From the Editor
For several years a payroll check signed by Cecil B. De Mille was stuck with a magnet to my refrigerator door. I paid a couple of dollars for it 20 years ago at a fair that sold vintage paper goods. Every time I pulled out a tub of hummus, I’d see the confident autograph of the director who invented feature films. Then one day I took the check out of rotation and replaced it with another piece of cherished ephemera… Read
Features:
Top 10 Best New Restaurants
From Singapore to southern Italy, Vietnam to the Middle East, the dishes at L.A.’s latest and greatest batch of restaurants span the planet. PLUS: The city’s sausage boom, dining with a view, the big picture on small plates, and a tip of the hat to a dearly departed Sunset Strip landmark
WEB EXTRA: See dine editor Lesley Bargar Suter’s insider’s guide to the Best New Restaurants
Hello, I’m Attorney Gloria Allred
By Ed Leibowitz
She’s antagonizing and tawdry, tireless and intrepid. On the docket with L.A.’s ultimate high-profile lawyer
WEB EXTRA:Interviewing Gloria Allred by Ed Leibowitz
Celebrity Endorsements
By Amy Wallace
Even stars have to pay bills—but to whom and for what? A photo portfolio of checks signed by the rich and famous
How I Learned to Love Art
By Bernard Cooper
There was pop art, and there was everything that came before. Finding salvation on a canvas in the 1960s
(Buzz)
CityThink
Local roses return to the Rose Parade; pocket parks pop up
L.A. Archetype
A witch’s tales of the occult
Ask Chris
Chris Nichols’s year of the rat
L.A. Story
Southland star Regina King on being bused around
The Seen
All the parties fit to crash
How L.A. Works
Keeping the Goodyear blimp aloft
(Shop)
Au Courant
Something fishy’s going on with accessories
In Store
Curating an outfit at Rebecca Taylor’s new flagship
Prime Finds
Cozy clothes for cabin fever
Tastemaker
Lisa Kline’s inspiration board
(Eat)
Main Course
Pig out on L.A.’s latest ramen craze: tonkotsu, a rich, thick broth made from pork bones
New Restaurants
Wolfgang Puck takes over at the remodeled Hotel Bel-Air. Plus: The Oinkster’s owner tries red-sauce Italian; farm-fresh dinner at the Brentwood Country Mart; and soulful cooking from Ammo expats
Small Bites
Mendocino Farms goes big with Blue Cow, Gingergrass pours bia hoi, Northridge tastes Peruvian, taco trucks join the van pool, and Bouchon’s Rory Herrmann reveals his recipe for panna cotta with blood orange confit
(Do)
The Culture Files
Santa Monica hosts a global gallery, Woody Harrelson plays a bad-ass cop, and Taschen releases a $6K book devoted to the outré visions of Mark Ryden
Weekender
You don’t need to own a Gulfstream to partake of Aspen’s riches
Nightlife
Why champagne cocktails are such a bubbly sensation
The Guide
30 great things to do this month, from celebrating the wit of Molly Ivins to going on a pith helmet tour of the El Capitan
(Columns)
Open City
By Anne Taylor Fleming
It can be hard adjusting to strangers in the house, unless there’s the unexpected joy of sharing their world
TV
By Steve Erickson
Jon Stewart hasn’t changed much since his 1999 debut on The Daily Show. So why does he seem more necessary than ever?
Speak Easy
By Gabriel Kahn
City council member Jan Perry wants to make history, not only as L.A.’s first female mayor, but as the first who’s Jewish-African American
PLUS: 4 Things We’re Not Supposed To Tell You About This Issue
10 letters
→ Length of the Los Angeles magazine logo. This year in every issue you’ll find it hiding in a photograph or illustration. Once you’ve found it, go to LAmag.com/hidden to submit your answer and be eligible to win something pegged to that issue. This month it’s a gift certificate to Sotto, which we’ve named the No. 1 Best New Restaurant in L.A. The deadline for entries is January 25.
6 years old
→ Age of associate editor Chris Nichols when a colleague of Gloria Allred successfully represented his mother, a nurse, in a wrongful termination suit. Nichols’s mom is also convinced that Allred, who is profiled this month, “had a hand in getting me a job at the county health department afterward.”
2 puns
→ Number of ichthyological references senior editor Linda Immediato squeezed into “Catch of the Day”. She started with six, she says, but “had to scale back.” Har, har.
22nd birthday
→ Milestone celebrated by Lindsay Lohan at Teddy’s in 2008. You would have learned that and more about the Hollywood Roosevelt club, which is set to reopen soon, had we not killed a story slated for this month’s Nightlife. The club will still be adhering to a ridiculously stringent velvet rope policy, so we figured, Why bother? The replacement story on champagne cocktails is bubblier.
