Donal Skehan’s LA food tips
LA is Donal Skehan’s new adopted home. He rounds the city’s top restaurants for his food guide to one of America’s trendiest’s destinations. reports.
I have always been intrigued by world flavours and eating in LA exposes you to such a huge variety of ingredients and flavours that it can’t help but inspire my recipes. When I’m eating out, I am always looking for food that intrigues and inspires. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be delicious.
Beach Gjusta is a sister café and deli to their main restaurant Gjelina, which is one of the best restaurants in LA. It’s a super hip, laid back, old school deli. It’s a really long corridor of a room and there’s a fish counter and a pizza oven and a bakery and salad counter. You order what you want, take a number and head out to the garden at the back. On a Saturday morning it is buzzing with families, people with dogs and couples after a walk. It’s busy from 7am onwards - people get up early here!
Order: The Turkish Eggs. It’s a kind of mezze of soft-boiled eggs, pickled veggies and rye bread. I add some smoked salmon too - it’s so good.
- gjusta.com
is in the arts district of LA, so you go down there, take a stroll around the area and end up in Maneula. This restaurant is all about seasonal ingredients and really fresh flavours. The really interesting thing about a lot of the restaurants in LA is that they have a Mexican influence. So you’ll see Chilaquiles on the menu here, which is a Mexican egg dish and is not something I ever really see on the menus back home. They’re also really great at salads here; one thing that people don’t really know about here is that the produce is incredible. It’s the salad bowl of America!
Order: I generally order from the small plate menu here. You get loads of little tasters of things, and that’s what I love. The ceviche is gorgeous; it has a really zingy lime dressing.
- manuela-la.com
This is just open recently and is only about 15 minutes from our house. It is a counter service Taiwanese restaurant. It’s not what you might think of as Asian, it’s very specifically Taiwanese. My favourite thing at Joy is the thousand-layer pancake. It’s a street food, made of kind of a light puff pastry made into a round of a pancake filled with fried eggs and oyster sauce and all kinds of ridiculously indulgent things. You wouldn’t be eating it on a diet, but it’s damn good. It’s extremely reasonably priced and it’s a great example of how it’s possible to eat out really well here, even if you’re on a budget.
Order: Spiced shrimp wantons and the Vegetarian Mapo Tofu, which is a classic Taiwanese dish, tossed in this spicy chilli sauce.
- joyonyork.com
This super hot in LA right now and it has been for a while. It’s a new version of an old school Italian restaurant so it’s not trying to appease the Italians and is more a modern version of Italian/American food - I’m pretty sure there’s a vodka penne on the menu. It’s a celebration of all things kitschy and Italian, completely over the top and totally fabulous.
Order: All the pasta dishes are great here, and the pizzas are amazing.
- jonandvinnys.com
If you follow me on instagram, you’ll probably find me here most weekends. The service here is hit and miss but the location is everything. You are right on Malibu pier, you have the most epic views of the ocean, and crucially you’ll see all kinds of people schmoozing around at the weekend. There is a mix of tourists and locals, so there’s always something to see here. When you walk in off the pier, turn to the left and there is a seating area with couches; you want to get seated there, because you have the views of the ocean and the pier. Before Noah came, we would spend four or five hours here at the weekend; the menu is Swedish inspired and we felt like it was a taste of home.
Order: I tend to order the Green Eggs & Ham Shakshouka while Sofie goes for the Fried Eggs & Smoked Salmon Pytti Panna, which is a traditional Swedish dish of lots of veggies put in a pan and fried until crisp.
- malibu-farm.com
I got cut off by Arnold Schwarzenegger outside The Rose at 6.30am when he and his posse who were all on bicycles, went through a stoplight. My first time eating there we were seated near Jamie Lee Curtis and spotted a girl from The Hills at the back. There is always someone famous there; I have never eaten there without seeing a celebrity of some description. The thing is that there are a lot of places here that you can go to celeb spot and the food is awful but The Rose actually delivers.
Order: The are probably best known for their carbonara, which they make with radiatore pasta, which is kind of a curly pasta and they serve it with a poached egg in the centre and really big chunks of pancetta.
- rosecafevenice.com
This is more of a recent revelation for us. I do pottery classes in this neighbourhood, so I grab some food to bring home after my class. It’s a counter service restaurant, so it’s very reasonable and there is no space to sit. It’s really close to Griffith Park so a great idea is to take some food to enjoy after a hike where you can eat while checking out the spectacular views.
Order: The sandwiches are good but for me, I prefer the boxes; you can get a falafel box or a lamb box; you get loads of yummy pickled veggies and a turmeric yoghurt and it’s booming with flavour. The chilli and coriander side is mind-blowingly spicy and so delicious.
- dune.kitchen
If you were to press me for one of my favourite places to go, it would be here. This is the menu with the most notions. This is the one where you need to go in wearing your hipster shorts and your vintage tee-shirt. It’s all about bone broth, medicinal mushrooms in your hot chocolate and bulletproof coffee. It’s totally over the top, but I can guarantee you that you’ll feel great coming away from it.
Not only is it over the top in terms of notions, but also it probably has the most instagram-worthy food in LA. They do this turmeric poached egg, which I have included a recipe for in my new book because I love it so much.
Order: I get the breakfast bowl here, and it’s probably a good representation of how I try to balance eating because there’s a bit of bacon in there, but lots of other healthy bits and bobs.
- honeyhi.co
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