The L.A. Times has named its first-ever Restaurant of the Year, but it didn’t go to the usual high-end suspects. Instead Locol — a burger restaurant started by renowned chefs to serve customers in Watts, where unemployment and gang violence are rampant — is the winner.
“[N]o restaurant in years may have made more of a difference than Locol, Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson’s skater-themed fast-food spot in Watts,” writes Times food critic Jonathon Gold.
The only other two restaurants in the neighborhood are Popeyes and a Subway, according to California Sunday, which ran an in-depth profile of the restaurant and its founders. From the beginning, Patterson, whose restaurant Coi, in San Francisco, won two Michelin stars, and Choi, who grew to fame as the “tattooed king of L.A. food trucks,” insisted on hiring employees from Watts, many of whom had never worked in food service before.
The restaurant also tries to limit food waste and cook everything from scratch, using “kitchen techniques you usually find in restaurants that cost 40 times as much: lightening it, taking out much of the fat and sugar, using fresh ingredients, but staying true to the preferences of the neighborhood,” says Gold.