2024: The Year in Eater

Every year around this time (or sometimes even months later), I look back at my favorite features published on Eater. These stories resonated most with me because they challenged me to dig deeper to find the right angle and words. From a retrospective on mid-aughts food blogging to a personal profile on the sometimes inhospitable nature of hospitality, here are my darlings from 2024.

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The Big Bake Theory

Tucked into a dusty Arcadia strip mall anchored by a 99-cent store, the shop is the work of pastry chef Jay Chen and her software engineer husband, Ivan Lo. Patisserie Bluejay, which is named after Chen and an episode of The Big Bang Theory, devotes a day each week to research and development, continually revises its recipes, and sells updated versions of its cakes and pastries. While the corner bakery looks fairly standard from the outside, with its pale yellow walls, tile flooring, and wood-trimmed pastry case filled with cookies, cream puffs, and canelés, a conversation with the owners reveals that this isn’t an ordinary dessert operation — it’s the nerdiest sweets shop in Los Angeles.

Janunary 16, 2024

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The Hottest New Accessory in LA Restaurants? Your Takeout Containers From Home.

I beamed with pride when a server at an old-school Burbank diner proclaimed, “You’re going to save the world,” as I packed up the uneaten portion of my tuna melt into the reusable plastic container I’d brought from home. I’ve been making an effort to bring my own takeout packaging to restaurants for the past decade now, but I had never felt seen and understood in this endeavor until that very moment. Why yes, I am going to save the world, I thought, one dodged single-use plastic container at a time.

February 7, 2024

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Roy Choi’s New LA Taco Stand Opens Tonight. Here’s Everything to Know.

Pondering Kogi’s legacy in LA’s fast-changing dining landscape pushed Choi and his team to begin thinking about their next move. “How do we reintroduce ourselves without having to show our ass and do all the stupid things to bring attention to us? How can we just be ourselves?” he says, repeating the questions he and his team members asked themselves in Tacos Por Vida’s earliest phase.

March 12, 2024

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The Hottest New Restaurant Trend in Los Angeles Is Resurrected Restaurants

Just three months into 2024, a trio of shuttered Los Angeles restaurants have reopened for business. Sweet Lady Jane, Café Tropical, and Souplantation — all closed abruptly — were miraculously revived thanks to new owners taking the operations’ reigns. While passing the proverbial baton isn’t a novel business idea, at this moment, with the city’s restaurants operating on razor-thin margins, battling rising costs, and closing in rapid succession, it has provided a sense of collective hope among diners. Of course, mourning the loss of a beloved restaurant can be gutting, but it involves nowhere near the level of heartbreak — or financial uncertainty — that owners and workers experience when a small business closes. And while new ownership isn’t an industry panacea, it is providing some of Los Angeles’s most iconic restaurants a path to new life.

March 27, 2024

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Inside the Sugar-Fueled Fantasyland Masterminded by LA’s Premier Pastry Chef

It’s become increasingly rare to see thoughtfully composed desserts on Los Angeles restaurant menus as small restaurants are forced to eke out a living under incredible economic pressure and on swiftly shrinking profit margins. These days, dessert options often consist simply of soft serve or pre-made puddings and panna cottas prettied with a chocolate sauce, fresh berries, and a mint sprig. But at the Georgian, the pomp and circumstance that an end to a meal merits is fulfilled under Thessa Diadem’s direction.

April 16, 2024

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A Top LA Sommelier Is Finally Making His Mental Health a Priority

Working in restaurants can be a tough endeavor: Lower pay, physical and mental exertion, and long hours are the norm. Studies have found that tipped workers are at greater risk of depression, insomnia, and stress and that the restaurant industry ranks high for drug use and heavy alcohol consumption. These factors, compounded by ongoing economic pressures to turn a profit as well as the rarity of health insurance, paid time off, and sick leave, have led to food service being cited as one of the worst industries for mental health. Over 1 million workers have left the industry since the pandemic began, with over 60 percent of those remaining saying they are leaving in due time. In this special edition of Service Check, Eater examines the sustainability of Los Angeles restaurants through the lens of hospitality workers.

May 29, 2024

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Pop-Up Superstar Bridgetown Roti Finally Opens Its Permanent Los Angeles Home

Bridgetown Roti specializes in a distinctly American, biographical take on Caribbean fare. “It’s West Indian street food through my American body,” Holmes says. “We didn’t grow up on those islands, so I can’t claim to be pulling stuff from Barbados to America. What I can claim to be is a Caribbean American, bringing Caribbean food to LA.”

July 18, 2024

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The Original Influencers

Food blogging emerged when Facebook was still a quaint platform to connect with old classmates, Twitter was in its infancy, and Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok were years away from obliterating the public’s collective attention span. These websites, woefully static in appearance, primed local readers to embrace restaurant reviews written and photographed from the perspective of earnest but uncredentialed enthusiasts — and effectively laid the foundation for the $21 billion influencer economy to come.

October 23, 2024

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