Well, look at that. 2013 came and went already. How quickly time flies when you’re eating black lobster rolls and cavorting with naked people on saddles. Here’s a look back at the highlights of just another year in Los Angeles...
Lock & Key stuck a whole wall of fake doorknobs over its entrance to hide the real one, No Vacancy required [REDACTED] to get inside—and you had to navigate a mysterious subterranean buzzer system at Dirty Laundry to get anywhere near a drink.
You dressed well for a night out—only to meet a friend at DBA wearing a saddle placed on him by a topless lady who wanted to ride him. And the wardrobe at the sex-fueled Sanctum parties seemed to just involve... oil. Dress codes aren’t what they used to be.
There were traditional New England–style lobster rolls (Connie and Ted’s). There were traditional rolls... by the beach (the new Water Grill). And there were black lobster rolls at Hinoki & the Bird. Even lobster rolls go through a goth phase, apparently.
If you craved rooftop sushi with live music, you joined a chef’s mailing list. If you wanted biscuits with a film screening, you joined a beachside private club. If you wanted burgers with beer, you... could still get those pretty much anywhere.
Chefs increasingly stripped away your time-honored rights to, like, see a menu this year. Thankfully, the chefs’ names included words like Nozawa, Centeno and Lefebvre, so you were mostly okay with submitting to whatever they felt like bringing out that night. Once you got a table.
Blame it on Bestia. Suddenly, a nice Italian place with handmade pasta just wasn’t enough anymore. There had to be an in-house pasta lab under glass (Bucato) or a mobster backstory (Rao’s) to stand out. By year’s end, your fork-twirling skills had increased by 23%. Not bad.
Four over-the-top pitch dinners. Four new scene-y Chinese spots. Four Peking duck feasts... on the company expense account. That was a thing that started happening a lot more, what with all the Hakkasans and the Philippes materializing. Sometimes all in one week.
