The Brief

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Filipinos often show their love with the simple question: “Kumain ka na?” — Tagalog for “Have you eaten yet?” This is another way of asking, “Are you being taken care of?”

Since the days of Little Manila in the 1920s, Filipino food in Los Angeles answered that question quietly, feeding a hard-working community without much recognition. But that’s changed in the past decade, according to Eli Simon, COO of the former ghost kitchen turned lauded restaurant Manila Inasal.

The past decade has been marked by the rise of a new class of eateries led by Filipino chefs honoring the soul of traditional Filipino cuisine with modern flair.

“What’s changed in recent years is a new generation of Filipino and Filipino-American chefs who are approaching the cuisine with more intention,” Simon told The LA Local. “They’re telling clearer stories, refining how dishes are presented and helping people see the full range of what Filipino food can be.”

In 2016, the late L.A. Times food critic Jonathan Gold noticed a “Pinoy cooking boom in Los Angeles.” It seemed that Filipino cuisine was in the zeitgeist on television with Chef Sheldon Simeon wowing viewers on Top Chef and in L.A. with Chad and Chase Valencia’s pop-up in Chinatown called Lasa, which Gold praised for a menu that “vibrates with the flavors of the Philippines.” 

What followed was a pandemic-era generation of Filipino chefs noticing an opportunity to launch something new. Home kitchens became James Beard Award-recognized restaurants. And a cuisine that had long fed its own community almost exclusively began to feed everyone else too.

What once was seen as “exotic” has now broken into the mainstream. Even Trader Joe’s has embraced Filipino food with a frozen adobo dinner and ube-flavored everything — while causing online debates on the culture’s commodification. 

A vibrant spread of Filipino staples at Manila Inasal, including grilled inasal chicken, garlic rice and an array of traditional side dishes.

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Courtesy Manila Inasal

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“Our food is for the Filipino American longing to connect with their roots,” Manila Inasal executive chef Natalia Moran told The LA Local. “It’s for the American who has never tried Filipino [food].”

The reasons Filipino food took longer to break through are complicated, according to Moran. She pointed to colonization — the Philippines was occupied by Spain, the United States and Japan — and the way that history shaped Filipinos’ own relationship to their culture. 

“We had the mentality that anything imported was better than locally made,” she said. “We Filipinos had to see the beauty in ourselves, in our own culture, before we could showcase our culture, our identity to the world.”

Now they are. There are nearly a half-million Filipinos in Los Angeles County — the largest concentration outside the Philippines — and their chefs are cooking with a confidence and creativity that feels long overdue.

Today, there are dozens of high-quality Filipino chefs and eateries all over L.A. County. The restaurants below represent a small slice of the vanguard of that movement. 

From decades-old neighborhood anchors to the new wave of chef-driven concepts, here’s a guide to some of the best Filipino spots across L.A. 

Kuya Lord

Lord Llera opened Kuya Lord out of his home during the pandemic, feeding neighbors before the concept grew into a James Beard Award-winning brick-and-mortar on Melrose. Llera told The LA Local he wants non-Filipinos to discover Filipino food and crave it like Chinese, Thai or Japanese cuisine.

“Because I am doing Southern Filipino cuisine, it’s also a way of educating fellow Filipinos about other Filipino regional dishes,” he said.

Representing the Quezon province in the Philippines, Chef Llera offers distinct flavors from the region that can even be new to Filipinos in Los Angeles, serving super-savory proteins like the popular fatty and rich lucenachon — a hybrid of lechon and porchetta — alongside pancit and garlic rice.

Manila Inasal

A signature dish, the crab tortang talong reimagines the classic Filipino eggplant omelet by topping it with succulent crab meat and bright roe.

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Courtesy Manila Inasal

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Manila Inasal began in the Philippines in 2020, when Chef Moran and her siblings cooked for first responders during the pandemic. It quickly grew into a restaurant in its namesake city before moving to Los Angeles in 2023.

“I love how vibrant and diverse the culinary scene is here in L.A.,” Moran said. “There are authentic spots that are amazing, but there are also places that offer a hip and new take on dishes.”

Being exposed to the diverse culinary landscape of Los Angeles has enabled Chef Moran to reimagine traditional Filipino dishes. 

“It has broadened my understanding of which flavors can and cannot go together [and] which Filipino flavors go with other items that can be found here,” Moran explained. “The Los Angeles culture has exposed me to a whole color palette I can now use to create something delicious and interesting.”

Manila Inasal, which loosely translates to “Manila Grill,” roots itself in the savory, salty and tangy flavor profiles of the Philippines. In addition to their take on laing focaccia, joy can be found in the crispy and fatty lechon sisig, while beef short rib adobo represents the homeland proudly. Veggie versions of both dishes are just as satisfying.

Chef Moran also ups the ante with the traditional tortang talong by topping a thick eggplant omelet with dollops of calamansi aioli, crab meat and tobiko.

Sampa

Blending Filipino and Mexican influences, the kare-kare tamales feature peanut-based flavors wrapped in traditional corn husks.

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Courtesy Sampa

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Filipino food has not traditionally been presented as “haute cuisine,” but restaurants like Sampa have subverted expectations, offering refined twists on tradition with a dash of swagger. 

Sampa — short for sampaguita, the national flower of the Philippines — took the long road to a permanent home. Chef Josh Espinosa and co-owner Jenny Valles launched as a delivery concept during the pandemic, staged pop-ups at the Pali Hotel in West Hollywood and Cafe Caravan in Los Feliz, and held a lunch residency at Kaviar before landing in downtown L.A.’s Arts District at the end of 2024.

Espinosa and Valles are constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to being bold and inventive with Filipino cuisine. The ever-changing Sampa brunch menu items include a chicken and pandan waffle, bangus benedict, and biscuits and longanisa gravy. Dinner brings octopus adobo, lamb kaldereta tortellini, crab fat fried rice and a plate of pancit topped with crispy duck. The kare kare tamales have become a standout.

A modern classic: Sampa’s longganisa spaghetti pairs the sweetness of Filipino sausage with a rich, savory sauce and floral garnishes.

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Courtesy Sampa

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“I think what makes the Los Angeles Filipino food scene different is that this city is a hub for creatives — people constantly pushing ideas forward,” Espinosa told The LA Local. “Being surrounded by that energy naturally influences how we cook and create.”

Espinosa said he grew up embarrassed to bring Filipino food in Tupperware to school. Today he’s working to make the unfamiliar — including dishes like isaw, or chicken intestines — approachable without losing their soul. “My goal is to present these dishes in a way that feels familiar and accessible,” he said.

“Food is a love language in Filipino culture because, historically, many families in the Philippines do not have much, so cooking became a meaningful way to show love and appreciation with what you have,” Espinosa said. “At the end of the day, my goal is to tell my story as a Filipino American and to share that with the world.”

Valles said that Filipinos take great pride in family and tradition. “Food is a vessel that keeps memories alive.”

Mekeni Pinoy’s Pride

The draw at Mekeni Pinoy’s Pride is the buffet — a weekend breakfast spread and a Wednesday dinner service, both featuring around two dozen dishes and massive lines around the block. So reservations are highly recommended. 

The food is rooted in Pampanga, billed as the culinary capital of the Philippines. Show up on a weekday for à la carte service and order the oxtail kare-kare, pork belly adobo and the seafood sinigang. 

HiFi Kitchen

Pork Sisig from HiFi Kitchen features sizzling roast pork, finely chopped and tossed with onions, peppers and a house soy-vinaigrette, topped with fresh cabbage, chili oil and house crema.

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Erick Galindo

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The LA Local

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HiFi Kitchen is a nod to both high fidelity audio and Historic Filipinotown — both loves of founder Justin Foronda. Chef Foronda was born and raised in the neighborhood and is a former b-boy, registered nurse and musician.

He told The LA Local that he’d grown frustrated that HiFi felt invisible compared to Little Tokyo or Koreatown, so he opened HiFi, installing a mural that declares: “This is Historic Filipinotown.” 

The menu reads, as Foronda calls it, “proudly Filipino Angeleno.” It features rice bowls, silogs, tacos built on tocino pastor and vegan riffs on classics like veggie sisig. His more recent creation — a stuffed pastry he calls a “Filipino puffy taco,” inspired by the bright orange empanadas of Ilocos — is as Filipino-Angeleno as it gets. 

L.A. Rose Café

Established by Lemuel Balagot in 1982, L.A. Rose Café is a longtime neighborhood anchor that feels, in the best possible way, like eating at your tita’s or aunt’s house.

For the last four decades, it has served a solid, consistently good menu of Filipino dishes. Portions are generous. The lechon — Cebuano-style roasted pig — and a pork kidney and intestine soup called dinuguan rival those of restaurants in the Philippines itself. It is also one of the best places in the city for traditional halo-halo, or shaved ice dessert.

San & Wolves

A typical allergen-free dish at San & Wolves.

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Isabella Kulkarni

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The LA Local

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San & Wolves is Filipino-owned vegan bakery in Long Beach doing what most places won’t bother to attempt: recreating the childhood classics — ube halaya, pandan pudding — without any dairy. 

Founders Kym Estrada and Arvin Torres started the bakery to maintain their vegan diet without giving up the flavors they grew up with, and the results speak for themselves. Worth the drive.

Kusina Filipina

Kusina Filipina is in a banquet space in Eagle Rock that has the atmosphere of a divey comedy club — but the food, not the vibes, is the real star. From menu staples like pancit and crunchy pork sisig drizzled with calamansi juice to larger dishes like chicken adobo and a super-crispy pata that smells like pounded peppercorns, the menu is full of hits.

Neri’s

Neri’s is a prime place for takeout, but even more popular for their kamayan — the communal, hands-on smorgasbord served on banana leaves. First opened in 1984 in Historic Filipinotown, Neri’s is now a small storefront in a Koreatown retail mall on the corner of Wilshire and Alexandria. 

Aside from nutty kare kare and golden-crusted crispy pata, Neri’s kamayan dinner — which requires 48-hour advance reservations — is gigantic feasts with a never-ending bed of rice and nearly a dozen dishes eaten by hand, with set menus that range from grilled pork belly and pork skewers to garlic shrimp and boneless bangus.

The Park’s Finest

A sampling of the Filipino BBQ from The Park’s Finest in Echo Park.

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Courtesy The Park’s Finest

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Park’s Finest started as backyard cookouts in Echo Park — the neighborhood that raised founder Johneric Concordia — before transitioning first into a catering company and now one of L.A.’s most popular BBQ joints. 

Concordia’s father, a Filipino American immigrant who served in the Navy, taught his sons the basics; the menu still honors that lineage, with the San Pablo pulled pork named for the family’s home province and Mama Leah’s coconut beef named after his grandmother.

The hot links are made with sweet Filipino sausage, the cornbread is mixed with rice flour and baked on a banana leaf, and the signature sauce is built on vinegar, garlic and chili — a direct nod to adobo. The coconut beef is the move: 16-hour smoked chuck stewed in coconut cream and fish sauce until it falls apart. 

Gerry’s Grill

Gerry’s Grill began as a single restaurant in Quezon City’s legendary culinary hub Tomas Morato. It has grown into an international franchise with multiple locations in Southern California, a spot in Qatar and one in Singapore — a city so serious about food it has hawker centers on the UNESCO heritage list.

The Artesia outpost makes a strong case for why. The menu hits all the classics — pork and bangus sisig, sinigang, lechon kawali, crispy pata — served in a room that gets loud and celebratory on weekend nights, with a live band included. 

The standout dishes are the grilled squid and the crispy kare-kare, and don’t skip the halo-halo.

Erick Galindo contributed to this report.

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.