Los Angeles Travel: Spring 2022 Restaurant & Food Guide

Agnes in Pasadena’s chicken liver mousse & cherry eclairs. (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller)

My fall 2021 return to Los Angeles, the region I partly grew up in and spent over 12 years of my youth and, later, young adulthood living in was a busy one. I visited over 35 places, from cafes and coffee roasters, to restaurants and eateries — like pre-pandemic times. While the bar scene was clearly struggling on the service end even more than restaurants were, restaurants were coming back to life.

Here’s the good, the bad and the damn delicious (my Coffee, Snacks, Bottle Shops & Bar Guide here):

RESTAURANTS
Found Oyster, East Hollywood
Found Oyster opened in 2019, a tiny seafood counter with spare few tables (so get in line before it opens). It feels a bit like SF’s legendary, over a century-old Swan Oyster Depot got hipsterized with a feel-good 80s soundtrack playing the likes of Kenny Loggins and Hall & Oates. No, you can’t equal legends like Swan or even Anchor Oyster Bar, but not only is Found my top oyster bar in LA, it’s my top seafood restaurant there. Period. The festive spirit envelops as you pull up to the oyster bar and the daily changing seafood is as impeccable as you hope it will be.

Boxes of Saltine crackers line the shelves and a savvy natural wine list maintains the fun, whether a chilled red 2020 Enoteca Bisson Ciliegiolo from…