The Los Angeles food scene is fiercely competitive, highly innovative, and populated by customers who bring high expectations to the dining room. These factors, combined with Southern California's melting pot diversity, help make L.A. a mecca for foodies all over the globe.
And when the influential food critic Jonathan Gold offers up a list of 10 food trends to watch for in the coming year, the culinary world takes note. So did we.
The No. 1 trend on the list—Women in the Kitchen—echoes the female-forward movement racing around Hollywood these days: "With the ascendance of chefs like Niki Nakayama, Roxana Jullapat, Jessica Largey, Dahlia Narvaez, Sarah Hymanson, Sarah Kramer, Nyesha Arrington and April Bloomfield," Gold writes, "and countless women moving into important spots in restaurant infrastructures, a new, female-led era is dawning, and it’s about time."
Gold is at his cheeky best in describing the pickling trend that has taken hold and looks to expand in the coming months, noting that "the idea has spread to such an extent that it may be difficult to be taken seriously as a chef in 2018 unless you have jars of pickles, casks of salted things and various kombucha-like slimes brewing in the back."
Other trends to watch include Israeli Cooking, Better Tortillas, Asian Desserts, and Extreme High-End Meals. It's a great article that every serious foodie needs to digest—and if it doubles as motivation to pay a visit to Los Angeles and sample some the latest innovations, all the better.
