The Brief

2023 was full of plenty of highs and lows for L.A.'s food scene. The lasting imprint of the pandemic continued to weigh heavily on restaurants and the dining experience. Outdoor dining became a permanent fixture, but food and labor costs hit at an all-time high, and inflation remained central for both business owners and diners alike.

Yet despite those hardships, the dining scene in Los Angeles and its surrounding areas remains as dynamic as ever, with various creative forces forging forward, expanding how we think about food.

Here are my predictions for food trends that will be big in 2024.

Have some (slab) cake

While pies and other pastries have had their moment in the sun these past few years, the cake is due for its big moment. Look no further than slab cake at Quarter Sheets Pizza in Echo Park or micro bakery Redbread. Both have developed cult-like followings and are known to sell out fast.

Regionally specific cooking

Every year, the collective dining consciousness of Southern California continues to expand in new and exciting ways, perhaps due to how regionally specific dishes and diverse dining options take us to faraway places without needing to pack a bag.

A great example is the sheer variety of regionalized Mexican food that has become available, whether it be mariscos as they're made in Sinaloa, or tortas ahogadas as they're prepared in Jalisco. Beyond that, I foresee various Southeast Asian cuisines, including Laotian, Thai, and Filipino, will continue to grow in this category.

Post-post-pandemic dining experiences

The pandemic fundamentally changed how we eat, from how we order to where we sit. Since then, restaurants have had to get creative with their spaces that simultaneously embrace indoor and outdoor spaces. Places like Mirate in Los Feliz come to mind, where you enter the main dining room with an almost atrium-like area, well-ventilated with plenty of natural light which feels highly welcoming.

For more casual dining, ordering at the counter of restaurants feels very of-the-moment where you can grab an available seat or take it to go. Simplifying the order makes the dining process feel accessible and approachable.

Will Cheap Fast Eats stay cheap?

After hitting over 50 places in search of dishes for around $10 for my Cheap Fast Eats column, it’s becoming more and more of a challenge to find dishes for a decent price in centrally located areas. Perhaps due to the exorbitant cost of living in urban centers and inflation being at an all-time high, I wonder if finding affordable meals in certain places has become a thing of the past. But that doesn't mean we won't stop looking. So if you have a place to recommend with an excellent dish for around $10, please email me at gchabran@scpr.org or reach out via Instagram.

More non-alcoholic beverages

The interior of The New Bar on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice: It's a store, but also much more.

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Nihal Shaikh

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The New Bar

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After visiting various cocktail establishments this past year, one thing that has stuck out is the large number of non-alcoholic options available, made with the same care as their alcoholic counterparts. Check out this brilliant list by writer Melanie Lockert. Cheers!

Challenging the notion of fusion cuisine

Fusion has always felt like shorthand when describing cuisine that draws from various influences. However, in a place like Los Angeles, an area with a sizable immigrant population and plenty of transplants, various influences, like the L.A. River, tend to flow freely through this city. Hence, mixing aspects of cultures comes naturally. It’s in our blood. So let's stop putting labels on it and just enjoy our food.

Natural wine hits its tipping point?

A decade ago, natural wine, organically grown without adding or removing anything, began growing in popularity, with natural wine bars popping up in various hip enclaves throughout Los Angeles and beyond. However, the question I’ve been pondering is whether people still care. More traditional wines will be found on people’s dinner tables. A simple pinot or a buttery chardonnay can do the trick instead of something intentionally funky. What was once cool and edgy has started to feel somewhat forced and gratuitous.

Plant-based food continues to rise

Make no mistake, I don't mean lab-grown meat, which feels passé for this year. Instead, I'm referring to eating all your vegetables. More and more, fruits and vegetables are becoming the central focus of dishes, not simply as sides or salads. More vegetable-forward dishes mean diners will opt out of fake stuff and go for a delicious roasted eggplant or fried artichoke as their main.

Less tipping

A customer pays at Colossus Bread in Long Beach.

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Brian Feinzimer

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More and more businesses will do away with tipping, similar to places like Colossus Bread in Long Beach, and instead will raise their prices to pay their employees a liveable wage. Maybe you already frequent an establishment like this, or run one? If so, we'd love to hear about it and may include it in a future story! Email me at gchabran@scpr.org or reach out via Instagram.

Outer lands dining

I predict more new restaurants with exciting concepts and menus will set up shop outside the city confines of L.A. Look for more suburban settings or even rural areas like the desert. Some perfect examples of each would be Nilly's Burgers in Artesia and La Copine in Yucca Valley.

An employee of Los Angeles County’s Office of Emergency Management has sued his employer, alleging he was retaliated against for making whistleblower complaints about the response to the deadly Eaton Fire.

Nicholas Vaquero, an associate director in the Office of Emergency Management, alleges that officials leading the office failed to properly staff the response to the fire, which killed at least 19 people and burned thousands of homes and businesses in January 2025.

He also alleges the county’s emergency alerts were inadequate and that it submitted fraudulent data in order to receive FEMA reimbursement. Vaquero says in the suit that he used official county whistleblower channels to raise his concerns, in addition to speaking to OEM’s top two officials, Director Kevin McGowan and Deputy Director Leslie Luke.

Vaquero’s lawyers and the county declined to comment on the substance of the lawsuit. “L.A. County is going to address the allegations in court,” spokesperson Elizabeth Marcellino wrote in a statement to LAist.

LAist previously reported on Vaquero’s whistleblower complaint, in which he alleged that a now-retired employee with “a long history of sleeping on the job” was put in charge of emergency workers sending evacuation alerts and was asleep during critical moments of the first night of the Eaton Fire, when many of the deaths and much of the devastation occurred.

In the lawsuit, Vaquero alleges he has faced retaliation after raising his concerns, including being excluded from meetings he previously was a part of and being treated with hostility by the department’s leadership, among other things.

The complaint comes after county leadership launched a three-year restructuring of the Office of Emergency Management, which includes working to add staff and to conduct regular training for all staff on emergency alert software.

An after-action report from the McChrystal Group highlighted that the emergency management office was severely short-staffed during the fire. The department, which serves 10 million people, had a staff of 37 people at the time the fires broke out. Meanwhile, New York City has a population of 8.5 million and an emergency management staff of about 200 people, the report noted.

For the last three years, the record store and music venue Healing Force of the Universe has been operating on a sleepy street corner not far from Pasadena City College. Nearby businesses include a shoe repair store, a nail salon and several auto shops.

“We're kind of in a dead corner,” owner Austin Manuel said. “No offense if anybody lives here, but not a very foot-trafficked area, kind of a hard place to have a store.”

In spite of the location, Manuel said Healing Force has become a home away from home for musicians and music fans. One of them is Bobby Bradford, a jazz trumpet legend who lost his house and personal archive in the Eaton Fire. He performs regularly at the venue. (Healing Force has also partnered with LAist on fire recovery events.)

Its current location is set to close this month, but Manuel and his team are already raising funds to cover a move to another space: G-Son Studios in Atwater Village. The repurposed ballroom was the Beastie Boys' home base when they recorded their classic albums Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Run-DMC and Biz Markie stopped by at one point, and Beck also laid down tracks for his album Odelay there.

Inside Healing Force's space in Pasadena.

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The vibe

Healing Force sells records, of course, but these days it’s more of a nighttime performance space. Manuel said he wants people to feel comfortable striking up conversations after a show.

“I grew up in the church in the South, and I was like, ‘How do I design this so that it feels like a Southern church lady could come in here and feel welcome?’" Manuel said. “ I didn't want it to be too cool.  I wanted it to feel kind of suburban in a way.”

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Though the name might call to mind a cult slogan — and Manuel said they lean into that aesthetic on purpose — it’s actually a reference to the 1970 album Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe by saxophonist Albert Ayler.

At the venue, “people can kind of get … into a meditative zone,” Manuel said. “After the [January 2025] fires, it felt so good to come back together in this room and feel the healing of community.”

Healing Force's stage setup.

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The performances

The shows Healing Force puts on share a common thread: They’re meant to promote peace and relaxation, as well as deep, careful listening on the hi-fi sound system. But they’re an eclectic mix of genres. On one night, you might see L.A. spiritual jazz band Phi-Psonics, who turned a residency at the venue into a live album, Expanding to One.

On another night, you might catch a spaced-out electronic set, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter or a group of session musicians who’ve played with the likes of Paul Simon, Elton John and Lucinda Williams.

About the fundraiser

With the new space on Glendale Boulevard, Manuel said, Healing Force would triple its capacity for concerts, get a bar space and be closer to other venues in Northeast L.A.

“If 1,000 people gave $25, we would get there,” Manuel said – though he also said most people have been giving more.

You can read more about the fundraiser and donate at Healing Force’s GoFundMe.

See the Pasadena space before it closes

The venue is still open at 1200 E. Walnut Street and is holding events through this Halloween weekend. You can see their events calendar on their website.

The racist DNA of Jim Crow discrimination may be embedded in your housing documents.

The language in housing documents that restricts sale or use of a property only to a person of the white race is called a “restrictive covenant,” and in California the practice goes back to the 19th century and continued into the mid-20th century. While housing discrimination persists, the practice was found unconstitutional in 1948.

California counties are reporting mixed progress in meeting the demands of a 2021 law to excise the language from property records.

According to Sylvia Manzo, deputy recorder in the Orange County Clerk-Recorder’s office, the county finished the job in March of this year, removing racist language from more than 27,000 property documents with the help of computer software.

This 1924 property document from Bakersfield includes racist language limiting use of the property in question to people of "the white or Caucasian race."

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L.A. County is far from done. It says that with the help of an outside company hired in 2024, 50 million pages will be examined yearly, which would take about 10 years to finish the job.

Public agencies could use the public’s help.

Language examples

Here’s a 1924 example from a property in Bakersfield. The text reads, “That the lands herein conveyed shall never, at any time, be sold to or rented to or occupied by any person not of the white or Caucasian race.”

Or this language from a 1936 document relating to a Costa Mesa property: “That said premises shall not be sold, conveyed, rented, or leased to, or occupied by any person of African, Mexican, or Asiatic descent.”

How to get it taken out

The Restrictive Covenant Modification Form is at the heart of the effort to remove the racist language from housing documents. Each county has its own process. Some charge a fee; others don’t. Some require a notary certification for the signature; others don’t.

L.A. County:

Registrar-Recorder officials recommend these steps:

• Highlight or underline the unlawful provision on the recorded document
• Complete the Restrictive Covenant Modification Form
• Submit the form and the recorded document by email: RCM@rrcc.lacounty.gov or in person at the Norwalk headquarters at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk
• Mail instructions are here.

Orange County:

The Orange County spokesperson says there may be some properties not caught by its software and urges the public to report them. Here’s the form

Riverside County:

Here’s the Riverside County form

San Bernardino County:

Here’s the San Bernardino County form

San Diego County:

Here’s the San Diego County form

Santa Barbara County:

Here’s the Santa Barbara County form

Ignoring the racist language in property documents, some say, reinforces the legacy of segregation, while taking steps to remove restrictive covenant language is a way individuals and organizations can repudiate policies that sought to discriminate.