L.A. Times Food chooses the standout cookbooks of the year, from the best resources for baking, vegetarian cooking and pasta making to what to do with leftovers. [...]

Anthony Bourdain didn’t mince words when it came to Henry Kissinger. “Henry Kissinger walks into a bar. Would it displease you if I walked over and punched Henry Kissinger in the face?” Bourdain once asked guests appearing on an episode of his “Parts Unknown” TV program. The late chef’s scathing [...]

Certain pockets of downtown Los Angeles feel like a real, contained, thriving city. They are single city blocks dense with storefronts, restaurants, bars, apartments and foot traffic. The stretch of Broadway between 3rd and 4th streets, the one that houses Grand Central Market, the DTLA Superette, a theater, multiple restaurants, [...]

Café Telegrama and Ètra With fresh pastries, brown-butter pancakes and cheffy sandwiches and salads, sunny community-minded Café Telegrama is now open in Melrose Hill, the first of two restaurants from an experienced quartet of owners. In early December Ètra, an adjacent Italian restaurant, is slated to open, with warm wood [...]

Café Tropical, which has been a staple in the Silver Lake community and served traditional Cuban cafecitos and pasteles for nearly 50 years, is closing. News of the closure was confirmed by a handwritten note posted on one of the cafe’s windows. The note read, “Attn Cafe Tropical customers, we [...]

After two years, Michelin Guide recognition and a glowing review from the Los Angeles Times, modern Korean restaurant Kinn is set to close this week, with its chef-owner underscoring the importance of mental health within the restaurant industry. “I think our products are oftentimes undervalued, we have to make compromises,” [...]

For these sweet, crunchy fritters, apple rings are lightly coated with a creamy batter, then fried until crisp and golden outside and tender within. My recipe was inspired by one found in Donatella Limentani Pavoncello’s cookbook “Dal 1880 ad Oggi.” She served the fritters as part of her family’s Hanukkah [...]

One of my favorite early memories of Rome is of a food and wine festival thrown by the kosher catering company Le Bon Ton. Members of the city’s Jewish community showed up in spades, dressed to the nines and ready to toast one another and go back for seconds and [...]

From crisp and velvety fried artichokes to honey-soaked matzo fritters studded with pine nuts and raisins, the Jews of Rome have a centuries-long passion for frying food. This obsession is evident year-round at the many restaurants lining the main street of Rome’s historic Jewish neighborhood. There, menus invariably feature fried [...]

Nesrin had been pounding garlic all morning, but the pestle’s blunt thwack grew louder when she started talking about Syria. From 2010 to 2014, she marched in the revolution there. “Everyone conspired to kill the civil rights movement,” she said. Nesrin (who asked not to use her last name to [...]