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Casual Cool: 1–6Believe the Hype: 7–12Ingredient-Forward: 13–17Community Vibe: 18–21Location, Location, Location: 22–25
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Alta
My family moved to California from the suburbs of New York in 1978. We lived in San Marino, in a house close to the Caltech campus, but our backyard extended into Pasadena. I was then 11 years old; decades would pass before I would learn that Pasadena occupied an important place in American food history as the hometown of Julia Child and the birthplace of the cheeseburger.
What I did understand in 1978, as a kid returning to the state of his mother’s birth, was that California restaurants were different.
Back on the East Coast, going out to dinner with my parents felt like going to church. My brother and sister and I were expected to get dressed up—blazers and Mary Janes were de rigueur for children. The greatest hits of French and Italian gastronomy were often served in fussy interiors sealed off from any suggestion of sunlight.
But in California…whoa.
This article appears in Issue 37 of Alta Journal.
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You could seemingly wear anything in a California restaurant. Grown men and women looked like they’d just come from the beach. (My family feigned a sort of scorn for this performative casualness for two months or so—do these L.A. people have no shame?—until we collectively surrendered to its awesome ease.) Many dining establishments seemed to tumble out into the open air, and some of the best ones could be found in strip malls.
It was a different way of dining out. And as with so many Californian customs and innovations, from skateboards to home computers, this anti-fancy way would eventually become the default mode across the country. In fact, if you look around, you’ll find countless examples of an ongoing Pacification of restaurant culture in the United States. You can’t talk about the farm-to-table movement, taco trucks, or the mainstreaming of sushi without bringing California into the conversation. Our state didn’t invent these techniques and trends, most of which have their origins in other parts of the world, but it undoubtedly popularized them.
So what makes a restaurant truly Californian? Months ago, I teamed up with three Alta Journal contributors who’ve spent countless hours eating their way around the state—Gustavo Arellano, Soleil Ho, and Patricia Kelly Yeo—and together we began to untangle this question. If there is a defining characteristic of the Golden State food ethos, we reckoned, it’s a spirit of revision—of tweaking the script and moving forward. This is not meant as a dismissal of iconic destinations such as the French Laundry, Zuni Café, or Chez Panisse, all of which we continue to admire, but it is an acknowledgment that many of their groundbreaking ideas have been passed to a new generation. Other states have mere places to eat; California has restaurants that feel like revolutionary movements. Our past informs our future.
Whether preserving cultural traditions, collaborating with local farmers, or fostering new modes of fusion, the best California restaurants tell a story, even if the restaurants happen to express it in a laid-back way. You see that in how the team at Komal, in Los Angeles’s Mercado La Paloma, performs culinary alchemy with heirloom corn. You see it at Atelier Manna, in the beach town of Encinitas, where a hippie juice bar becomes a perennial reminder that eating well and living well are intersecting vectors. You see it with a Korean approach to Japanese omakase at Sushi Sonagi, in Gardena, and in the way Filipino history shines through a tasting menu at Naides, in San Francisco.
These are restaurants that couldn’t exist anywhere else. They celebrate California right now, and if you’re like us, you’ll want to dine at all of them right now, too.
No need to get dressed up, of course. Come as you are. —Jeff Gordinier
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Gustavo Arellano coauthors Alta Journal’s Ask a Californian advice column. He wrote about Chicano rock for Issue 34.
Jeff Gordinier wrote about Oceanside’s food scene for Alta Journal 35.
Soleil Ho is an award-winning food and culture writer based in Berkeley. In 2025, they cofounded the Coyote Media Collective, a worker-owned digital alt-weekly for the Bay Area.
Patricia Kelly Yeo is a writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Eater, Bon Appétit, and Food & Wine.
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