The Brief

Growing up in a family of post-Soviet Jewish immigrants in Los Angeles meant fusing together our food with American food. This often meant making do with what we had. My Eggo waffles were topped with blackcurrant jam from Odessa Grocery. Trader Joe’s Chinese-inspired chicken gyoza potstickers were boiled, sprinkled with dill, and dipped in sour cream to stand in for traditional pelmeni.

The beloved Croatian seasoning, Vegeta, was generously added to everything, including buttered noodles and boxed mac and cheese. Whether intentional or not, we were dipping into the world of fusion cooking.

The history of fusion cooking is the history of the American kitchen. From the infamous Thanksgiving feast that fused together traditional English stuffed fowl with Native harvested beans and corn pudding, to the ‘80s and ‘90s fusion restaurant boom with Wolfgang Puck combining French cooking with Asian influences, resulting in the popularization of Madame Wu’s Chinese Chicken Salad.

By the time we arrived at pan-Asian corporate restaurants like P.F. Changs dishing out Chinese kung pao chicken, Japanese sushi, and Thai lettuce cups all on one glossy menu, however, fusion had become an icky word.

In a 2022 Los Angeles Times article, restaurant critic Bill Addison asked his readers, “Can we let go of the term ‘fusion cooking’ once and for all?”

Chicken and Mole made with Mary's chicken confit, orange gastrique, and sesame seeds, served with steamed bok choy and topped with seasonal citrus that's served with a 21 ingredients white mole and a handmade piadina (flour tortilla).

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His gripe with the word fusion was that it’s “a hydra slur” or “shorthand for 'Asian fusion,' which is insultingly reductive; Asian, Asian American and Pacific Island cultures are not monoliths.”

Addison continued: “It also carries a bad taste that suggests one is doing something silly or slapdash or nonsensical. No wonder chefs who are cooking to their personal narrative say in interviews, 'Don’t call what I’m doing ‘fusion.’”

Yet despite the body blow to the word itself, the idea of merging foods from distinct cuisines is still attracting chefs today, inspired by the limitless creativity it presents.

Here are four new-ish restaurants attempting to reinvent the concept — while tip-toeing around the unnecessary negative connotations of the word itself.

Pijja Palace puts an American spin on Indian classics, with chicken tenders, wings, and garlic bread

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These restaurants serve flavor combinations as unique as the people of Los Angeles, with a more playful and authentic take on the American immigrant and third culture experience. As cringe as the word can be, fusion — telling the food stories of multicultural Angelenos — is not going anywhere.

Pijja Palace

Malai rigatoni, Pijja Palace

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Named one of Bon Appetit’s 24 Best Restaurants of 2023, Avish Naran’s Pijja Palace is having a good year. The casual Indian-American sports bar-meets-restaurant tucked into the former plaza of Silver Lake’s infamous Happy Sad Foot sign, Pijja Palace is bursting with unique flavors.

A traditional caesar salad is given a facelift with mango pickle, dried tomatoes, and a dusting of panko. Hardy lamb pasta is tossed with sumac, fennel, and creamy yogurt and feels like it was assembled by a sweet Indian-Italian grandma. Chicken wings are doused in a mixture of jalapeño, cilantro, mint, chives, and served with a cool yogurt sauce. But the star of the show is the classic chutney pizza.

A stoner invention with a thin crust pie, perfectly melty cheese, sweet tomato sauce, and a generous glaze of green chutney inspired by chef Miles Shorey’s Puerto Rican grandma’s sofrito and Lavineta’s Pizza that would offer under-the-table chutney to the growing Indian community in Lakewood.

Build your own pizza at Pijja Palace

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Pijja Palace translates to Pizza Palace, a play on the Indian accent. Naran grew up in Los Angeles as part of a third culture, “eating everything” along with his Indian auntie’s chicken curry served with not naan, but tortillas.

Naran is most inspired by LA legend and father of the beloved Kogi truck, Roy Choi.

“One of the cool things about Roy is that [his food] never felt like fusion. He was a Korean guy who grew up in Koreatown, around a lot of Hispanic culture, so the whole thing was super organic,” Naran said.

Pijja Palace feels super organic, too. A reflection of the second generation’s melding of familiar flavors: American pub food and Indian delicacies.

Amiga Amore 

Carbonara ravioli with duck egg and requeson, pancetta and micro cilantro

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Amiga Amore is co-owned by husband and wife duo Alessandro Zecca and Chef Danielle Duran Zecca. The cozy Italian-Mexican fusion restaurant was a natural combination of flavors as Duran Zecca grew up in a Mexican-American family near Frogtown, while her husband grew up in a small town near Verona, Italy.

After a traditional French culinary education and 10 years of cooking in Michelin star restaurants in New York City, Duran Zecca “felt stagnant” and moved back to Los Angeles to open her own restaurant.

“The real influence [for Amiga Amore] was my husband, because he didn't like Mexican food. I didn't really realize that until we moved to L.A.…So, I started to put Mexican ingredients into pasta and other dishes and I kept creating, and I kept noticing so many similarities between Mexico and Italy,” Duran Zecca said.

The combination of flavors from both their childhoods worked, and led to a successful pop-up and the opening of Amiga Amore in Highland Park, with mouth watering dishes like Chorizo y Clams, a mixture of clams, brothy cannellini and pinto beans, Meyer lemon, and jalapeño butter served with homemade bread, and Elote Agnolotti, "street corn" filled pasta with crumbly cotija cheese, zesty finger limes, and house made tajin.

Like other chefs working in the realm of fusion, before opening Amiga Amore, Duran Zecca asked herself, “Is it going to be gimmicky?” It was hard not to associate fusion with the ramen burger and the sushi burrito. But buoyed by success, Duran Zecca is leaning into fusion with a new brunch option that includes an eggs and bacon breakfast sandwich on a housemade basil concha, a breakfast burrito with eggs, tater tots, pico de gallo and Italian cannellini beans, and a classic Italian panzerotti stuffed pizza with potato, chorizo and tomatillo salsa.

Chefs these days are cooking their own personal narratives, which are surprisingly relatable. What has surprised the Zeccas most after opening Amiga Amore is how many of their customers relate to the Italian-Mexican experience. “There are so many people that come in, and say, 'We're just like you … your restaurant is like our story and we love to eat here because you feed us both.'"

Taco/Social

Tacos at Taco Social

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Of all the restaurants we’ve featured, , Taco/Social is one of the newest on the list (it opened on Oct. 10) and the most corporate. The website copy defines the food as “inventive, freeform tacos [that] break all the rules. Inspired by flavors from around the world, we use fresh ingredients to serve up tacos that are as unique as they are delicious.”

The beach-themed Eagle Rock restaurant with big open-air windows and extra loud music feels like you’ve stepped into a Hollister or Abercrombie and Fitch. A full bar serves up margaritas or whatever you want, and there are two big-screen TVs for the sports fans.

Embracing Wolfgang Puck and P.F. Chang’s approach to fusion, it takes it to the next level by including a wide range of cuisines beyond French, American, and pan-Asian cooking, reflecting the people of Los Angeles who speak at least 185 different languages.

There’s a long list of those flour tortilla “freeform tacos” — post-fusion in overdrive — ranging from Vietnamese Banh Mi tacos, to Mexican barbacoa, to American cheeseburger, Indian tikka masala, and even a take on the Greek chicken pita.

Tacos from around the world include crispy cauliflower taco and K-BBQ taco made with braised beef

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“We’ve taken signature dishes from cultures across the world and altered them to rest inside a tortilla,” says executive Chef Jonathan Paiz. “What other taco spot can take you on a culinary journey that spans from New Orleans to Vietnam? Los Angeles is a melting pot of people from all across the world and we wanted to embody that aspect into distinct, delicious tacos.”

Sadly though, the flavors are muted. The Greek Life taco, inspired by Paiz’s Greek ancestry, is filled with juicy chicken, tzatziki, pico de gallo, pickled red onion and surprisingly crispy french fries, but lacks a sufficient amount of spice, perhaps not surprising from a restaurant that is trying to cover too many cuisines at once.

Taco/Social is the ultimate fusion family restaurant. Sure it’s gimmicky, but it has something for everybody, including the opportunity for a tired parent to enjoy a cocktail with dinner.

Saucy Chick Goat Mafia

After rave reviews and a loyal following at the beloved Smorgasburg food fest in DTLA, pop-ups Saucy Chick and Goat Mafia have joined forces, soft opening a new restaurant deep in Pasadena this week called, what else, but Saucy Chick Goat Mafia.

Juan Garcia of Goat Mafia and Saucy Chick owner’s Rhea Patel Michel and husband Marcel Rene Michel — who opened their pop-up after being furloughed from their jobs during the pandemic — did not hesitate when the opportunity arrived to combine Indian-Mexican rotisserie chicken with traditional Mexican goat birria to create something new.

Mom’s Beans, Smoked Chicken Wings with featured flavors Jeera, Pibil, Ambli, Charred Haldi Cauliflower, Jeera Rice, Fenugreek Esquites, Birria Taco, Pibil Rotisserie Taco, Saucy Chick Goat Mafia

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The casual flavor-packed restaurant serves unique dishes like the birria de chivo bowl with Garcia’s signature century-old family goat birria recipe and Saucy Chick’s Indian jeera rice, hearty mayocoba beans, and hand-pressed corn tortillas.

The hand-brined 24-hour marinated rotisserie chicken is served with a selection of sauces like the Mexican-leaning creamy pibil with achiote, garlic, citrus, and oregano or the pungent jeera sauce made from caramelized onions, garlic, ginger, and packed with cumin. There are also plenty of sides to choose from, such as a truly unique “kachumber salad” combining cucumber, mustard seed, coconut, peanuts, lime, and mint, as well as an array of refreshing agua frescas with an Indian twist, like the ginger jamaica.

Rotisserie chicken, taco and burritos galore at newest location of Saucy Chick Goat Mafia

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The chefs come from immigrant families and encountered fusion early on in their lives. “Growing up, we would eat grilled cheese with a garlic chutney paste and masala egg omelets,” said Patel Michel. Garcia’s first mind-blowing encounter with fusion was Pizza Loca’s asada pizza — a rare treat as his Mexican-American immigrant family rarely ordered take-out.

Fusion is the future and a no-brainer for the owners of Saucy Chick Goat Mafia. “There is creativity and strength in diversity. As cultures converge and weave into intricate tapestries, food serves as a medium for storytellers and an opportunity for marginalized voices to have a platform,” said Patel Michel.

Other new-ish fusion spots to consider

• Asian-fusion restaurant Poltergeist tucked inside Silver Lake’s Button Mash
• DTLA’s Korean influenced Yangban
• Inglewood’s Afro-Latin fusion Two Hommés
• Mexico City inspired ramen-birria at pop-up Birriera El Viejon.

Los Angeles’ regional homelessness agency is working to find ways to keep thousands of people in their homes, while complying with new federal funding restrictions on permanent housing.

The governing board for the L.A. Homeless Services Authority voted Monday to start the process of reallocating about $130 million in federal funding currently being spent on permanent housing to other projects meant to serve unhoused Angelenos.

Because of new funding restrictions from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development, known as HUD, about 5,000 households in the county will lose their rental subsidies, according to several LAHSA officials who spoke at a commission meeting Monday.

Those changes, along with state and county funding shortfalls for homeless services, threaten to drastically worsen the region’s homelessness crisis, they said.

"The fact of the matter is there’s going to be a tremendous and terrible impact on people, on agencies, on landlords,” said Nathaniel VerGow, LAHSA’s chief program officer.

Officials said they’re scrambling to maximize federal funding under the new guidelines while also advocating against the new HUD policy.

“It is a cliff and it feels catastrophic, but I think it forces us as a region to figure out how to save ourselves,” LAHSA Commission Chair Amber Sheikh said.

The funding challenge

Most federal homelessness dollars flow into the L.A. region through the Continuum of Care program, managed by HUD.

The Los Angeles region is eligible for more than $260 million in federal funding under that program in the coming fiscal year, including $217 million for existing projects.

But no more than 30% of those funds can go toward permanent housing projects, according to a “notice of funding opportunity” HUD issued last month.

That’s a challenge for L.A. County, because 90% of regional HUD funds currently cover people’s rent, according to LASHA officials.

Instead, L.A. and other cities and counties must spend the bulk of their federal funds on other interventions, including transitional housing and street outreach.

HUD officials have said the policy is meant to encourage self-sufficiency.

At Monday’s meeting, Commissioner Justin Szlasa urged his colleagues to consider larger funding trends.

“ There's actually a 23% increase in available funding from HUD, the federal government,” he said. “It just doesn't work with the way that we normally have done things here.”

“We need to find, in this crisis, a way to be constructive about this,” Szlasa added.

HUD policy changes

HUD released its new notice of funding opportunity last month and rescinded a previous two-year funding agreement.

Opponents have concerns with the federal housing department’s move away from “housing first” approaches. They also said HUD rolled out the changes without providing enough time to prepare service providers and clients for disruptions.

Last week, 21 states, including California, sued HUD, claiming the new federal policies “essentially guarantee that tens of thousands of formerly homeless individuals and families will be evicted back into homelessness.”

This week, a group of cities and homelessness organizations also sued over the changes. Plaintiffs include the city and county of San Francisco. The Continuum of Care for San Francisco was awarded $56 million in federal funding for Fiscal Year 2024.

Approximately 91% of that funding supports permanent housing projects, according to the complaint.

What’s next?

The LAHSA Commission voted Monday to approve its request for applications for existing and new projects.

Providers must submit applications to LAHSA over the next two weeks, and LAHSA has until Jan. 14 to craft and submit a new application to HUD.

The agency is now talking with 130 contractors about the transition.

LAHSA is also working with some permanent supportive housing providers to convert their programs to transitional housing instead, officials said.

People who were in permanent housing projects aren’t eligible for transitional housing under HUD’s guidelines because they're not considered unhoused, VerGow said.

The commission also reviewed a policy for ranking project applications and prioritizing them for federal funding. Officials said that policy has to be approved at a LAHSA Commission subcommittee on Dec. 10.

Funds are expected to be awarded in May 2026.

LOS ANGELES — As the season of Advent begins, many Christians turn toward quiet reflection and preparation for Christmas. But in several Southern California congregations with large immigrant communities, that sacred anticipation is shadowed by a looming sense of fear.

For worshippers like Mike, an Iranian asylum-seeker who attends a West Los Angeles church, the weeks leading up to Christmas feel less like a spiritual refuge and more like a time of apprehension. He asked that only the anglicized version of his Farsi name be used because he fears speaking publicly could affect his immigration case. He fled Iran after converting to Christianity.

"I kept this secret, my faith as a secret, for like 12 years," he said.

Mike arrived in Los Angeles 18 months ago and says he has tried to build a life rooted in community and respect for his new home. But a series of immigration enforcement actions in the region — including the June arrests of two men outside a nearby church with a large Iranian membership — has shaken him.

"Even church is not safe because it's a public place," he said. "They can get there and catch you."

The Department of Homeland Security says enforcement actions at churches require secondary approval and are expected to be rare. Still, the concern is real inside Mike's congregation, where church leaders asked that the name of the church not be published.

A significant number of Iranian parishioners worship there, and the pastor often invites them to pray in Farsi during services. Lately, fewer take her up on the offer.

"It's part of the heartbreak of these days," the pastor said. "They feel like they have to be apprehensive about it — not even wanting to speak in their own language here."

She said the fear is especially painful during Advent, a season she describes as a time to prepare to "give thanks for this God we have who wants to be with us."

Room at the inn, despite fears

East of Los Angeles, at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church, Pastor Toña Rios unzips a red tent pitched in the middle of the sanctuary. For years, the church took in newly arrived immigrants, providing a place to sleep while they looked for work and housing.

The tent remains as a reminder of that welcome — and of the fears many congregants now carry. Rios estimates that about 80% of her church members are immigrants and says many don't have legal status.

"A lot of them say, 'Don't open the door. Just close the door,'" she said.

Rios urges a different posture, especially during Advent. She uses the tent to help her congregation imagine being the ones who offer shelter, not shut others out.

"It is very hard," she said. "But Jesus is going to be born in our heart. That's why we need to be prepared."

For longtime church member Royi Lopez, the sense of vulnerability goes beyond immigration status. Lopez is a U.S. citizen but says she often feels targeted because she is Latina. Many of her relatives are undocumented, and she worries constantly about them.

"What if on my way to church, they catch us?" she said. "On a daily basis, we're scared of going to the school, to work, to church, to even the grocery store."

Lopez says that during Advent, these fears remind her of the Christmas story itself — of Mary and Joseph searching for somewhere to stay, turned away again and again until somebody finally took them in.

"Even though so many doors were closed, somebody opened a door," she said.

That theme of welcome runs through the hymn chosen for every Sunday of Advent at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church, "All Earth is Hopeful." Its lyrics speak of a world longing for liberation, where people labor to "see how God's truth and justice set everybody free."
Copyright 2025 NPR

The Supreme Court today is hearing a billion-dollar case about whether internet providers can be liable for their users' committing copyright violations using their services.

The legal battle pits the music entertainment industry against Cox Communications, which provides internet to over 6 million residences and business.

A coalition of music labels, which represent artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Givēon and Doechii, sued Cox alleging that company should be responsible for the copyright violations of internet users that Cox had been warned were serial copyright abusers.

The coalition argues Cox was sent numerous notices of specific IP addresses repeatedly violating music copyrights and that Cox's failure to terminate those IP addresses from internet access means that Cox should face the music.

In its briefs, the coalition argued many of Cox's anti-infringement measurements seem superficial and the company willingly overlooked violations.

The coalition points out that Cox had a 13-strike policy for potentially terminating infringing customers, under which Cox acted against a customer based on how many complaints it received about a particular user. The Cox manager who oversaw the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law at issue in this case, told his team to "F the dmca!!!"

"Cox made a deliberate and egregious decision to elevate its own profits over compliance with the law," the coalition asserts.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and a jury agreed with the coalition, with the jury awarding the coalition more than a billion dollars in damages.

Cox argues it should not be liable for its customers' actions as it never encouraged the copyright infringements, its terms of service prohibit illegal activities, and it does not make additional money when customers use its internet to infringe on copyrights.

In its briefs, Cox specified that less than 1% of its users infringe on music copyrights and that its internal compliance measures "got 95% of that less than 1% to stop." It asserts that if the Supreme Court does not side with them, then "that means terminating entire households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities and even regional internet service providers (ISPs) — the internet lifeline for tens of thousands of homes and businesses — merely because some unidentified person was previously alleged to have used the connection to infringe."

A decision in the case is expected this summer.

Copyright 2025 NPR