roy Yamaguchi mingling Hawaiian foods like ahi and macadamia nuts with European techniques at his restaurant 385 North in West Hollywood (and later at the LA branch of Roy's); n.o.bu Matsuhisa melded Latin American ingredients with traditional sus.h.i.+ at his namesake restaurant in Beverly Hills; and at the Melrose Avenue eatery Border Grill, which opened in 1985, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken freely interwove strains of regional Mexican cuisines in homage to LA's countless great taquerias. In a way, this sort of eclecticism was right at home in a city where fantasy and invention, rather than history and tradition, had formed the foundation of high-end dining.

By the end of the 1980s, LA was home to innovative restaurants that boasted an equally novel a.s.set: homegrown talent. When Campanile opened, a few blocks north of Wils.h.i.+re Boulevard, in 1989, its planked salmon and its grilled prime rib with black olive tapenade-served in a rustic but elegant dining room in a faux-Tuscan complex with a verdigris cupola-caused a sensation. Its owners were Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel, chefs who had come up through the ranks of LA dining and not from New York, France, or Austria.

I've eaten at Campanile too many times to count, and every time I do, I feel grounded in this city. Los Angeles is a hard place to know-its fantasyland roots, its ethnic patchwork, and its almost too perfect sense of glamour all defy easy explanation. But sitting in a crowded dining room like Campanile's, I feel the disparate streams of LA's history coming together, and I can gaze around me, and at the plates of beautiful food, and say to myself, This is it. This is LA.