The Brief

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

If you’re part of the food allergy club — the group of people who can go from fine to anaphylactic after one wrong bite — eating at restaurants isn’t casual. It’s high stakes.

A miscommunication on the line, incomplete information from a server or a shared griddle can mean an EpiPen injection and a trip to the hospital.

Unlike intolerances, food allergies can be life-threatening. The immune system treats even trace amounts of an allergen as a threat.

And allergens are on the rise, with an estimated 7% of the U.S. population experiencing food allergies according to a 2024 CDC study.

That’s why The LA Local spoke with more than 20 restaurants and cafes about their allergen protocols and narrowed the list to seven local spots that take nut allergies seriously — and still deliver on flavor.

Please note that while we recommend these spots, this reporting is not a substitute for your own diligence. Be sure to disclose your allergy when dining and ask any questions specific to your situation.

At these spots, instead of feeling like your allergies are an inconvenience, we hope you’ll feel the warm hug of a safe and accommodating meal.

Noble Rotisserie

A typical allergen-free dish at Noble Rotisserie.

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Isabella Kulkarni

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The LA Local

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Owner Sidney Price started Noble Rotisserie to serve families like hers.

She and her husband Steve raised two sons with a range of food allergies — including nuts, dairy, sesame and eggs — a list that was long and ever-evolving.

Sidney didn’t feel safe eating out in part because restaurants couldn’t even answer her basic question, “What is in this dish? So I can look it over and make sure my son can eat it.”

Years later, Steve and Sidney opened Noble Rotisserie, a place that prioritizes transparency by making everything from scratch and clearly communicating ingredients.

Noble Rotisserie was built for people with allergens.

The protocol goes something like this: if you come in and say you have an allergy, a manager will be called over to take your order. They will pull out a detailed allergy binder — also available online — listing ingredients down to spices and alliums like onions and shallots.

They source from vendors they know, like Pasturebird, which supplies the restaurant with hormone and antibiotic-free chicken. Inside the restaurant’s kitchen, they have a separate station where they prepare allergy orders to prevent cross contamination.

The food is also really good.

The chicken was perfectly seasoned, the potatoes crisped to perfection, and the dairy-free coconut soft serve was creamy, indulgent and full of toasty flavor. The accommodation was simply the cherry on top. It’s no wonder that most diners here, according to Sidney, have no idea the restaurant is allergen friendly.

The restaurant also partners with the Food Allergy Institute in Long Beach’s TIP program, which helps children and young people with allergies. Sidney said her two sons completed the program and are now both food allergy free thanks to treatment.

Cafe Tropical

A typical allergen-free dish at Cafe Tropical.

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Isabella Kulkarni

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The LA Local

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Silverlake’s big purple landmark, Cafe Tropical — located where Sunset Boulevard and Silver Lake Boulevard meet — functions as a community hub. The cafe has been around since the 70’s according to owner Danny Khorunzhiy, who used to frequent it as a patron.

The space is bustling with goodwill reminiscent of a bygone era. During my time eating at the spot, there was a steady stream of regulars coming in to chat with the staff. The space also has a literal community center attached, which Khorunzhiy maintains to this day.

Most exceptional, however, is the food.

My plate was full of color — a strip of thick cut bacon, buttery lettuce from Roots Farms, slices of heirloom tomatoes and a bright purple slaw served alongside rich, creamy eggs.

As for the allergen protocol, they have labels on the menu, and nearly everything is made in house, which according to Khorunzhiy, is part of the reason the restaurant started to attract people with allergies.

Khorunzhiy has dealt with his own severe walnut allergy since he was a teen, so he understands the importance of taking precautions.

San & Wolves

A big part of the ethos behind San & Wolves is serving the greater Filipino community. Its founders, Kym Estrada and Arvin Torres, are both Filipino and vegan, and started the bakery to recreate the treats they grew up with — like ube halaya and pandan pudding — while maintaining their diet.

Believe me when I tell you: I am full dairy all day, and I live very far from Long Beach, but I would make the trip any day. Every treat I tried was exceptional.

Chef Estrada didn’t start her vegan bakery with any plan to be soy or nut free. Two of the heaviest hitters in traditional vegan baking are soy and nuts, but Estrada said she was “tired of draining tofu.” She also started experimenting with fewer nuts because of the cost.

After they opened San & Wolves, Estrada and Torres started to notice a steady stream of kids with allergies who frequented the shop. This sealed their decision to stay nut free.

“We have to be committed to them,” Estrada told The LA Local. “If we include nuts and soy, they can’t eat here.”

San & Wolves puts an emphasis on whole foods instead of hyper processed ingredients which are common in vegan cooking. They make their “egg salad” with whole veggies and chickpeas rather than the vegan product Just Egg, for example. Even their sweetened condensed milk is made in house with coconut milk. “I’m not sure if it’s cost effective,” Estrada admitted with a laugh.

Woon

When Keegan Fong expanded his original Filipinotown spot, Woon, to Pasadena, he decided to make the new kitchen entirely nut-free. Why? “Why not?” he said. “Nowadays there are a lot of eating restrictions.”

So he and his team built out the kitchen in a way that avoided what Fong deemed the most common and sensitive allergen. Unlike traditional Chinese cooking, where shared woks and recycled cooking oil are the norm, Fong restructured his line to separate allergens as much as possible — cooking in dedicated woks and discarding used oils to prevent cross-contamination.

At Woon, staff are trained on allergens and have access to a binder listing cross-contamination risks and sauce recipes. Employees are also encouraged to check with a manager whenever a guest with allergies comes in, so the kitchen can confirm nothing was different that day.

Despite being a nut-free kitchen, the Pasadena location does post signage reading “made in a facility that contains peanuts,” but that refers only to a packaged Peanuts + Sea Moss snack produced at the original Filipinotown location.

Fong is also candid about the limits of any such guarantee: he can’t control whether a staff member brings trail mix to work.

The menu is largely vegan — Fong notes that much of traditional Chinese cooking lends itself naturally to plant-based preparation — and includes a small selection of gluten-free items. But beyond its dietary accommodations, the Pasadena location carries personal weight for Fong.

He grew up in Pasadena, and opened Woon there just 10 days before the wildfires swept through the region, making the expansion feel like a homecoming of sorts. The restaurant has since added a weekend brunch menu, giving Pasadena and Altadena residents — and anyone else looking for a satisfying weekend meal — more reasons to visit.

Hugo’s

A typical allergen-free dish at Hugo’s.

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Isabella Kulkarni

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The LA Local

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The West Hollywood outpost of Hugo’s is the kind of place you could bring almost anyone and have a good time. The menu spans comfort food — turkey meatloaf, Cuban sandwiches — and healthier fare like pumpkin coconut curry and quinoa beet salad, plus a full wine list, an all-day brunch menu and fresh juices.

When I sat down on the patio to eat a caprese sandwich on house-made gluten-free bread, manager Kimberley walked me through the restaurant’s approach to dietary accommodations. More than 40 years in operation, Hugo’s has refined its allergen protocol considerably. “I don’t know of another restaurant in Los Angeles that takes allergies as seriously as we do,” she said.

The process begins the moment you walk in. If you mention an allergy upon arrival, you’ll receive a red coaster — a signal to your server and food runner that your table requires extra care. A binder listing every ingredient the restaurant carries, down to what’s inside a single chocolate chip, is brought to the table.

From there, the precautions continue into the kitchen. When you order, an allergy alert is placed at the top of the ticket sent to the kitchen, and the server verbally confirms with a runner that a guest with an allergy is seated — ensuring someone on the line is aware before cooking begins. Knives and counters are wiped down, and the dish is prepared in an individual sanitized pan. When the food comes out, the runner double-checks the plate and ensures it’s set in front of the red coaster.

Hugo’s is not entirely nut-free, but it is a peanut-free facility, and its toasters and fryers are completely nut-free. For guests with nut allergies, staff recommend sticking to dishes prepared in individual pans rather than those made on the shared griddle — pancakes, for instance, fall into the latter category. Like many allergy-conscious restaurants, Hugo’s makes most items in-house, including sauces, juices, and its gluten-free and rye breads.

Twice Baked

A typical allergen-free dish at Twice Baked.

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Isabella Kulkarni

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The LA Local

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If you order one thing at Twice Baked, make it the eclair.

Dahlia Villegas had been a home cook before she started experimenting with gluten-free recipes after her husband was diagnosed with celiac disease. That tinkering eventually became Twice Baked, a bakery now dedicated to serving customers with allergies and gluten or dairy intolerances.

Twice Baked is fully peanut-free and offers a wide range of nut-free, grain-free, sugar-free and dairy-free options. It’s a response, Villegas says, to a real gap in the community. The shop also partners with the Food Allergy Institute in Long Beach, which allows them to accommodate hyper-specific allergen requests. Vanilla extract, cinnamon — if it’s a concern, Twice Baked can work around it.

Villegas herself is something of a walking allergen binder. As I stood in front of the display case, transfixed by chocolate bundt cakes and chocolate eclairs, she rattled off the full ingredient list for each without missing a beat.

Though the desserts share display cases, they are prepared separately with separate ingredients, and any item can be pulled from the kitchen if a customer is worried about cross-contamination. The shop relies on a lot of shared equipment, but does maintain a dedicated nut-only food processor. In 11 years of operation, Villegas says, not a single customer has reported getting sick.

Kismet Rotisserie

A typical allergen-free dish at Kismet.

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Isabella Kulkarni

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The LA Local

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With locations in Los Feliz and Pasadena, Kismet Rotisserie is hardly a secret in Los Angeles. What may be less known is that its chicken is remarkably allergen-friendly — marinated in nothing more than a house-made spice blend of turmeric, coriander and Aleppo pepper with salt and sugar, free of nuts, alliums, soy and gluten.

Walking into the bright, yellow-tiled Pasadena location is enough to put anyone in a good mood, helped along by staff who field nitpicky menu questions with patience and genuine curiosity. The restaurant sits right on the Altadena border, and just a block north, the neighborhood still bears the visible scars of last year’s devastating fires. Kismet has responded by hiring locally and participating in multiple relief efforts — donating meals to first responders and directing proceeds from cookie sales to affected residents.

The kitchen does contain nuts and soy, but their reach is limited. The only equipment that comes into contact with nuts is the robot coupe, used exclusively to prep the gluten-free peanut miso cookie and the muhammara sauce — both of which are kept separate from nearly every other ingredient in the restaurant. According to Neal, a sous chef at the Pasadena location, the inclusive approach is by design: one of the restaurant’s owners, Sarah, is gluten-free, and Kismet was built from the start to be accessible — in terms of both its food and its clientele. Both locations also offer a kids menu.

As for the chicken: it’s the most satisfying rotisserie leg you can find in this city, served with crispy potatoes and a garlic sauce that makes the whole thing sing.

The story first appeared on LA Local.

A week after an underground pipeline near East Cesar E. Chavez and North Eastern avenues was punctured, questions remain about who was responsible.

Officials said early reports indicated a boring crew conducting directional drilling for a fiber optic line struck the 16-inch petroleum pipeline, which sent an estimated 2,400 gallons of crude oil onto nearby streets and into storm drains and the Los Angeles River. Streets in the area reopened Thursday after days of closures that disrupted nearby residents, businesses and schools, though more soil remediation remains ahead.

Spill report updates from the California Office of Emergency Services indicate that the reported cause of the spill was a “human error.”

Here’s what we know about the companies involved:

Who operated the pipeline?

The pipeline is operated by Pacific Pipeline System, which since 2006 has been owned by Plains All American Pipeline.

Who was drilling?

In the hours after the spill, Boyle Heights Beat reporters witnessed a truck labeled Camarillo Drilling Inc. A Camarillo Drilling representative told the Beat they were seeking counsel and could not confirm if they were working at the site.

A February 2026 report from the state Department of Water Resources notes that Camarillo Drilling Company, in April 2020, punctured the Santa Ana Pipeline in Riverside “while performing directional and horizontal boring during installation of an underground communications cable.”

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) filed a complaint against Camarillo Drilling in Riverside County Superior Court in April 2022, seeking damages of about $1.2 million to cover pipeline repair expenses and DWR staffing costs, according to the report. 

Why were they drilling?

NBC4 reported that HP Communications was behind the drilling of the fiber optic line. A representative with HP Communications told the Beat they could not comment or confirm that they were working at the site. 

HP Communications is one of the companies awarded a contract for the Broadband for All plan, a $6 billion state and federal investment to close the digital divide. 

The plan involves building a network of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances, according to LAist. About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable is being installed throughout California, including more than 500 miles in Los Angeles County. The state owns and manages the system.

Another company that was awarded a contract for the plan is Arcadian Infracom, which in 2023, held a groundbreaking event in Boyle Heights for the California portion of its L.A. to Phoenix fiber route, LAist reported in 2024.

The project will help serve residents in East L.A. and extend to communities in Barstow and Needles (The route totals 306 miles, but only 40 are within L.A. County limits).

What remains unknown?

It’s not clear if the drilling that led to the pipeline rupture is linked to the Broadband for All effort. Arcadian Infracom has not returned a request for comment regarding any potential involvement with the pipeline puncture. 

The California Department of Technology did not respond to Boyle Heights Beat’s questions in time for publication.

Pacific Pipeline System (PPS) has also not responded to questions regarding the third-party companies involved. 

A state investigation into how the pipe was struck remains ongoing. Supervisor Hilda Solis on Thursday said she’d work with the Board of Supervisors to ensure “every responsible party is held accountable and advancing stronger protections for impacted residents, communities, and small businesses.”

How to file a claim

Claims of damage believed to be caused by the spill can be submitted to PPS by calling (877) 817-5465. Callers will be prompted to leave their name and contact information in a voicemail for a representative to return the call.

According to the pipeline operator, some examples of claims that may be considered include: 

• Property damage
• Business interruption or loss of access
• Cleanup or remediation expenses
• Equipment, vehicle or inventory damage
• Other documented costs directly related to the incident

PPS will request contact information and a description of the claimed damages. The timeline for any potential compensation depends on the urgency of the claim, according to the spokesperson.

How to report air quality concerns

To report excessive odors, smoke, dust and other air contaminants, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice advises residents to contact the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) by calling (800) CUT SMOG or (800) 288-7664. 

Residents can also access South Coast AQMD’s online complaint system by clicking here. 

To report health concerns related to odors, residents can also contact the L.A. County Department of Public Health by calling (626) 430-9821 or by emailing DPH-OEJCH@ph.lacounty.gov.

You might have braved the process to get a seat at SoFi Stadium for one of the eight FIFA World Cup 2026 matches in L.A., or maybe you’re gearing up to head to a community watch party.

Either way, you can maximize the celebration, avoid traffic and save your wallet by taking transit.

LAist prepared the following guide to help folks get to and from the stadium, L.A. city watch parties and tips on using bikes and scooters to get around the region.

Getting to the stadium

L.A. Metro is the countywide transportation agency and is the official public transit provider for the World Cup matches in the city. It’s partnering with more than 10 regional transportation and charter providers to get people to and from the stadium.

Where is the stadium: All eight of the matches will be at SoFi Stadium, or L.A. Stadium, as it will be called during the World Cup. The address is 1001 S. Stadium Dr., Inglewood, CA 90301.

How do you get there on Metro: Metro is offering direct shuttle service to the stadium from several locations in L.A. and Orange counties:

• Hawthorne/Lennox Station
• Crenshaw Station
• LAX/Metro Transit Center
• Near LAX hotels
• El Camino College
• Harbor Gateway Transit Center
• Culver City Transit Center
• Torrance Transit Center
• Union Station
• Downtown Long Beach
• Downtown Santa Monica
• North Hollywood Station
• Pierce College Station
• ARTIC Anaheim Station 
• Newport Transportation Center

You can catch a stadium-bound shuttle at locations throughout L.A. and Orange Counties.

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L.A. Metro

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When: Shuttles to the stadium begin service at least three hours before kick-off depending on which location you’re leaving from, and they’ll run up to 90 minutes after the matches end.

How often: The shuttles will generally run every 10 minutes. For the Pierce College Station and Newport Transportation Center, the shuttles will run every 30 minutes.

How to pay: You can tap the fare machines directly with your credit or debit card. Or you can go old-school and use a physical or digital TAP card. There are several ways to get a TAP card, including using your smartphone or picking one up at a Metro station. Here is a page with more details and instructions.

How much: The same as usual: $1.75 one-way.

Ok, but how do I get to the shuttle locations?: There are a few different options.

The shuttle pick-up and drop-off locations are well-serviced by existing transit. You can use the Transit or L.A. Metro mobile apps to help with trip planning.

And yes, you can drive, too. For most of the shuttle locations, you can reserve parking via SpotHero on Metro’s official World Cup page. You can also use ride-share or taxi services.

The only pick-up and drop-off location that doesn’t have any kind of vehicle access, including rideshare, is the LAX Metro Transit Center. But that station is accessible by five different Metro bus lines and two rail lines.

Bonus: If you’re looking for a souvenir to commemorate your time on transit during the World Cup in L.A., make sure to pick up a special TAP card. You can see the designs and where to find each one here.

How to get to the watch parties

There are going to be more than 100 free watch parties in the city of L.A. at different park locations. It’s part of an initiative called Kick it in the Park. You can find out more about the watch parties here.

Some of the locations are accessible on Metro rail.

• MacArthur Park. You can take the B or D line to the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station.
• Seoul International Park. The D line stops at the Wilshire/Normandie Station, which is about a half mile away from the park. 
• Sycamore Grove. The A line stops at the Southwest Museum Station, which is less than half a mile from Sycamore Grove. 
• Stoner Recreation Center. The E Line stops at the Expo/Bundy Station, which is about half a mile away from Stoner Recreation Center.
• Cheviot Hills Recreation Center. The E Line Palms Station is just less than a mile away. 

Check out the city’s interactive website to learn which Metro, L.A. Dash or other regional transit can take you to the Kick it in the Park events.

Other cities in the county are also hosting watch parties, including Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Culver City.

Micro-mobility solutions

Taking a bike share or scooter could be helpful to get to and from transit stations or to go a short distance that isn’t well-served by transit. There are a few different options here:

• Metro Bike Share. Metro operates a fleet of regular and electric bikes that you can find at docking stations throughout L.A. Use the L.A. Metro app to find docking stations near you that have available bikes or to find stations where you can return the bike when you’re done using it. There are different prices depending on how long you anticipate needing a bike, and you can pay with your TAP card. 
  

• Lime. The private scooter and bike-share company recently expanded into the Valley and now offers a total of 15,000 vehicles in the city of L.A. Its vehicles are also accessible in West Hollywood and Long Beach. You can use the Lime or Uber apps to book the vehicles.

  The company is launching a “fan pass” this summer that includes 90 minutes of riding over the course of five days for about $13. You can purchase the fan pass more than once. It’ll be available between June 5th through July 12th. If you don't have access to the internet on your phone but still want to use a Lime vehicle, you can text "Unlock" to 415-463-3473. You will receive a text back with instructions on how to proceed from there.

What does rebuilding after the 2025 L.A. fires mean to you? That's the question LAist asked you in February.

Fire survivors may feel the world has moved on, but we know that you are in the process of pouring foundations, moving to a new temporary home, settling into a new community and perhaps waiting for a chance to return to the areas that burned in Altadena, Pasadena, the Palisades and Malibu.

So we wanted to hear your stories — and also see photos that capture this moment of your lives. With the fires a year and a half behind us, here are a couple of your stories.

A new start in Altadena

For Missi Figueroa, rebuilding has meant being drawn back to Altadena.

“I felt this weird connection after the fire to this place, like it felt like a grave of my old life, and I just wanted to be here,” Figueroa said. “We looked and thought about moving elsewhere. We just wanted to come back here.”

Her husband, Frank Figueroa, felt that rebuilding is also a part of healing.

“I can’t wait to see everyone else here move back and how tight the community will be,” he said. “I think it will be much stronger.”

The Figueroa family were at the tail end of rebuilding their home in February, including an ADU, where their daughter was standing before it was finished.

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Missi Figueroa

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The children of Missi and Frank Figueroa enjoying raspados outside their newly built home. The local elotero still walks their neighborhood in Altadena.

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Missi Figueroa

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In February, the Figueroas were nearing completion of their new home. They shared a photo of one of their children smiling through the window of the then-unfinished ADU.

They passed the final inspection May 8 and got approval to move back to Altadena, which they have called home for over 10 years. Theirs was the 12th fully rebuilt home in Altadena, and they have since returned to the neighborhood.

The home was to their specifications, including adding lots of tiles and reusing bricks from their former home in the planter in the front.

Missi and Frank Figueroa embrace in front of their new home.

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David Rodriguez

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LAist

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Jose Hernandez, their contractor with Structural Prime Builder, was determined to get the Figueroa family moved in in six to seven months.

“I was blessed that they basically trust us to build their home,” said Hernandez, who runs the family-owned business.

The Figueroas said one thing people should know about rebuilding is the importance of having a contractor you can lean on. They found that in Hernandez.

“I think it’s really important to find someone you can work with, a contractor who you can trust and talk to,” Missi Figueroa said.

Frank and Missi Figueroa sit on a blue bench with their contractors, Danna and Jose Hernandez from Structural Prime Builder, outside their newly constructed home in Altadena.

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David Rodriguez

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LAist

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Share your story

LAist is still hearing stories and receiving photos from fire survivors on what rebuilding means to them. We want to hear from homeowners, current or former renters, business owners and more.

So far, we’ve heard from survivors living in temporary homes, living in RVs on their lots, creating art and starting to rebuild a new home while wondering what comes next.

Share your story in the survey below and we may include your pictures and stories in an upcoming feature. We won’t publish anything you share without your permission.

Framing a new home in the Palisades

Darrin Hurwitz stands in front of his family’s new home under construction in the Pacific Palisades.

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David Rodriguez

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LAist

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Darrin Hurwitz and his family moved to Pacific Palisades from Washington, D.C., in 2022. A big reason they chose their neighborhood was to have a city experience and be close to nature.

Their home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire.

The framing of their new home is almost complete. They are the first house on their street to start rebuilding.

For Hurwitz, rebuilding has felt like “a second job." There was the stress of many decisions — as well as feeling like part of something larger.

“Everyone is dealing with these issues in a different way,” he said. “But ultimately, we are excited to be part of the rebuilding process and thrilled to come back to the Palisades in about a year.”

Darrin Hurwitz and his family lost their home in the Palisades Fire. Their home is the first to be rebuilt from the ground up, and broke ground in early February.

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Darrin Hurwitz

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The Hurwitz home’s framing is almost completed by mid-May.

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Darrin Hurwitz

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Since he’s been in the neighborhood to see the start of construction, Hurwitz said he has found it invigorating to hike the trails. He shared a photo with LAist of the view from a hilltop, where he can watch his neighborhood being reborn.

The Hurwitz home is under construction in the Pacific Palisades.

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Darrin Hurwitz

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Hurwitz and his family are living in Santa Monica while their new home is built. He is optimistic about the progress he and his family have made.

“It takes time for people to figure out what to do, to figure out their financial situation, to decide whether to return to an area that has been ravaged by a natural disaster,” Hurwitz said. “I am optimistic where things are headed. The Palisades will be back in maybe three years or five years or seven years, but it will come back.”

The soft hiss of fat dripping onto white-hot binchotan. The alchemical smell of both sweet tare sauce and charred meat. If you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine yourself parked at the counter of any number of South Bay yakitori joints.

But this is Three Pigs, a Long Beach-based pop-up and catering operation, that roves around the region, one week perhaps at a street fair, another in the parking lot of a donut shop.

It’s the work of partners Allison and Vasili Tavernakis. In just under two years, they’ve built a community of dedicated diners from Orange County to Los Angeles, drawn to their personal market-inspired take on traditional Japanese cuisine.

Three Pigs owners, Vasili (left) and Allison Tavernakis.

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Courtesy Three Pigs

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Yakitori is what first launched Three Pigs, so. So there are always skewers on the menu, like a juicy beef kushiyaki skewer dabbed with wasabi.

But there’s also always something special and even ephemeral to be had. Maybe it will be hearty kakuni don, a bowl of rice topped with meltingly tender soy-braised pork belly, a jammy soft boiled egg, and daikon and bok choy sprouts. Or perhaps you’ll find a hyper-seasonal dish like nowhere else: yuzu-scented whipped tofu, charred broccolini, sake-cherry agrodolce, and sprouted watercress.

Three Pigs is restaurant-quality cooking unbound from the financial and creative trappings of a brick-and-mortar space.

“The challenge is what keeps me excited,” Vasili said. “I want our pop-ups to feel like if you changed our bamboo plates, you’d feel like you were at a restaurant.”

A restaurant-quality dish at Three Pigs.

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Courtesy Three Pigs

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Organic growth

Allison and Vasili are both hospitality veterans. The pair met while working at a restaurant in Torrance: Allison as a manager and social media director in the front of the house, Vasili as a chef in the back of the house. After their shifts, there were few options for late-night bites. Inevitably, Vasili said, they’d find themselves at Japanese izakayas, where they and their coworkers could build camaraderie over skewers and small plates.

It was during those post-work meals that Vasili became enamored with yakitori. But it wasn’t until the pandemic lockdowns that Vasili ever attempted to cook it himself. It was a slow process, learning the techniques and honing the recipes that called back to those late-night meals that he sorely missed. For Allison, who is Japanese-American, the dishes spoke to her own flavor memories and family traditions.

Eventually, they became confident enough to invite friends over for dinners to try out new dishes.

Still, the idea of a pop-up seemed far off. It wasn’t until a friend who owns a store in downtown Long Beach offered a pop-up opportunity that Three Pigs started serving the public. After that first smashing success, which saw their entire menu sell out, the operation has grown organically ever since, building on community connections and word of mouth to find new avenues to share their food.

Evolution and ambition

If you pay enough visits to Three Pigs’ pop-ups, you can watch the pair continually push boundaries.

“On a recent visit to Japan,” Vasili recounted, “we saw a vendor with a gorgeously long irori-style grill with fish standing on skewers. In Japan, irori is a multifunctional space in the home for both heating and cooking. I hadn’t seen a vendor do that before, so I thought I could try building one.”

So he did. Then he sourced ayu, small fish prized in Japan for their sweet, delicate flavor. The fish were skewered whole and arranged vertically around lengths of charcoal stacked in the center of the grill. The result was not just an approximation of that inspiration from Japan, but an homage to the craft and care of Japanese cooking. Even attempting such a cooking method is something no other pop-up, let alone a brick-and-mortar restaurant, is likely doing in Southern California.

Casual pop-ups are only part of the Three Pigs experience. Allison and Vasili also host a dinner series. And it’s at those dinners where Three Pigs’ creativity is truly at play.

At a Santa Monica nursery a few months ago, Three Pigs paired an ambitious tasting menu dinner with an ikebana class hosted by Tiger Blossom Studio. In between flower arranging lessons, Allison and Vasili served a farmers market-driven menu that saw dishes like a hamachi crudo in a pool of strawberry ponzu, spiny lobster in a caviar and white miso beurre monté, and a hojicha panna cotta with craggy, dehydrated black sesame cake.

“We try and create an experience, not just food on a plate,” Allison said. “We see this as an entire restaurant experience that happens to be outside in the community. We get to interact with customers in a more intimate way, ask questions, and have a conversation.”

But that conversation isn’t just one with customers old and new. It’s a dialogue between memory and place, Southern California and its seasons, and tradition and evolution.

No matter where you find Three Pigs, you can always guarantee there will be something new on the menu.