Los Angeles magazine - May 2021

NE L . A . ’ S C AE NWI A V E CRIM SBERG LE GIN

BY MER

’S Y R W A L W O UE H G A L P E H T BEAT L DOWEL RIN MC NNE DO

BY JEA

T H E C I V I L WA R AT B R E N T W O O D S C H O O L

GOING FOR WOKE

A racial reckoning at Brentwood School has turned the elite academy into the latest battleground in America’s culture wars

BY MAX KUTNER

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H I G H ST E A K S

To survive the past year, Lawry’s has had to park its iconic silver carts and drastically alter how it serves customers.

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The Grammy Diaries For most of her 90 years, my grandmother Rita led a Technicolor life packed with glamorous highs and dramatic lows. But it wasn’t until she got sick with COVID-19 that I realized the starring role she played in my own life

BY JEFF WEISS

66

The Civil War at Brentwood School A shift to a racially progressive curriculum turned one of L.A.’s most elite academies into a battleground. Now parents, faculty, and students are locked in a furious ideological struggle that is tearing the campus apart

Features 74

The Message Appalled by Donald Trump’s racism, Nipsey Hussle and YG recorded “FDT”—aka “F*ck Donald Trump”—a broadside they dropped into the 2016 election that permanently discredited Trump in the hiphop community

BY ROB KENNER

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Lawry’s Lost Year Shut down by the pandemic, the thriving landmark was facing extinction. Here’s how one beloved L.A. restaurant fought its way back to life

BY JEANNE DORIN MCDOWELL

BY MAX KUTNER

6 L A M AG . C O M

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Buzz

M AY 2 0 2 1

L.A.’S CANINE CRIME WAVE

» Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs aren’t the only pups in peril. A surge of daring dognappings has Angelenos keeping a tight grip on their pets

I N T O T H E G RO OV E

The record store Supervinyl is one of several stylish shops and restaurants in the happening Hollywood Media District.

BY MERLE GINSBERG PAGE 15

THE BRIEF

» Armie Hammer delays Death on the Nile release; a Panda Express employee’s lawsuit bares it all; Meghan Markle helps push a paparazzi firm to bankruptcy PAGE 18

THE DA’S DOMESTIC DISPUTE

» Los Angeles DA George Gascón was elected on promises to shake up the office. Now Jon Hatami—a media-savvy deputy DA— is leading a noisy crusade to roll back reforms

BY JASON MCGAHAN PAGE 20

ELLEN FLIPS OUT

» Ellen DeGeneres has bought and sold more homes than people change clothes in a week.

Her star may have lost its luster after mean-girl accusations, but her bank account still shines

BY SCHUYLER MITCHELL PAGE 22

Ask Chris

The Inside Guide

» How old is the TwinTowers jail? Why is there a burntout trolley across from the Paramount lot? Our resident historian answers all your burning questions.

BY CHRIS NICHOLS PAGE 96

» Insecure’s Yvonne Orji talks about having faith—and a sense of humor; the nine must-follow people on Clubhouse; and whimsical nail art makes a comeback. PLUS: Hollywood’s hottest new street, n/soto’s delicious bento box history lessons, and a Philip Glass opera atop a Long Beach parking garage redefines high art P H O T O G R A P H E D BY WAY N E NAT H A N

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ON THE COVER Photographed by Jill Greenberg Produced by Walrus Stylist: Cannon/The Only Agency Hair and makeup: Theo Kogan for Pat McGrath Labs Model: Violet Green

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GAGA’S FRENCH BULLDOGS AREN’T THE ONLY PUPS IN PERIL. A SURGE OF DARING DOGNAPPINGS HAS ANGELENOS KEEPING A TIGHT GRIP ON THEIR PETS

BY MERLE GINSBERG

L.A.’s Canine Crime Wave P H O T O BY R AV E NA J U LY/ S H U T T E R S T O C K

L A M AG . C O M 15

CRIME

H

I S T O R I C A L LY ,

when dogs disappeared in Los Angeles, it got blamed on marauding coyotes and mountain lions roaming the Hollywood Hills.

Or, closer to home, loose collars, broken back doors, and holes in fences.

But the February dognapping of Lady Gaga’s prized French bulldogs Koji and Gustav—after her dogwalker was shot in the chest while bravely battling the thieves—was a wake-up call to all L.A. pet owners: keep your harnesses close and your dogs closer.

Especially the small, fuzzy, expensive purebreds ubiquitous in our town.

The same coddled creatures you’ve observed being wheeled around in ruffly baby carriages or perched in baskets on the Venice bike path now seem more vulnerable than ever to sudden disappearing acts.

Obviously, pets get lost or vanish for all kinds of non-nefarious reasons.

But according to experts, pet theft is The most experienced lost-orfar more common than any random stolen dog finder in Los Angeles is disappearance. There are plenty of Chris DeRose—an actor who apways canines get snatched and many peared on CHiPs and The Rockford reasons to snatch them: for ransom, Files. Four decades ago, he founded to resell them to the highest blackLast Chance for Animals, a nonprofit market dealer, for breeding purposdedicated to eliminating animal exes, for research, or, much worse, for ploitation, and quickly blood sport—that is,, became an expert on dogfights. canine crime.

Has the number of “If you “One of the reasons petnappings actually risdog thefts were ramen in L.A.? “We have defgo into a pant,” DeRose explains, initely seen an increase,” grocery story “was that Class B dealsays JoAnn DeColliand tie your ers were actually libus Powell of Dog Days bulldog censed to steal pets by Search and Rescue in outside, don’t the U.S. Department of Simi Valley. “The numexpect it to be Agriculture for many ber of dog thefts in the U.S. is said to be 2 milthere when you years. They’d ‘legally’ steal your dog and sell it lion annually. Anecdotcome back.” to breeders or researchally, we’re hearing about ers. Five years ago, we a lot more incidents here got the practice of Class this year.” Her group was B dealers—a Class B license is issued involved in the recent, well-publicized to dealers whose business includes search for Orlando Bloom’s lost teathe purchase and/or resale of warmcup poodle, Mighty. As it turned out, blooded animals—declared illegal.”

Bloom’s dog was not stolen, contrary But that hasn’t diminished the to popular belief. “Our team found number of purloined pets. Potential part of his dog in Montecito; it had thieves now are more selective and been snatched by another animal.”

16 L A M AG . C O M

specific. DeRose explains, “The dogs that fetch the highest price points are French bulldogs and other purebreds or posh mixes: English bulldogs, Maltipoos, Goldendoodles. Dobermans were really hot for a while; coats were being made from them. German shepherds. Designer dogs are stolen from yards, from a Ralphs parking lot. All it takes these pro thieves is, literally, seconds.”

According to Karen TarQwyn, a world-renowned pet detective, the reason French bulldogs are the most coveted is “the personality of the dog.

French bulldogs are friendly—if you go into a grocery store and tie your bulldog outside, don’t expect it to be there when you come back. The only way to get one back would be to post a high reward. Or look on Craigslist where stolen dogs often turn up for sale.”

LAPD detectives report they’ve been seeing an uptick in the theft of French bulldogs and other small breeds. Seven, a French bulldog pup, was heisted outside a North Hollywood Target in late March, after two men observed a family checking out with the dog, a Christmas gift for eight-year-old Elani

W E ST H O L LYWO O D D O G N A P P E R S : L A P D ; S C R E E N G R A B : A B C LO C A L N E WS ; G AG A I N B E R L I N : P H OTO BY C H A D B U C H A N A N / G C I M AG E S ; DT L A D O G N A P P E R I N L A K E R S S H I RT: L A P D ; H OT D O G S S I D E B A R : G E T T Y I M AG E S

BUZZ

DOG DRAMA

Clockwise from bottom far left: Dognappers running away with the puppy they allegedly snatched from a car in NoHo in late March; an ABC News report about the theft of Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs Koji and Gustav; Gaga out with one of her pups in Berlin in 2014; the Instagram post offering a reward for the return of Koji and Gustav; a photo, released by the Los Angeles Police Department, of a woman just after she allegedly stole a dog from a private residence in downtown L.A.

S TAT C H AT

H OT D O G S

> Pricey, portable purebreds are a dognapper’s delight. Three breeds top their target list

1.

FRENCH BULLDOGS $7,000 — $12,000 *

> Bulldogs need to be artificially inseminated and delivered by caesarean, so they’re wildly expensive. Says pet detective TarQwyn, “They might as well have dollar bills on their paws.”

Valencia. Elani’s uncle went to the car first with the puppy, sensing danger.

The two men followed him, pulling a handgun as they ran up to the car and snatched the dog. A reward was offered. Six days later, Seven was “found” and returned home.

Also in March, LAPD released a photo of a four-month-old, grey-andwhite Sheltie pup, stolen by a woman in a Lakers shirt from a residence on the 800 block of South Grand Avenue downtown. In the South Bay area, two Yorkshire terriers and a poodle were nabbed from different homes within a few weeks one another. Both dogs had been left in their yards unattended.

DeCollibus Powell says that reward signs will help to get thieves to return dogs, but DeRose is wary. “Beware of reward signs. Don’t pay up front. People make a living off that. There are so many scams, I can’t tell you.”

Not all pets are picked up for profit. Bigger breeds sometimes end up in dogfighting rings. As for the littlest pups, “I hate to say it,” DeRose sighs, “but they are often used as ‘bait dogs’ in dogfights. They throw them into

the ring to give bigger dogs a taste of blood. It boggles the mind. There’s a ton of money in dogfights. An owner can make a hundred grand on one fight. My suggestion is, never try to bust a dogfighting ring; they will kill you. Or their Rottweiler will.

“When dognappers demand a ransom,” DeRose continues, “we do a kind of hostage negotiation. A stolen animal in the state of California is considered stolen property. But police don’t care if your dog is stolen or disappears. You’re usually on your own.”

Despite the high-dollar value of some of these breeds, the LAPD has not made pet crimes a priority. Its Animal Cruelty Task Force, which became operational in 2005, has since been disbanded. Their phone line refers you to Los Angeles Animal Services, now closed on account of COVID-19. You’re better off googling local dog shelters and search-and-rescue operations like Pawboost.com.

Of course, many people turn to pet psychics to help them locate missing dogs. But DeRose suggests you go with the tried-and-true. “Pet psychics, I don’t know,” he says. “I had one friend who had her cat missing; a psychic said it was in the Hollywood Hills. She found it under her steps.”

2.

MERLE POMERANIAN $3,000 — $15,000

> “They’re extremely rare,” says DeCollibus Powell, “But they also have the fluffiest coats of almost any breed.

Resale value is off the charts.”

3.

GOLDENDOODLES $800 — $3,000

> These golden retrieverpoodle mixes are so smart that they seem almost human, only better behaved. Breeders can’t keep them in stock. — M .G . *Estimated resale value on the black market

L A M AG . C O M 17

N E WS & N OT E S F R O M A L L OV E R

The Brief HAMMER TIME

WILL ARMIE HAMMER SINK DEATH ON THE NILE? ALLEGATIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AGAINST ITS LEADING MAN COULD DOOM THE $90 MILLION FILM’S RELEASE

BY IAN SPIEGELMAN

D E AT H O N the Nile is looking more and more like dead on arrival. The $90 million Kenneth Branagh adaptation of the classic Agatha Christie mystery—a sequel of sorts to Branagh’s 2017 remake of Murder on the Orient Express—has already seen its release

by his agents at WME and bumped from projects like Lionsgate’s Shotgun Wedding, Amma Asante’s Cold War thriller The Billion Dollar Spy, and the Paramount+ series The Offer, amid disturbing allegations by several women of cannibal fetishes, knife play, and even rape. In

Can kid-friendly Disney actually release a film starring an accused rapist? date bumped six times by Disney since the start of the pandemic. And now, just as Disney settled on a Valentine’s Day 2022 opening, the film’s leading man has suddenly turned an even brighter shade of radioactive.

Armie Hammer’s troubles have been wellreported—how over recent months, he’s been dropped 18 L A M AG . C O M

late March, the news went from bad to much worse: the Los Angeles Police Department announced it was officially naming the 34-year-old actor as a suspect in a sexual-assault investigation.

All of which makes Death on the Nile the biggest marketing migraine since any of Woody Allen’s recent movies. Can

kid-friendly Disney actually release a film starring an accused rapist?

Most of the other projects Hammer has been booted from hadn’t started filming yet, so recasting those parts wasn’t a huge problem.

But Death is already in the can, with its cast of A-listers—Gal Gadot, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, and Branagh himself—now scattered to different projects.

Reshoots aren’t a realistic option. And even if they were, Disney would have to redo pretty much the whole thing, since Hammer is apparently in almost every scene.

A person who’s seen an early cut told Variety that Hammer’s character, Simon Doyle, is as close as the moviecomess to a leading role.

An exec at a rival studio goes on to tell the trade that being forthright about the situation is the studio’s best bet. “It seems like the only way to go with this is to come out front and say, ‘Hundreds of people worked on this project, and we’re not scrapping it because of one individual.’ ” The source adds that Death on the Nile may very well end up being yet another potential tentpole to skip the theaters altogether and be shunted directly to streaming (you know, like Branagh’s Artemis Fowl, his 2020 adventure that was supposed to be the next Harry Potter but ended up with a digital premiere).

Hammer, meanwhile, has denied all allegations, calling them “bullshit,” while his lawyer has maintained that all of his client’s interactions “have been completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory.”

YOU THOUGHT THE FOOD WAS BAD? TRY WORKING THERE SOGGY EGG

rolls and mushy kung pao chicken are the least of Panda Express’s problems these days. A former employee of the Chinese takeout chain just filed suit in L.A. claiming the company pressured her to attend an off-site seminar where she was subjected to “cult-like rituals” and sexual humiliation.”

Jennifer Spargifiore, 23, says she went through with the session only because she believed it was required to get a promotion at work.

According to her account,

FOOD FIGHT

An employee lawsuit alleges that Panda Express serves up coercion as well as chow mein.

D E AT H O N T H E N I L E : CO U RT E SY 2 0 T H C E N T U RY ST U D I O S ; A R M I E H A M M E R : DAV E J H O G A N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; E G G R O L L : C H R I S L E AC H M A N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; PA N DA : C E SA R E F E L I X /G E T T Y I M AG E S

The beleaguered actor and Gadot in Death on the Nile.

PA PA R A ZZ I : G E T T Y I M AG E S / I STO C K P H OTO ; M E G H A N A N D H A R RY: ST UA RT C . W I L S O N /G E T T Y I M AG E S

AVERAGE NIGHTLY RATE FOR A ROOM AT THE L.A. GRAND HOTEL DOWNTOWN, THE TEMPORARY DIGS FOR 108 HOMELESS PEOPLE RELOCATED FROM THE ECHO PARK ENCAMPMENT. SHUTTERED DURING THE PANDEMIC, THE 487-ROOM HOTEL IS SLATED TO REOPEN EARLY NEXT YEAR.

on the first day of the workshop,conducted

by Alive Seminars and Coaching Academy, attendees were ordered to sit in silent isolation until a man entered the room and began screaming at them.

“The atmosphere resembled less a selfimprovement seminar than a site for off-thebooks interrogation of terrorist suspects,” she claims in her complaint.

Things apparently got worse from there. On the third day, she alleges, “she was forced to strip down to her underwear under the guise of ‘trustbuilding.’” Meanwhile, Alive Seminars staff were openly ogling Spargifiore and others in their state of undress, “smiling and laughing,” her complaint continues. “The exercise culminated when . . . participants had to take turns standing up to yell about their inner struggles until everyone else in the group ‘believed’ them.”

This isn’t the first time that the Rosemead-based fast-food company has come under fire from employees. Cofounder Andrew Cherng, a noted fan of the controversial Landmark Forum, regularly exhorts his workers to pursue programs that stimulate “physical, emotional, and spiritual” growth—a program he calls the Panda Way. While Panda Express acknowledges that its employees are encouraged to attend “coaching” workshops, it denies they’re mandatory for advancement. The

company also distanced itself from the workshop provider, Alive, “a third-party organization in which Panda has no ownership interest.”

Spargifiore remains unconvinced. In the wake of her initial complaint, her attorney, Oscar Ramirez, reports that she and several other Panda employees who felt pressured to pay for the pricey workshops are planning to file a class action suit against the company.

—B R I T TA N Y M A RT I N

promised to stop selling unauthorized photos of Meghan, Harry, and their family, it looked like the agency and Markle were going to settle their differences out of court. But the deal didn’t stick and the money-draining lawsuit dragged on until Splash threw in the towel.

“The case involves free-speech-related

$206 been dealing with a non-celebrity lawsuit filed by the company’s former account manager, Esmeralda Servin, who claims she was subjected to sexist remarks on the job and that she was fired for raising concerns

PAPARAZZI AGENCY BITES THE DUST, BLAMES (IN PART) MEGHAN MARKLE TA L K A B O U T sweet revenge. Splash News & Picture Agency, one of the top shops for paparazzi photography, has filed for bankruptcy, thanks at least in part to an ongoing and expensive legal battle with one of the most “papped” women on the planet, Meghan Markle.

The L.A.-based company sold some shots of Markle and Prince Harry’s baby son, Archie, that had been snapped while the onceroyal couple were on a “private family outing” in a park in Canada in January 2020. Markle sued Splash, claiming the photos violated the Data Protection Act, a U.K. law that makes distributing private information without consent illegal in the Commonwealth. In December, when Splash

issues under United Kingdom law and, unfortunately, has proven to be too unbearably expensive for Splash to continue its defense,” the agency’s president, Emma Curzon, said in a statement. “Notwithstanding the merits of the case, the company has sought to settle this matter but has been unable to agree [on] a financial settlement within its resources.”

Splash was having troubles even without the Markle lawsuit. The pandemic has been tough on paparazzi agencies, with mask mandates making snapping recognizable shots of celebrities in public all but impossible. Splash has also

S NA P JUDGEMENT

Meghan and Harry shut down Archieshooting paps.

about illegal bidding and the lack of transparency in Splash’s commission structure. Splash defaulted on a $972,000 loan from Deasil Limited (which holds a lien on nearly all of Splash’s assets). The agency tried to raise cash by suing celebrities for using Splash’s images on their Instagram accounts, but it wasn’t enough. Chapter 11 was the only way out. As Curzon put it, “Attorney bills have drained, and continue to drain, cash from the business.” — I . S .

L A M AG . C O M 19

BUZZ

OFF COURT

DAs Gone Wild

LOS ANGLES DISTRICT ATTORNEY GEORGE GASCÓN WAS ELECTED ON PROMISES TO SHAKE UP THE OFFICE. NOW JON HATAMI—A MEDIA-SAVVY DEPUTY DA—IS LEADING A NOISY CRUSADE TO ROLL BACK GASCÓN’S REFORMS AND POSSIBLY RECALL HIM B Y JA S O N M C G A H A N

20 L A M AG . C O M

ON MARCH 9 , the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends aired a blistering segment attacking newly elected Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón and his decision to bar prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty against a pair of accused child murderers. The guest for the segment was Jon Hatami, head of the DA’s child abuse unit and the lead prosecutor on the case. If it is unusual for a prosecutor to batter his boss on national TV, it is extraordinary for one to say, as Hatami did that morning, “We now have a district attorney who is pro-criminal, anti-victim, and who refuses to follow the law.”

But these are extraordinary times in the Los Angeles DA’s office. Gascón unseated incumbent Jackie Lacey in November and vowed to shake things up inside the nation’s largest local prosecutor’s office. And on his first day on the job, he delivered with a dizzying set of reforms, from sus-

pending the death penalty to getting rid of cash bail to ending the practice of charging juveniles as adults. The backlash has been as big and dramatic as the implications of the changes; it has been furious and, increasingly, politically opportunistic.

Less than three months into his term, the 67-year-old Gascón faces a recall effort launched by lawenforcement officials and the families of crime victims, including the aunt of ten-year-old Anthony Avalos, the boy whose murder Hatami lamented in the sensational death-penalty segment on Fox & Friends. Gay rights advocates took Gascón to task for scrapping sentencing enhancements for hate crimes. (He later reversed his decision.) He’s been rapped by a judge and his own deputy DAs for dismissing gang enhancements and firearm allegations from pending cases, and for his pronounced preference for social-justice-minded outsiders over veteran prosecutors on his leadership I L LU S T R AT I O N BY R O B E RT CA RT E R

L . A . L AW

Hatami’s feud with Gascón (right) is fueled in part by remarks Gascón made about his deputy DA, for which Hatami sued his boss for libel.

team. Recently, there have been votes of no confidence from the city councils of Beverly Hills and Santa Clarita.

The public flap is a sign of the opposition that Gascón is generating from all sides. But it has been Hatami’s relentless media attacks against his boss that have driven the narrative of an overreaching DA. A week after Gascón took the oath of office, resting his left hand on a copy of the Constitution held by his wife, former Univision news anchor Fabiola Kramsky, Hatami became the first deputy DA to say on camera what many were saying privately: that by ordering prosecutors to dismiss enhancements and “three strikes” allegations, Gascón was ignoring the law and making L.A. less safe.

On Fox 11 L.A., Hatami went on to accuse Gascón of creating and disseminating a “snitch form” for defense attorneys to tattle on prosecutors who disobeyed the DA’s order to drop enhancements. (Gascón’s office denies involvement in the creation or dissemination of such a form.) Max Szabo, a Gascón spokesperson, fired back, telling Fox newscaster Gina Silva that Hatami’s “delusional theories raise questions as to one’s fitness to practice law.”

Hatami, a prosecutor for 15 years, is used to playing to the camera. As the lead prosecutor in one of the most infamous child-abuse cases in California history, he features prominently as the deputy DA who wears his heart on his sleeve in the Netflix documentary series The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez. Eight-year-old Fernandez was tortured and murdered by his mother, Pearl, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, allegedly because the pair believed the firstgrader was gay. In the documentary’s climactic scene, after the jury has returned a guilty verdict against Aguirre, reporters swarm an emotional Hatami outside court. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, fighting back tears. “I was a victim of child abuse.” The outpouring was cathartic to viewers, but chagrined some old-school deputy DAs.

In its broadest contours, the feud the Fernandez case during a televised between Hatami and Gascón boils interview shortly after the election. down to this: Hatami is one of the Asked by Spectrum News 1 why he felt most recognizable faces in the DA’s ofthe need to ban capital punishment fice, a prosecutor of some of the most in Los Angeles when Governor Gavin heinous crimes—death-penalty cases Newsom already issued a moratorium involving badly abused and murdered on death sentences, Gascón said that children. Gascón opposes the death the DA in the Fernandez case—Hatapenalty on the moral and practical mi—had sought the death penalty to grounds that it is exorbitantly expensatisfy a personal grudge against Agusive, racially biased, and risks executirre, convicted with Fernandez of muring innocent people. For both Gascón dering her son. and Hatami, the election debate over Gascón told Cohen that Aguirre was crime and punishment didn’t end once not the “heavy” in the murder and that the votes were counted. The agonies when the defendant refused the prosinflicted on children like Fernandez ecution’s plea deal for life without pahave been recast by Gascón’s critics role, “it rubbed the DA the wrong way.” as debating points for keeping capital Gascón felt that the death sentence, punishment on the table as punishunder the circumstances, was a “high ment for the most abominable crimes. premium to pay to soothe somebody’s With every televised back-and-forth ego.” The words stung Hatami, who between the new DA and his mediasaid he found them not only insultsavvy deputy, a simmering rift withing but potentially damaging to future in the Los Angeles prosecutor’s office appeals of the case. (A spokesman for spills into public view. The DA wields Gascón said the DA declined to comwide discretion to carry out what he ment, citing the pending litigation.) interprets as his voter mandate, but Insiders say that Gascón is enthere’s little he can do about outsposconced in his new home in the Naples ken in-house critics like Island neighborhood of Hatami, who technically Long Beach, working rework for the county, not motely to limit his expothe DA, and enjoy consure to COVID-19. A FebGascón knew siderable job protections ruary visit to his office in some of his through the civil-service the Antelope Valley was controversial commission. met with protest from reforms would victims’ families con“Obviously, I’m not come under going to get promoted,” cerned with his plan to Hatami told Los Angeles. establish a resentencing fire. But he He says he could be transunit to review the cases didn’t expect ferred to a less desirable of 30,000 convicted ofone of his assignment, maybe one fenders. Meanwhile, Hatdeputy DAs far from home. (In DA-ofami is a regular on Fox to be leading fice jargon, this is known News and has been apas “freeway therapy.”) pearing with L.A. Counthe charge.

But considering Hatami’s ty Sheriff Alex Villanhigh profile and the poueva at “victims vigils” tential blowback, Gascón that double as signaturecould elect to just ignore him. “There’s gathering efforts for recall proponents. all this publicity, and he’d look bad if Hatami is the most public of the he did it,” Hatami adds. bevvy of current and former prosThere’s also another wrinkle: Hatecutors testing the waters for a posami is suing Gascón, the county, and sible run for the top job if Gascón a Gascón spokesperson for libel, defafalters. He says he’d first have to dismation, retaliation, and the creation cuss it with his wife, Roxanne, an of a hostile work environment.

L.A. sheriff ’s detective, and his two The lawsuit traces the personal feud sons. But “the longer I’m involved in between the two men to some prothis movement,” he said, “the more it vocative remarks Gascón made about seems like a possibility.”

L A M AG . C O M 2 1

BUZZ

S U R R E A L E S TAT E

Ellen Flips Out! ELLEN DEGENERES HAS BOUGHT AND SOLD MORE HOMES THAN PEOPLE CHANGE CLOTHES IN A WEEK. HER STAR MAY HAVE LOST ITS LUSTRE AFTER MEAN-GIRL ACCUSATIONS, BUT HER BANK ACCOUNT STILL SHINES B Y S C H U Y L E R M I T C H E L L

Smith, the Spanish colonial revival-style mansion later served as the wedding venue for Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian.

1. The Tree House > Nestled on a wooded lot in Laurel Canyon, this midcentury modern bungalow was purchased by DeGeneres for $1.3 million in 2004. She gave it a Zen makeover and sold it to director David Weissman the following year for nearly a million dollars more. The residence’s star-studded list of past occupants includes actors Heath Ledger and Josh Hutcherson.

> Once home to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, this swanky oceanside mansion boasts a tennis court, a private beach cove, and stunning views of Point Mugu State Park and the Pacific Ocean.

DeGeneres bought the newly renovated property from Pitt for $12 million in 2011, selling it for $13 million shortly thereafter.

22 L A M AG . C O M

> Designed by architect A. Quincy Jones, interior designer William Haines, and landscape architect Garrett Eckbo, this Holmby Hills residence is a masterpiece of modernist architecture. DeGeneres snagged it in 2014 for just shy of $40 million and was lucky to sell it for $55 million six months later to Napster cofounder Sean Parker.

> DeGeneres and de Rossi purchased adjoining properties in Beverly Hills and sold them as

8. Salt Hill House > DeGeneres and de Rossi added yet another architectural style to their portfolio in 2018, when they purchased this Montecito estate for $27 million. The Balinese-inspired compound, which includes a koi pond, fitness cabana, and infinity pool overlooking the ocean, was sold for $33.3 million in late 2020.

6. Rancho San Leandro > DeGeneres and de Rossi purchased this equestrian compound in 2017. They sold it the following year to Sean Rad, founder of Tinder, for a profit of $4 million.

The Montecito property neighbors Oprah Winfrey’s estate.

7. The Villa, Montecito 4. The Laurence Harvey House

eighteenth-century Italian tiles, the home was purchased by DeGeneres and de Rossi in 2013 for $26.5 million. Netflix executive Ted Sarandos bought it from the couple in 2018 for $34 million.

5. Brody House

3. Malibu Beach House

2. The Ogilvy House > DeGeneres and de Rossi lived in this lavish Montecito estate for less than a year before selling it for $20 million in 2007 to Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt. Designed by famed architect George Washington

a combined estate to Ryan Seacrest for $37 million in 2012.

The sprawling compound marked a rare loss for the couple, who spent $48 million. In late 2020, Seacrest listed the property at nearly double the purchase price—a whopping $85 million.

> This Tuscan-style villa was built in the 1930s by architect Wallace Frost and restored years later by designer John Saladino. Featuring nine fireplaces, terraced gardens, and

9. Porter House > This English Tudor-style house was bought and renovated by DeGeneres and de Rossi in January 2020 for $3.6 million. Featuring wood-beam ceilings and lush gardens with stone walls, the residence looks like it’s straight out of a storybook. Although Ariana Grande moved into the home last year, she did not buy it for a song: she paid nearly double the previous price, $6.75 million.

1 : T H E AG E N CY R E .CO M ; 2 , 6 , 8 : R E D F I N .CO M ; 3 . P I N T E R E ST.CO M ; 4 : E C H O F I N E P R O P E RT I E S .CO M ; 5 , E L L E N D E G E N E R E S CO L L AG E : G E T T Y I M AG E S ; 7 : Z I L LOW.CO M ; 9 : R E A LT Y.CO M

Ellen DeGeneres doesn’t just flip houses—she buys, renovates, and sells them at a massive mark-up. Since 2003, the talk-show host has owned more than 20 properties with her wife, Portia de Rossi, but insists that their real estate ventures are driven by a passion for architecture and decorating. “We buy a house and we love it and we stay in it. Then we get a little bored because we like a different style or different aesthetic,” DeGeneres said in a 2018 Today show interview.

Most recently, the couple have grown bored with their 10,400square-foot, ivy-covered mansion in Beverly Hills, listing it for $53.5 million in March. They stand to gain more than $10 million, having purchased the property for $45 million in 2019 from Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine.

Whether house-flipping is a calculated side hustle or a conveniently lucrative passion project, the two clearly aren't settling down anytime soon. Here’s a look at nine properties they’ve called home.

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05.21 THE

Inside Guide Plus > Who you actually want to follow on Clubhouse PAGE 28

> Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop get into the food-delivery business PAGE 36

> Hollywood’s hottest new street for shopping, eating, drinking, and gallery-hopping PAGE 40

PERSONALITIES

Divine Intervention ACTRESS-COMEDIAN YVONNE ORJI WAS HEADED TO MED SCHOOL , BUT GOD HAD A DIFFERENT PLAN

BY HAILEY EBER

PH O T O GR A PH BY A L L E N C O O L E Y

L A M AG . C O M 25

The Inside Guide

I

INCOMING

N 2 0 0 6 , Yvonne Orji signed up to compete in

Were you much of a jokester before you entered the pageant? > Not at all. I don’t even know if I was funny. I mean, as a Nigerian, you tell jokes every now and then, but it’s just with your immediate family.

You write a lot in your book about your conversations with God. As a performer, you have such a strong, unique voice. What voice does your God’s voice sound like? >It almost overrides my thoughts, like, “OK, hold up.”

Or it’ll just sound very monotonic, and I’m always up. It’s like, “OK, this voice inside is too calm. It’s got to be Jesus, because it’s not me.”

What inspired you to write a book? >I knew that I wanted to parallel my story with stories from the Bible. But it’s not your grandma’s Bible study—that’s not what we’re doing. Nobody wants to 26 L A M AG . C O M

read that. It’s just kind of updating and taking a modern take on ancient stories and having fun with it. I may or may not call a certain character in the Bible a f*ck boy.

That’s Abraham, right? >Yeah.

You need to have a strong foundation in something.

For some people, it’s cocaine, God bless it.

Were you worried about offending anybody with that? Or the chapter where you liken fear to food poisoning and regret to having herpes? >No, because I know as a comedian what I’m trying to do and what I’m trying to say. You may be offended, but nobody says, “You know what I want today? Herpes.”

Not even people who have it. You may not like the analogy, but you get it.

Working in Hollywood, do you feel like there are a lot of people who have a strong faith like you? >You need to have a strong foundation in something.

For some people, it’s cocaine, God bless it. But you have to have a strong foundation in something to maintain a piece of sanity in this industry. I had a meeting where I thought I was going in for an audition and the person was like, “I heard you believe in God.” And I’m like, “I do.” And instead of

auditioning, we ended up spending the whole day just talking about faith. And tears were shed, and a prayer was prayed. And I was like, “Well, that took a turn. OK, God, well, I guess that’s what we’ll do today.” And never once did I book with this person.

But clearly that was not what I was supposed to do that day.

You know, I’m never proselytizing in terms of, “You have to believe what I believe in order for us to be friends or get along.” No, I’m like, “Listen, if there’s anything in my life that you recognize, I want it to be like when you go to a restaurant and you know you’re super hungry, but you don’t know what to order. And you look over and you’re like ,“They’re smacking and oohing and aahing— I’ll have what they’re having.”

Like I said in the book, Christians killed Jesus. So clearly I’m not one to make anyone see or do or feel anything. I’m just offering what’s worked for me.

A B OV E : M E R I E W. WA L L AC E

a Miss Nigeria pageant in America. Orji wasn’t the pageant type, but she did it as a favor for a friend. There was just one problem: “I didn’t have a talent,” Orji, 37, writes in her new book, Bamboozled by Jesus: How God Tricked Me Into the Life of My Dreams (Worthy Publishing), out May 25. “As a child of immigrants, I wasn’t exactly raised to have extracurricular talents.

The only thing I was good at was making the dean’s list.”

So Orji, who was born in Nigeria and raised in Maryland, prayed. And God told her “do comedy.” She did, and while she placed fourth in the pageant, she ultimately came out on top: Last year, she was nominated for an Emmy, her first, for playing Molly on HBO’s Insecure, which is currently shooting its fifth and final season. She also costars with John Cena and Meredith Hagner in Vacation Friends on Hulu and she’s lending her vocal talents to the Netflix animated show My Dad the Bounty Hunter, both out later this year. Also on the horizon, she’s developing a semi-autobiographical comedy series called First Gen for Disney+, with Oprah Winfrey and David Oyelowo producing. “I won a career,” says Orji. “How do you like me now?” Here, she talks about being funny and having faith.

T H E “ I N” C ROW D

Orji (near left) credits Insecure creator and star Issa Rae (far left) for her big break.

N OW P L AY I N G

MUSIC

Moms & Pop Tunes In honor of the mamas who rock, rap, and belt harder than most, here’s a Mother’s Day playlist you can crank up on May 9—or all year-round

Adele, “Hello” After her divorce, the Londoner is sharing custody of her eight-year-old son, Angelo. Expect her next album to be a deep dive into the weeds of adulting.

Alanis Morisette, “Hand in My Pocket” “What it all comes down to is that everything’s gonna be quite alright!” Who knew that Morisette’s ‘90s anthem of female disaffection would become a pandemic anthem decades later? Thanks, mama.

Beyoncé, “Formation” Bey now holds the record for most Grammy wins by any female artist, and her firstborn, Blue Ivy, now has a Grammy of her own. Incomparable as ever on all fronts.

You’re single and you write in the book about saving sex for marriage. How much has that defined you? >I don’t think about it that much. I mean, I’m more than who I do and don’t eat with.

So it’s the same way as I’m a Nigerian American—it’s part of who I am.

P L AY L I ST : G E T T Y I M AG E S

What’s it like working with Oprah? >She’s championed this project from the beginning.

Before anyone knew my name, she was like, “I believe in this project. I have my daughters in school in South Africa and think they would really relate to these characters. I want to support it in any way I can.”

Did you watch her Meghan Markle interview? >I mean, who didn’t? Eleven million people watched it, so I think so I’m in good company.

What did you think of it? >A lot of people are saying, “Meghan Markle knew what

she was getting into.” Well, the narrative could also be, “Harry knew who he was marrying.”

There’s a clip about how Meghan wrote a letter to Procter & Gamble, when she was, like, 11, about a commercial where a woman was washing dishes—and how it was sexist. That same energy has been Megan’s character since she was a little girl.

There was also an interview circulating with Diana echoing so many of the same concerns that Meghan did.

And then add on the fact that she’s a Black woman.

It’s so funny when people are like, “Protect the monarchy! I don’t believe it.” I’m like, “English is not the official language in Nigeria because all those Africans were like, ‘You know what? We want to speak English.’ ” Somebody had to come in there and colonize a group of people they felt superior to.

So I’m gonna go with, “I don’t doubt what she says for $500.”

Cardi B, “Up” Cardi famously revealed her pregnancy on Saturday Night Live in 2018 and, three years on, she’s proudly repping her culture/Kulture.

Sleater-Kinney, “No Cities to Love” Latter-day Sleater-Kinney might not be everyone’s favorite era for the feminist punk trio, but never forget that co-vocalist Corin Tucker got the band back together in 2015 while mothering two kids.

Middle Kids, “Today We’re the Greatest” This bubbling Aussie indie trio wrote its latest album while singer Hannah Joy was pregnant with her first child. A euphoric standout, this track features the sound of her son’s sonogram.

Kim Gordan, “Air BnB” An iconic rock mom since the 1990s, Gordon is still creating bold and impressive music, like this track from 2019’s No Home Record album.

Shakira, “Hips Don’t Lie” It feels like a lifetime ago, but in early 2020, the mother of two teamed with J.Lo for a legendary Super Bowl halftime show that celebrated the sexy and made some conservative groups clutch their pearls.

Solange, “Cranes in the Sky” It’s often forgotten that Solange had her son in 2004 while she was still a teen. But she didn’t truly come into her own as an artist until 2016’s magnificent A Seat at the Table, which featured numerous nods to her own mother, Tina.

L A M AG . C O M 27

The Inside Guide

SOCIAL MEDIA

Look Who’s Talking FROM WHIP-SMART COMEDIANS TO AGAINST-THE-GRAIN INVESTORS, HERE ARE THE MUST-FOLLOW PEOPLE HAVING MUST-LISTEN CONVERSATIONS ON THE BOOMING, BUZZY PLATFORM CLUBHOUSE B Y A N D Y WA N G

T

H E AU D I O - O N LY, invite-only iPhone app Club-

At its worst, it’s yet another platform for annoying hypebeasts, overheated life coaches, influencers who are in love with the sound of their own void, and poseurs pretending to understand blockchain when they probably can’t remember their Gmail password. Here, nine people to follow break through the BS and get in on some of the best conversations.

house launched in April 2020 and racked up more than 10 million users in its first year. At its best, Clubhouse allows users to pop into rooms with celebrities and venture capitalists, build community, network, be entertained, and kill time during the pandemic.

1)

6)

Philanthropist Felicia Horowitz (@feliciahorowitz), the wife of Clubhouse investor Ben Horo-witz, hosts star-studded virtual dinner parties with free-flowing convos.

One gathering had power players like Michael Ovitz and Steve Stoute mingling with entertainers Terry Crews and MC Hammer.

2)

Superstar DJ Joel Zimmerman (@deadmau5) drops expletive-filled soliloquies about beefs with other EDM players and why he thinks Ibiza is over. He sometimes hosts raucous rooms where he lets guests speak for 60 seconds about anything they want before he responds with praise, disbelief, insults, or a combination of all three.

The app is heavy on frothfilled conversations about cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, but James Wang (@draecomino)—a former ARK Investment Management analyst and an expert in artificial intelligence— actually offers cogent insights. Pop into one of his rooms and you might learn why Ethereum matters or why buying options isn’t unlike having a goldfish in a leaking plastic bag.

LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE

#WhoToFollow

7) 1

Felicia

2

Joel

3

Hannibal

Comedian Hannibal Buress (@hannibalburess) recently hosted a room about NFTs (the non-fungible tokens that have captivated the cryptocurrency and art set but also attracted get-rich-quick clowns) during which he made up fake NFTs. The funniest part? Some didn’t know he was joking.

4

Kristen

5

David

6

James

4)

7

Laurel

3)

Writers Andrew Genung (@familymeal) and Kristen Hawley’s (@kh) “Food News We’re Following” rooms bring in chefs and restaurant owners from all around the world. Discussions have included postpandemic planning and delivery-app shenanigans.

5)

In his piano-bar rooms, comedian-actor-filmmaker David Wain (@davidwain) takes requests and interacts with pals like Seth Herzog. It just might be the purest form of entertainment on Clubhouse.

28 L A M AG . C O M

8

Tiffany

9

Jason

Andy Wang (@andywangla) is a regular contributor to Los Angeles and the cohost of L.A. Food Gang with Crystal Coser (@crystalcoser) on Clubhouse.

Leave quietly

MediaBistro founder and venture capitalist Laurel Touby (@laurel) has built her career around entertaining and technological innovation, and her rooms tend to be a lively blend of party-vibe chatter and futureminded deep thoughts with discussions on topics that include the future of remote work and its implications for corporate culture.

8)

One of the more active celebrities on Clubhouse, Tiffany Haddish (@tiffanyhaddish1) popped into a room even on the night she won a Grammy. And controversy recently ensued after TMZ reported that Haddish threw shade at Nicki Minaj on the app. There’s only one way to settle this: a Clubhouse roast battle followed by a Clubhouse rap battle.

9)

Prolific angel investor Jason Calacanis (@jasoncalacanis) has a refreshing knack for avoiding groupthink, whether he’s railing against multilevelmarketing scammers or daring to say that Twitter Spaces could one day surpass Clubhouse. He’s a provocateur who never runs out of things to say.

I L LU S T R AT I O N BY E VA N S O L A NO

Explore Art with Us Visit Getty from home with art, podcasts, videos, and more. Read, watch, listen, and learn at getty.edu/art.

Metamorphosis of a Small Emperor Moth on a Damson Plum (detail), plate 13 of the Caterpillar Book, 1679, Maria Sibylla Merian.

Translucent and opaque watercolor over counterproof print. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Text and design: © 2021 J. Paul Getty Trust

The Inside Guide

HAPPENINGS

Scattered Glass

A PHILIP GLASS OPERA IN A PARKING LOT TAKES THE CENTURIES-OLD THEATRICAL FORM TO SURPRISING NEW PLACES

BY JOR DA N R I E F E

THE TO-DO LIST READ In her spare time from turning Georgia blue, Stacey Abrams has written a legal thriller, While Justice Sleeps. Abrams has published romance novels under a pseudonym for years, but this is her first work of fiction with her name on the cover. May 11.

30 L A M AG . C O M

stereos. Several projection screens throughout the space will show both the live performances and filmed imagery.

“It’s intentionally meant to be more immersive,” explains Darrah. “Depending on where you park, you see different screens.”

Composed by Glass in 1996 and based on Jean Cocteau’s 1929 novel of the same name, Les Enfants fo-

cuses on twins Paul and Elisabeth, whose implicitly incestuous obsession leads to a disastrous conclusion. In Darrah’s staging, Paul is sung by baritone Edward Nelson and Elisabeth by soprano Anna Schubert. Darrah first directed the show in 2019 for the One Festival at Opera Omaha. He originally intended to transfer it to a theater or other proscenium space, but

Your May cultural agenda STREAM

Moonlight director Barry Jenkins makes his smallscreen debut with The Underground Railroad on Amazon Prime, a series adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and starring Thuso Mbedu. May 14.

WATCH

SEE

Did Cruella de Vil need a feminist origin story, or did we just need more cute puppies? See for yourself when Disney’s Cruella—starring Emma Stone and directed by I, Tonya's Craig Gillespie—hits theaters. In theaters and on Disney+ May 28.

Renowned photographer Polly Borland turns the camera on herself. Her solo exhibition at Nino Mier Gallery features contorted iPhone nudes that play off selfie clichés.

“It was time for me to do to myself what I do to others,” Borland says. May 8-June 12.

PA R K I N G LOT: CO U RT E SY O F L B O ; L E S E N FA N TS T E R R I B L E S : A DA M L A R S E N ; P O L LY B O R L A N D : G E T T Y I M AG E S

I

F YO U T H I N K opera is static and stodgy, head to the top of the parking garage at 2nd and PCH in Long Beach. There, from May 21 to May 23, director James Darrah is staging an experimental, drive-in production of Philip Glass’s Les Enfants Terribles.

“Opera is really weighed down sometimes by tradition,” says Darrah, Long Beach Opera’s newly named artistic director and chief creative officer. “The proscenium is a comfortable model that we hold on to—we’ll never dispense with it. But we owe it to the possibilities of what music can make us feel to let opera venture into other realms.”

The roof of the concrete parking structure can accommodate roughly 100 opera-going vehicles parked along the perimeter. Four singers, accompanied by three pianos and four dancers, will perform around the lot, with the music being transmitted via FM radio to car

A T H OR N Y S I T UAT I ON AFTER COVID CAUSED BUSINESS TO WILT, A BELOVED NOHO ROSE FARM IS READY TO CELEBRATE SPRING B Y M E L I S S A S E L E Y

W

G L A SS H O US E

ST. V I N C E N T: G E T T Y I M AG E S ; F LOW E R S : CO U RT E SY R O S E L A N E FA R M S ; I N STAG R A M .CO M / R O S E L A N E FA R M S

Philip Glass’s Les Enfants Terribles is based on the Jean Cocteau novel about a pair of sheltered, isolated siblings.

the pandemic forced him to get creative. After looking at drive-in movie lots and other outdoor venues, he decided on the parking garage.

“I’m really excited to be starting this new phase where we’re merging digital-medium-content opera with a return to live performance,” says Darrah. “Those two things in tandem have the potential to be really exciting.”

LISTEN

St. Vincent’s sound is more eclectic than ever on her sixth studio album, Daddy’s Home.

With tracks like the prickly single “Pay Your Way in Pain,” Annie Clark wrestles with her father being imprisoned for nearly a decade. May 14. — H A I L E Y E B E R

hen Lynne Vinkovic bought a two-acre plot of land in the middle of industrial North Hollywood in 1995, she was a young mother with a distinct preference for natural-looking, richly perfumed backyard blooms over imported, mass-produced greenhouse roses.

“I wanted to be a rose farmer who produced roses that meant something to people,” recalls Vinkovic, now 59.

She planted unique varieties such as Sweet Surrender, known for its saturated scent, and Sutter’s Gold, with its unusual curled petals and unpredictable sunset tones, and soon found eager takers. Event planners sought out Rose Lane Farms for its English specimens. Local chefs came clamoring for her Damasks, an intensely fragrant variety renowned for its culinary oils. Trendsetting brides like textile designer Heather Taylor turned to Vinkovic’s rustic buds for their wedding bouquets. At times, boutique grocers Cookbook and Joan’s on Third couldn’t keep Vinkovic’s blooms in stock.

And on Saturdays, when the farm opened to the public for fresh cut flowers, Vinkovic was nearly always sold out by noon.

Then COVID-19 hit, and Vinkovic found herself thinking fast as business from weddings, events, and restaurants evaporated. In the beginning, she delivered bouquets herself, driving to

longtime clients as well as new customers who’d found her through Instagram, especially after the gargantuan Original Los Angeles Flower Market was forced to close. She also took to bartering: she traded three bundles of roses for three pizzas with La Morra Piz-

“I wanted to be a rose farmer who produced roses that meant something to people.”

LY N N E V I N KOV I C , R O S E L A N E FA R M S OW N E R

zeria (and still believes she got the better deal). But it wasn’t until Flamingo Estate added the option of a Rose Lane Farms bunch to its exorbitantly popular CSA boxes in April 2020 that Vinkovic found herself on solid ground again, selling 120 CSA bunches a month on average. “It just abso-

IN BLOOM

Rose Lane Farms (inset) is known for its distinct blossoms, like the Brandy and Carding Mill varieties (above).

lutely blew up,” Vinkovic says. “People love it.”

With spring and vaccines here at long last, Rose Lane Farms is also celebrating. For the first time ever, it’s holding a Mayfair festival on site.

The May 1 event will kick off the farm’s summerlong fresh-cut season with a rose entwined maypole, socially distanced crownmaking, live music, and food trucks.

“It’s going to be very whimsical,” Vinkovic notes with a chuckle.

“You can pick your own flowers, wear your crown, and roll around the maypole.” There is one caveat: featured bands will have to rely on their own power supply. “I’ve never grown with electricity,” she says proudly. Having run a slowgrown, sustainably minded business for 26 years, taking shortcuts doesn’t appeal to her.

“There was a time when I would have to drag two babies with me at four in the morning to go to my farm,” she says. “That’s something people usually don’t share on Instagram. As if everything’s so magical: ‘Look at my goat in the yard with my children!’ There are days that are going to be tough.

But you know what? If it’s something you love, it’s going to be worth it.”

11740 Sherman Way, North Hollywood, roselanefarms.org.

L A M AG . C O M 3 1

The Inside Guide

MIXED MEDIA

The Girl With the Pearl Career

formed her into the embodiment of an evolutionary lurch, existing in the present, past, and future all at once. In Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, she was an extraterrestrial for whom the face and often-naked body of “Scarlett Johansson” constituted a disguise donned at the movie’s beginning and shed at the end, and for whom the attraction of men was a crucial function of the enigmatic narrative. By contrast, in Her, she wasn’t onscreen at all. She was a digital voice with which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love, a conceit admittedly A STAR GOING ON 20 YEARS, BLACK WIDOW’S SCARLETT made more plausible by the fact the audience knows that JOHANSSON MAY WELL BE OUR MOST VERSATILE ACTRESS voice belongs to the hottest babe in Hollywood. In any case,

BY STEVE ERICKSON all three roles allowed Johansson to mobilize the persona represented by her physicality, turning it into an instrument at once not human and beyond human. While, ironically, as S VA C C I N A T I O N S P R I N G turns into postthe computer in Her, she was most human of all, evoking a COVID summer—or so we all hope—Scarlett connection with Phoenix’s lonely lover.

Johansson is Hollywood’s canary in a coal mine.

Johansson’s other key year came in 2019. She was all over Like the James Bond movie in waiting, Johansthe place in roles more earthbound, if you consider Avengson’s presumed blockbuster Black Widow has ers: Endgame earthbound, where the filmmakers trusted been rescheduled twice now, not for reasons having to do her to carry much of whatever emotional weight the movie with the picture itself but because, of course, movie theaters offered. As well as burnishing her have been largely shut down, and acting bona fides playing Maggie Black Widow has too much boxthe Cat on Broadway in Tennessee office potential to relegate to the Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, streaming obscurity that met the Johansson was the best thing likes of Tenet and Mulan. about Marriage Story, a wildApart from the whole Marvel ly overrated movie that even she Universe rigamarole that fanboys couldn’t save, playing an actress obsess over, no small part of Widstruggling to salvage a marriage, ow’s potential lies with Johanscareer, and love for L.A. that the son herself. Is it possible she’s only movie’s New York writer-director 36? She’s been a star going on 20 implicitly regarded as grounds for years, since so many of us found divorce. Better was Jojo Rabbit, a her such a revelation in Sofia Copsatire of Nazi Germany hauntpola’s Lost in Translation, when ed by Johansson’s free-spirited Johansson was 18; little did most mother to the film’s titular boy. people realize that by then she alIn a movie filled with caricatures, ready had made a dozen movies, Johansson sidestepped the tempher first at the age of nine (Rob tation to play the not-so-secretlyReiner’s North). anti-fascist Rosie as one, and I confess I spent the decade afwhile it would be an overstateter Translation trying to figure to suggest the movie never out whether Johansson was reShe’d made a dozen movies by ment quite recovers from her deparally any good. Hollywood didn’t the time she’d turned 18. ture, it certainly feels her absence make it easy, shuttling her into once she’s gone. whatever sex-bomb role it could With both Marriage Story and persuade her to accept; that she Jojo Rabbit, Johansson scored the coup of two Academy was the perennial hottest-babe-in-Hollywood designee of Award nominations at once, and few doubt that somewhere men’s magazines only obscured not just her talent but her in the future is an Oscar with her name on it. If it’s too much brains, on clear display in interviews that revealed her as eloto count on Black Widow to take full advantage of Johansquent, literate, and intellectually fluent. Woody Allen didn’t son having come into her own as an actor, the fact that it’s make matters easier either, adopting her as his pet obsession as much a spy thriller as yet another superhero picture, and with a string of lackluster efforts only one of which, Vicky a buddy movie on top of it, promises heart as well as heroCristina Barcelona, was notable. ics—a blockbuster that’s worthy of her. For the sake of not Johansson’s breakthrough year bridged 2013 and 2014 just the movies but a world struggling to return to normal, when, in three science-fiction films, she played characters let’s hope she’s the rare canary who flies back out of the coal existing out of time and space. In Luc Besson’s Lucy, Johansmine alive, shaking the soot from her wings. son was an unwilling drug mule whose abuse by men trans-

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I L LU S T R AT I O N BY C H R I S T O P H E R H U G H E S

fast- acting | vegan | delicious gummies C12-0000266-LIC

The Inside Guide

W H E R E T O E AT N O W

New & Notable Sant’olina B E V E R LY H I L L S

Home Cooking A NEW RESTAURANT FROM THE N/NAKA TEAM FEEDS BOTH THE HEART AND SOUL WITH DISHES THAT TRACE THE IMMIGRANT JOURNEY FROM JAPAN TO AMERICA

BY HAILEY EBER

W

H E N M O S T O F us think of a erating only as a takeout window for upward Japanese bento box, we think of a of 100 bento boxes nightly. As the city reopens simple, carefully prepared takeout more, the couple plan for n/soto to be a casual meal with rice, protein, and veggies. yakitori restaurant with indoor and outdoor But chef Niki Nakayama and her seating for 75. wife and sous chef, Carol Iida-Nakayama, see the For now, the opening offering is a bento box potential for a lot more. called A Taste of Home ($65). Created with the “It can serve as a vehicle for more than just help of the Japanese American National Musetakeout,” says Iida-Nakayama. “It can tell a story. um and the Little Tokyo Community Council, it It can bring us together with other collaborators.” tells the story—over nearly two dozen dishes— The two have long been known for their of Japanese food coming to America. A printout modern kaiseki restaurant in Culver City, that comes with the elaborate meal puts the bites n/naka. When COVID-19 forced them to close in historical context. Beef sukiyaki, it notes, was for dine-in service, they began offering a limited one of the first Japanese dishes to gain wide acnumber of bento boxes several nights a ceptance in America. A mold-pressed week that sold out nearly as soon as mackerel dish alludes to the fact they were available online. The couthat mackerel, caught in San Peple didn’t plan to open a second dro Harbor, was a welcome taste restaurant during the pandemic, of Japan for immigrants. “It but making all those bento boxes was the closest thing to sushi necessitated a new setup. that they could prepare,” says “It was starting to feel very Nakayama. “I thought that was overwhelming in terms of space,” a wonderful story between the says Nakayama. two countries. Food is such a A N E N D A N D A B E G I N N I NG So, in March, they debuted universal language.” 4566 W. Ovens weren’t common in midcentury n/soto, a West Adams restau- Japanese homes, so baked treats—like Washington Blvd., West Adams, this coconut cake—were a novelty. rant that, at press time, was opn-soto.com.

3 4 L A M AG . C O M

Daybird WESTLAKE O This long-anticipated

casual chicken concept from Top Chef winner and Nightshade toque Mei Lin is finally open, and it’s worth the wait.

Lin separates her hot poultry sandwich from the flock of others in the city, thanks to uniquely crispy fried chicken that’s dusted with a memorable, Sichuan-peppercornheavy spice blend.

A spicy slaw and habanero ranch dipping sauce add to the fun.

240 N Virgil Ave., Ste. 5, daybirdla.com.

Delucatessen at Emilia B E V E R LY G R OV E O Tancredi DeLuca, who

owns Emilia and Amici, has launched a casual takeout and delivery spot. The tight menu is inspired by the northern Italian city of Trieste and features hearty sandwiches filled with chicken parm, meatballs, or cured meats.

8500 Burton Way, delucatessen.com.

—H.E.

© ALICIA CHO

ON E H O T B OX

n/soto’s A Taste of Home bento boxes have been selling out within minutes.

O The buzzy h.wood Group has taken over the rooftop at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to launch this breezy Mediterranean pop-up that’s likely to become a permanent fixture. Expect tables with views topped with blue-and-white linens, along with crowd-pleasing dishes: babka french toast for brunch, harissa-cured salmon, a lamb burger for dinner, or various Middle Eastern dips for any time of day.

9876 Wilshire Blvd., santolinabh.com.

PROMOTION

at your place!

In February, Los Angeles magazine hosted the eighth annual Best New Restaurants “Quarantine Edition” Celebration. The event brought the January issue to life with curated to-go Tasting Kits and virtual event, moderated

by Food Editor Hailey Eber, to honor and support the chefs and restaurants revealed in the editorial feature. Each Kit included a ZPNUH[\YL KPZO MYVT Ä ]L VM [OL TLU[PVULK restaurants plus a plant-based tasting from Simple Feast. Guests also enjoyed cocktails by House of Suntory and El Tesoro/Bruxo, Flying Embers Hard Kombucha and Flying Embers Hard Seltzer, and a bottle of Bocce Ball Wine.

Everything was delivered to attendees’ homes courtesy of QWQER Foods.

In the evening, guests tuned into a virtual culinary program that featured cooking demonstrations from Found Oyster and Ospi and a mixology lesson from House of Suntory and El Tesoro/Bruxo. Plus, viewers watched a behind the scenes look of Mírame, a panel discussion featuring the chef/owners of Little Coyote, Angry Egret Dinette, and All Day Baby along with home styling tips from Mindy Weiss.

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Westside Tasting Menu 4xYHTL! :LHMVVK 7VaVSL =LYKL 6ZWP! :WPJ` 9PNH[VUP (SSH =VKRH 7HZ[H 2P[

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7LHYS 9P]LY +LSP! /HPUHU *OPJRLU ;HTHSLZ ,SLUH ` (U[VQP[VZ! *VYU /\ZR 7VYR Tamale

Eastside Tasting Menu (SS +H` )HI`! (+) :TVRLK *OPJRLU

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-V\UK 6`Z[LY! :[LHTLK *SHT 2P[ (UNY` ,NYL[ +PUL[[L! ;H[H )LU 7HZ[YHTP Sandwich + Cubano Sandwich :ͻNV 9VSS )HY! *YHI HUK :HSTVU /HUK Roll Kit /HUR»Z )HNLSZ

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1. The Eastside Tasting Kit 2. The "Live in Tokyo" cocktail kit 3. Attendees learn how to make spicy rigatoni all vodka from Ospi 4. Corn husk pork tamales from Tamales Elena y Antojitos 5. Guests receive El Tesoro/Bruxo cocktails, Flying Embers, Bocce Ball Wine, plus tastings from Simple Feast with their deliveries 6. Food and beverages are ready to be delivered by QWQER 7 *YHI HUK ZHSTVU OHUK YVSSZ MYVT :ȬNV 9VSS )HY 8. Little neck steamed clam kit from Found Oyster

P HO T O CR EDI T : JI M DO NN EL LY P HO T O AN D K I ERN A N M I CH EL LE PH O T O G RA P H Y

/HUR»Z )HNLSZ

The Inside Guide

FOOD TRENDS

Greens With Envy

IF INDULGING IN THE SAME SKIN-CARE PRODUCTS AND SELF-CARE RITUALS AS GWYNETH PALTROW ISN’T ENOUGH, GOOP IS NOW DELIVERING MEALS THAT ARE BOTH HEALTHY AND SURPRISINGLY TASTY B Y A N D Y WA N G

“You don’t want to be angry eating a salad.”

36 L A M AG . C O M

Mary’s organic chicken and “umami rice”—a blend of shiitake rice, brown rice, and cauliflower rice. A flavorful and texturally delightful chopped salad ($13.50) stands out with ingredients like Zoe’s nitrate-free turkey salami, pickled shishitos, and a shallot-parm vinaigrette that nicely balances acid and umami.

CO U RT E SY O F G O O P K I TC H E N

N

the food isn’t flavorless spa cuisine: needs a $995 infrared “You don’t want to be angry eating a mat, a ylang-ylang salad,” Floresca says. and calendula deodorPaltrow was quite involved in deant, or a designveloping the menu. Some of Goop conscious vibrator, but everyone’s Kitchen’s marinades and sauces, ingotta eat. To that end, Gwyneth Palcluding a teriyaki sauce, are based trow and company have gotten into on her own recipes, and she did a the food-delivery game. In March, weekly tasting with Floresca. the actress-turned-lifestyle-maven “She has a really amazing palate,” launched Goop Kitchen—a new resthe chef says. “She would give us hontaurant that delivers est feedback—‘I love to Santa Monica, it,’ ‘I hate it’—and then Venice, Pacific Paliwe’d discuss it.” Palsades, Brentwood, trow even approved and Beverly Hills. an ingredient she Kim Floresca, doesn’t typically enwho trained at finejoy: dill. One of the dining institutions first things Floresca Per Se, Mugaritz, served her was a vegand El Bulli and was an ranch dressing executive sous chef made with Tofutti, G O O P K I T C H E N C H E F aquafaba, and the ofat Napa Valley’s K I M F LO R E S CA three-Michelinfensive herb. starred the Restau“She was like, rant at Meadowood, ‘Look, I know it’s in created the menu. As one might exthere,’” Floresca recalls with a laugh. pect, it’s heavy on vegetables, whole But Paltrow ended up loving the grains, and healthy proteins. Many dressing and it’s now served with sauces are “Goop certified clean,” Goop Kitchen’s chicken salad lettuce which means they have no refined wraps ($12.95). Other menu items sugar, processed foods, gluten, soy, also surprise. A satisfying teriyaki dairy, peanuts, or preservatives. But bowl ($14.50) comes with charred O T E V E RYO N E

BEYOND BULGOGI

NEW-WAVE KOREAN RESTAURANTS ARE OPENING ACROSS THE CITY AS TALENTED CHEFS PROVE THERE’S A LOT MORE TO THEIR CUISINE THAN BO SSAM AND BIBIMBAP. FROM SEASONAL BANCHAN TO KOREANITALIAN MASH-UPS , HERE ARE FOUR NEW SPOTS THAT ARE BRINGING THE GLORIOUS FUNK IN EXCITING NEW WAYS

H A NC H I C » Chef Justin Min

EAT YOUR VEGGIES

CO U RT E SY O F P E R I L L A A N D S E O U L SAU SAG E N O RWA L K

Goop’s Teriyaki Bowl (above) features marinated kale, pickled cucumbers, and avocado.

The Mezze Platter (below) has chickpea fritters.

“We didn’t want to make it feel so quote-unquote healthy for you, which I think is what a lot of people feel that Goop is,” Floresca says.

“The whole idea is, basically, ‘Let’s make really good, tasty food that’s clean, nutrient-dense, and just able to make you happy.’” order.goopkitchen.com

seamlessly blends Korean and Italian influences in dishes like bulgogi risotto ($15), Bolognese mandu ($10), kimchi tagliatelle ($15), and, best of all, a hearty appetizer of rice cakes topped with a chunky pork-andkimchi ragu ($19).

Another triumphant combo at this restaurant, which opened on the edge of Koreatown last September, is the shellfishloaded “bouillabbong” ($15), which merges the flavors of bouillabaisse and a spicy Korean noodle soup. It’s a soulwarming dish that’s simultaneously familiar and brand new. 2500 W. 8th St., Ste. 103, Westlake, hanchic.co.

means farmers’ market ingredients prepared with diverse techniques.

A fermented cabbage dish ($4.25) features herbaceous perilla leaves layered delicately between the larger cabbage leaves.

Broccolini ($5) is blanched and served with bits of broken tofu. Kim’s daikon kimchi ($5) is superb, and the ever-changing menu has also included banchan with pickled shishito peppers, braised yams, and kombu mushrooms. Everything is quite wonderful, especially when paired with some seasoned rice ($3).

661 S. Harvard Blvd., Koreatown, perillala.com.

PERILLA » With this popu-

lar pop-up, launched last May, Rustic Canyon alum Jihee Kim is focused on redefining banchan through a California lens. That

SEOUL S AUS AG E NO RWA L K » For years, Kore-

an American brothers Yong and Ted Kim have been known for exuberantly merging Korean barbecue with the flavors of Los Angeles, but, sadly, they had to close their brickand-mortar spots in Little Tokyo and

cility. 14528 Carmenita Road, Norwalk, seoulsausage .com.

SHIKU » Chef Kwang Uh

was known for his avant-garde Korean cooking at Baroo, but he’s turned his attention to childhood memories and homestyle food at this new Grand Central Market stand. Uh and Baroo cofounder Mina Park serve straightforwardly pleasing dosiraks (multi-item lunch boxes) with selecSawtelle. Their lat- tions like kalbi, est endeavor—a kimchi-braised Norwalk ghost pork belly, or fried kitchen launched mushrooms. Shiin January—serves ku’s banchan inup dishes like galbi cludes plenty of poutine fries pickled vegetables ($14.50) topped as well as a rotatwith pepper jack ing selection of cheese, pickled on- crowd-pleasers ions, and avocado- like stir-fried dried lime crema; kimsquid. For Uh and chi fried rice balls Park, it’s nostalgia($9.99); and huge laced comfort family meals ($60) food, but the dishwith chicken, pork, es are also beautior vegetarian sau- ful calibrations of sages. They’ve also contrasting tastes launched a sweet- and textures. 317 and-spicy poultry S. Broadway, side project, Ghost downtown, shiku Chicken, out of the losangeles.com. same Norwalk fa—A .W. L A M AG . C O M 37

The Inside Guide

FA M I LY

It’s Tot in the Kitchen!

AT A NEW MONTESSORI-INSPIRED COOKING SCHOOL COMING TO CULVER CITY, TINY TOQUES AS YOUNG AS THREE GET TOTAL INDEPENDENCE—AND WEE CHEF JACKETS, INDIVIDUAL OVENS, AND AGE-APPROPRIATE KNIVES

BY HAILEY EBER

WHEN FELICITY CURIN

picked up her youngest child, Gwen, from her first day of preschool years ago, she was surprised when the teacher merrily told her that Gwen had spent several hours of the day washing windows.

“I was like, ‘What? She did what?!’ ” recalls the Vancouver-based mother. “This is an Ivy League preparatory school. I freaked out.”

Gwen, now 16, was enrolled in a Montessori program. Curin wasn’t all that familiar with the educational philosophy, which emphasizes independence and self-directed learning, and, for younger kids, often involves lessons in practical life tasks like cleaning or sewing. After Curin 38 L A M AG . C O M

calmed down, she met with Gwen’s teacher, who explained more about the Montessori Method and how hours of window cleaning could be extremely challenging and fulfilling to a three-year-old.

“I started volunteering in the classroom—anything I could do to be around it,” recalls Curin, who came to love the approach and went on to get a degree from the Association Montessori Internationale.

Curin, 47, is also a professionally trained chef, and she came to realize how drawn kids were to cooking. “My children’s friends loved hanging out in the kitchen and would eat everything I made,” she recalls. So an idea was hatched for a kiddie cooking school inspired by the Montessori

Method. It started as a hobby, but as Curin worked on a business plan with her husband, Brian, it became apparent it was something bigger.

“I was like, ‘We should be scaling this globally,’ ” says Brian, 46, an entrepreneur who has launched a number of global brands, including Cold Stone Creamery, Joe’s Jeans, and Moe’s Southwest Grill.

They opened the first Little Kitchen Academy in Vancouver in June 2019, and it soon took off.

“I’ll never forget: I’m on my elliptical working out, and the registration platform is linked to my phone, and all of a sudden, the registration just started popping,” says Curin.

Now they’re rapidly expanding, with several new locations planned

PINT-SIZED PREP

C L ASS I M AG E S W I T H ST U D E N TS : J E SS I C A KOZ M A ; A P R O N S : JA N I S N I CO L AY; S I D E B A R : O L I V I A H AYO

From far left: Little Kitchen Academy founder Felicity Curin instructs young chefs. The new Century City location will look similar to the Vancouver flagship, with an area at the entry for kids to change into chef’s jackets and shoes and a communal table made of chopsticks, plus individual workstations complete with ovens and sinks for each child-chef.

for 2021, including one in dishes like red lentil soup with the Westfield Century feta or carrot-cake pancakes City mall—the first Litthemselves—from “shoptle Kitchen Academy in ping” for ingredients from the States—opening in the refrigerator to chopping June. By the end of veggies using age-appropri2025, they aim to have ate knives. LKA welcomes more than 400 locations kids from age three to teenagworldwide. While ers, including those who LKA is hardly the are differently abled. only place schooling “There are other cookkids in the kitchen, ing schools, but it’s comthe Curins say their pletely apples to oranges,” approach is unique. says Brian.

Sessions (which LKA is also set apart will cost about $70) by its high-profile partare three hours—in nerships. Birkenstock is the Montessori apsupplying the chef shoes, F E L I C I T Y C U R I N, proach, a three-hour while Food Network star L I T T L E K I T C H E N ACA D E M Y cycle of uninterCat Cora is an investor COFOUNDER rupted work is a key and ambassador. tenet—and each “We are teaching kids child has an individual workstation skills that will stay with them for the rest of with his or her own sink and oven. their lives,” raves Cora, who plans to send With the school’s emphasis on selfher own sons to the Century City LKA. reliance, even in non-COVID-19 Curin is quick to note that she’s teaching times, parents must drop little ones far more than cooking. “Food,” she says, “is off at the door and not come inside. just the vessel for life experience and confiKids do everything to prepare dence.” littlekitchenacademy.com.

“Food is just the vessel for life experience and confidence.”

New Food Delivery Service is Icy Hot O Talk about thrills and chills.

The recently launched In Good Company (eatigc.com) delivers limited-edition frozen main dishes from beloved local chefs and restaurants, including Wes Avila of Angry Egret Dinette and Zarah Khan of Botanica. The business aims to offer a new kind of convenience to customers and an additional path for restaurants to make money. “They need a way to generate revenue beyond what they can make just from sales tied to the number of seats in their dining room,” says founder Ashleigh Ferran.

“The pandemic has shed a bright light on some of the underlying problems in the restaurant industry that fundamentally need to change.”

Dishes cost $25 to $30 for two generous portions, and the company serves much of the greater Los Angeles area.

Food is delivered frozen in stainless-steel containers that In Good Company will collect and reuse. The meals are quite tasty, but there’s one caveat: you have to provide your own condiments and side dishes.

—Heather Platt

L A M AG . C O M 39

The Inside Guide

N E I G H B O R H O O D WAT C H

Sycamore, Please!

THE MOST STYLISH STREET IN HOLLYWOOD’S MEDIA DISTRICT IS FAST BECOMING L.A.’S NEW CITY CENTER

BY MERLE GINSBERG

M

O S T O F T H E U N I Q U E establishments on the bus-

tling strip of Sycamore Avenue between Willoughby and Romaine had the very bad luck of opening just before March 2020’s shutdown. The project of repurposing a number of its industrial warehouses, many built in the 1930s and ’40s to support the burgeoning film business, had been set up with care by the real estate corporation CIM five years ago as the anti-mall. As a result, there’s been a blast of energy blowing into this centrally located hood since 2016, much like New York City’s Soho in the early days: the regional headquarters for SiriusXM is there, the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, the offices of Jay Z and Beyoncé—and it’s bordered by Mozza, Milk Studios, Regen Projects, and Kohn Gallery. Media companies and galleries are now flocking en masse to the 1930s art deco Howard Hughes Headquarters, co-owned by lawyer David Bass (with Michael Harris), who has restored its original fixtures. On the way: a mega European gym, an upscale cannabis dispensary, bike lanes, and three brand-new restaurants. Here are our Sycamore faves.

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The Northern California bakery famed for its rustic sourdough features cafe tables and an indoor/ outdoor porch with a fireplace. Try the warm ricotta on bread and the smoked salmon toast.

Nestled in the same building is the new Hideout Sycamore, a stylish bar from James Beard–nominated mixologist Julian Cox that serves craft cocktails, natural wines, and Spanish nibbles. » 911 N. Sycamore Ave., tartinebakery.com and @hideoutsycamore.

About 13,000 square feet of unique clothing, jewelry, home goods, art, and fragrances has become America’s greatest concept shop, à la Paris’s late, great Colette. Two years ago, Paola Russo moved her space to this light-filled emporium where she curates men’s and women’s collections of exceptional clothes, shoes, designer bags and sculptural jewelry—plus the only collection of Cartier fine jewelry outside of Cartier itself. It’s a feast for the eyes. » 915 N. Sycamore Ave., justoneeye.com.

Tartine Sycamore

Just One Eye

PHO TO GRAPH E D BY WAYNE NAT HAN

3 Gigi’s

While Gigi’s is primarily serving its bistro fare on the patio right now, the gorgeous interiors— straight out of Mad Men, with bordello lighting and walls illustrated by L.A. artist Andie Dinkin—promise to have some of the hottest tables in town when things fully reopen.

It’s the perfect spot for cocktails, potato chips with caviar and crème fraîche, or a tall seafood tower. » 904 N. Sycamore Ave., gigis.la.

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Sightglass Coffee The artisanal San Francisco coffee roaster opened its Hollywood locale a few days into lockdown, but it morphed briskly into a gourmet grocery/takeout brimming with fresh produce, wines, cheeses, and homemade pastries and sandwiches. Café seating was once inside; now it’s on the street, where locals and the media-adjacent enjoy vanilla lattes and fruit-and-Nutella croissants. » 7051 W. Willoughby Ave., sightglasscoffee.com.

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GIGI’S: SHADE DEGGES

Supervinyl This labor of audiophile love by Lucky Jeans cofounder Barry Perlman is impressive in design and breadth of content.

Pearlman stocks jazz, rock, hip-hop, Rolling Stones vinyl box sets, the rereleased Magical Mystery Tour with Beatles rehearsal tracks . . . and the beat goes on. Also on hand: state-ofthe-art turntables, speakers, and amplifiers. » 900 N. Sycamore Ave., supervinylusa.com.

L A M AG . C O M 41

The Inside Guide

HOUSE CALL

Living Color FOR BRIDGERTON-DIRECTOR TOM VERICA AND HIS WIFE, KIRA ARNÉ VERICA, BOLD HUES, VINTAGE FURNISHINGS, AND ECLECTIC ART MAKE FOR A WARM, WELCOMING HOME IN THE VALLEY

BY TRISH DEITCH

4 2 L A M AG . C O M

M A K I NG R O O M

1. The Vericas did not want any white walls in the home, so designer Lisa Queen enlivened the space with no less than 26 different Benjamin Moore paint colors. In the primary bedroom, earthy-butvibrant Monroe Bisque, cut in half with white, is the star.

“Normally in our business so many colors is a kind of faux pas,” says Queen, who is based in Calabasas and known for her ability to seamlessly mix new and antique pieces. But it works.

“They’re all subtle tones of a similar color,” Tom notes.

2. Queen designed the closet to be long and deep, like a wardrobe truck. “We wanted to utilize the space,” Kira says. ”Our house is a great place to be, but it’s super, super functional.” A vintage dresser supplies both storage and style.

3. The pair bought this painting by artist Joanny from a La Jolla gallery because it reminds them of the view from the castle in Burgundy where they married in 2000.

1 , 2 , 3 : M I C H A E L W E L L S ; S I LO : P H OTO BY JAS O N L AV E R I S / F I L M M AG I C

T H O U G H D I R E C T O R T O M V E R I C A , 57, and his wife, actress-playwright Kira Arné Verica, 53, have filled their 5,000-square-foot ranch house with personal artifacts and art objects from around the world, they insist that it’s first and foremost a place where they can kick up their feet and watch movies with their kids, ages 10 and 13. “No museum here—our home is for living,” Kira says.

A tapestry from their travels to Italy is a bold focal point in the couple’s bedroom. Old jars from Tom’s grandfather’s business—he had the last horse-drawn milk wagon in South Philly—are used as vases throughout the home. The wallpaper in one of the children’s rooms is made from a photo taken by a friend of Tom’s at a baseball game. But while the design is family-friendly, it also meets the needs of the adult occupants. Tom, a regular Shonda Rhimes collaborator, says, “We have a little seating area in the bedroom that we go to to get a break from the kids.”

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BEAUTY

YOU’VE GOT NAIL!

THE TRICKED-OUT TALONS OF THE EARLY AUGHTS ARE MAKING A POST-LOCKDOWN COMEBACK. HERE ARE FIVE TOP NAIL SALONS FOR ANGELENOS WHO WANT THEIR FINGERS TO DO THE TALKING

BY MERLE GINSBERG

B E L L AC U R E S » This tony chain of nail salons in Larchmont, Studio City, and on the Westside favors elegance over edge.

“Life is not perfect, but your nails can be,” goes its motto, and its grown-up manicures never disappoint. Look for the new daisy designs springing up across town. bellacures.com.

OLIVE & JUNE » Dreaming of Saint-Tropez but stuck in Santa Monica?

This nail emporium, with outposts on the Westside and in Pasadena, specializes in flawless single-, double-, and triple-striped French manicures rendered in an impeccably tasteful palette of rainbow hues. oliveandjune.com.

CÔTE » This posh Brentwood nail salon just debuted a wildly popular new design called Hombre. For $45, you’ll walk out with four nails painted in cheerful checks, and six others in colorful matching solids.

Gracias, senor! coteshop.co.

4 4 L A M AG . C O M

M A R I E NA I L S » For years, L.A.’s most fanatical nail afficionados have flocked to this legendary West Third Street salon, which originated in Japan.

A veteran team of manicure artists treats each finger like it’s the Mona Lisa. Marie might not provide the pampering of some of its costlier competitors, but it sets the nail trends for the season— this year, jewels, flowers, fruits, sequins, and smiley faces, which can be applied with gels, regular polish, or acrylic. To snag a spot here or at Marie Melrose, you’ll need to reserve three weeks in advance. mariesnails.com.

S TAT I C NA I L S » Too tapped out for a twohour manicure? Google L.A.’s preeminent purveyor of press-ons. Their reusable pop-ons come in almond, coffin, and stiletto shapes and hundreds of colors and prints. Order an easy, no-damage removal kit for a fraction of salon prices while you’re there.

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P H O T O G R A P H BY M A S O N D E PAC O

I N STAG R A M : @ B E L L AC U R E S ; @ COT E S H O P ; @ O L I V E A N DJ U N E ; @ STAT I C N A I L S O F F I C I A L

The Inside Guide

IN A TIME WHERE EVERYTHING’S CHANGING, LISTEN TO VOICES YOU TRUST.

DEMOCRACY NEEDS TO BE HEARD

STYLE

Kicks Starter VANS COFOUNDER PAUL VAN DOREN RECALLS HOW SKATEBOARDERS (AND SEAN PENN) TURNED HIS TINY ANAHEIM COMPANY INTO A GLOBAL FASHION POWERHOUSE B Y A N D Y L E W I S

T H E Q U I N T E S S E N T I A L Southern California shoe was created by a

guy from Boston. Paul Van Doren launched Vans in Anaheim in 1966.

After a bankruptcy in 1984 and sale to North Face owner VF Corporation in 2004, Vans is now a $4 billion colossus. Here, Van Doren, 90—whose memoir, Authentic, just dropped—and his son Steve, 65, share the stories behind the wildest custom shoes they’ve made and reveal how skateboarders transformed Vans and Fast Times at Ridgemont High nearly killed it.

When you started Vans, you’d been in the shoe business 20 years but on the manufacturing side.

PVD: I didn’t know a thing about retail. The first person gave me a $5 bill; a pair of shoes was $2.49. But I didn’t have any money in the cash register, so I gave her the shoes. We ended up selling 16 or 18 pair of shoes that day. You know what? I said, “Come back later to pay.” Every one of those people came back and paid.

What helped Vans succeed in the beginning?

PVD: It was us reaching out to each and every person, whether it be [World Champion skateboarder] Tony Alva or a mom. It wasn’t some great idea that all of a sudden blossomed. With moms, we made custom shoes for her because we didn’t know what the hell to do with moms. We said to mom, “You want pink shoes?

46 L A M AG . C O M

Just bring a piece of material. I’ll make up you up a pair.” Mom would say, “What’s that gonna cost?” And we’d say, “Just 50 cents extra!”

That flexibility helped make Vans the go-to shoe for the legendary ZBoys skateboard team.

PVD: Everybody else was kicking

these kids out of the park, kicking them out of pools. And here’s a company listening to them, backing them, and making shoes for them. Then we started giving shoes away. Stacy Peralta was the first athlete that we paid money to on a monthly basis to wear our shoes.

SVD: It was like a bond with the athletes. They gave us purpose in the early days by adopting our shoes because they found out that they wore really well and it was a Southern California style.

PVD: Tony Alva came in wanting one shoe because even though our shoes were well-made he’d wear out one faster than the other. Nobody else sells just one shoe. We did.

The slip-on, which many consider the quintessential Vans style, really blew up after Sean Penn’s Spicoli character wore a checkerboard pair in Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982.

PVD: Sean went into the store and bought a pair.

SVD: It was a blessing because all of a sudden sales nearly doubled. But then the money that we were making from that was going into the athletic shoes [to compete against Nike and Adidas], which wasn’t a good business for us.

What’s the wildest custom shoes you’ve made for celebs?

SVD: Jackson Browne gave us a snakeskin jacket to makes shoes out of. “Weird Al” Yankovic loves Vans.

I found this troll-doll hair—orange and yellow and green and purple—in Australia. I made him a pair of a high tops out of that.

What’s your personal Vans shoe of choice?

PVD: The UltraRange. Black with a white stripe. It’s what I’m wearing now.

SVD: ComfyCush slip-ons, the brighter the better. I’ve got 400 pairs.

My wife won’t let me keep them at the house anymore, so I have to keep them at the warehouse.

P H OTOS CO U RT E SY AU T H E N T I C : A M E M O I R BY T H E FO U N D E R O F VA N S / N E X TO N E I N CO R P O R AT E D

The Inside Guide

“When skateboarders adopted Vans, they gave us an outward culture and an inner purpose.”

S N E A K E R P I M P S Clockwise from top: Vans cofounder Paul Van Doren with the checkerboard slip-on made iconic by Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and his son Steve with a Vans Authentic; the hightop Sl8-Hi, released in 1978; a 1977 ad hyping Vans’s association with skateboard star Jerry Valdez—the company’s shrewd outreach to skateboarders transformed the brand; an early Vans retail store in Eagle Rock in 1967.

The Inside Guide

H OW I G OT T H I S LO O K

Missy’s Macho Makeover

FOR A SELF-DESCRIBED “TRANSY LITTLE JEWISH BUTCH DYKE” GROWING UP IN SKOKIE, ILLINOIS, IN THE 1980S, THE NAME MELISSA SHIMKOVITZ WAS “A LOT TO OVERCOME”

BY TRISH DEITCH

Mel Shimkovitz, 42, Highland Park, television writer It’s impossible to know if cutting her own hair short at age five was her first act of protection, self-liberation, or craftsmanship, but “gender outlaw” Mel Shimkovitz has been an artist from the get-go, whether it’s playing a burnout bat-mitzvah caterer in Joey Soloway’s Transparent, writing for the show High Maintenance, or dressing herself in the morning—her “first creative act of the day.”

Style philosophy: » I was a Midwestern kid obsessed with Sam Peckinpah movies—I think that explains my Jewish-gentlemanrancher look. Growing up looking so queer, I projected this cowboy fantasy I had of myself so completely that other people had no choice but to go along with it. I also think it’s a tad divisive to co-opt a culture that never wanted me as a part of it. But I don’t mind being polarizing. Until like five years ago, it wasn’t easy to be a gender-nonconforming person, and this was always how I handled it: ‘You’re going to otherize me, so let me make it fun.”

S OL E S I ST E R

“I customized putting Vibram soles on my boots because I always wanted to be able to run if I had to.

I still do it, but I don’t have to run anymore.”

4 8 L A M AG . C O M

“I think for a lot of people it’s like, ‘Dress to impress,’ but that’s never really what I’m doing; I’m always just dressing to create myself.”

H AT: I put a lot of thought into creating a masculine silhouette. All my Stetsons are this Open Road style—not too wide a brim but enough to shield your face from the sun.

The bigger the brim, the more likely I am to get made fun of, but I stick with it and own it. And it makes me look taller; I’m five-seven but I self-identify as six-two.

H A I R : I just give myself a little Amish boy’s

haircut—I call it “the 1-2-3”: bangs at one level, sideburns at one level, and then the back is the third level. If you always wear a hat, you should cut your hair to suit.

JAC K E T: I found this at Painted Bird here in L.A. I put it on, and I felt strong. This jacket has passed through so many people’s hands— there’s motorcycle club pins on it; there’s union iron worker pins on it. Straight culture may have rejected me, but I like to embrace it, then queer it. Which to me is an improvement.

SW E ATS H I R T: I embroider my name on

most of my sweatshirts because I like custom everything. People are like, “Where’d you get that?” and I’m like, “It’s custom, bro.” I tend to tuck everything in because growing up in the Midwest you’re always cold from the Plains winds.

PA N T S : I almost always wear only men’s

clothing from more than 50 years ago; I guess men used to be smaller then, and that’s what fits me well. These pants are probably 70 years old, bespoke for somebody else.

Someone’s wife or mother made them. I’ll just keep mending them because I love the way clothes look when they fall apart and you fix and you fix; I like scars on clothes.

B O OT S : These are an old pair of snakeskin

boots that I accidentally left outside of my cabin in New Mexico for a year. When I came back, I was so bummed. But then I realized that the sun and the snow and the rain had done this amazing thing where it brought up all the scales. It looked so cool. So now I leave stuff out in the sun on purpose.

P H O T O G R A P H BY I RV I N R I V E R A

Los Los Angeles Angeles

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L.A. Stories

JEFF WEISS

NA NA L OV E

The Grammy Diaries

The author and his grandmother, Rita Hausman, 90, outside the nursing facility where she lives in Palms.

FOR THE PAST 90 YEARS, MY GRANDMOTHER RITA HAS LED A TECHNICOLOR LIFE PACKED WITH GLAMOROUS HIGHS AND DRAMATIC DIPS. BUT IT WASN’T UNTIL SHE FELL ILL WITH COVID-19 THAT I APPRECIATED THE STARRING ROLE SHE’S PLAYED IN MY OWN LIFE

HOW L ONG H AV E our lives

been haunted by the calls and texts that you hope never to receive? Bad news that arrives in unholy bursts. A glance at your phone that can instantly reduce you to rubble.

The psychic detonation finally arrived for me last December, a week after my grandmother’s 90th birthday. My mom, in her usual nonchalant fashion, broke the news on a Saturday morning: “They think Grandma has COVID. You should probably call her. She’s not feeling too great.”

The first thing you should understand about my Grandma Rita, or “Grammy” as she insisted on being called, is that she probably has the most musical voice of anyone that I’ve ever heard. A former interior decorator, she still wears her hair rosy red, except for the period when the pandemic forced the closure of hair salons and improvisation led her to a punk-rock pink. Every time I call, she greets me with a jubilant and mellifluous “Jeffrey,” which somehow sounds like it’s a number out of South Pacific, the residual effects of a longago childhood spent performing in song-and-dance revues.

When my great-grandfather moved the family west from Chicago during the Depression, talent scouts briefly tried to turn Rita and her late twin sister, Della, into the next Shirley Temple—except with two for the price of one. But Papa Max refused; no daughters of his were going to enter Hollywood Babylon. Fairfax High in the swing era was scandalous enough.

But on that Saturday morning last December, her voice sounded atonal and winded. Speech was an obliterating labor. Waves of nausea left her unable to stomach a bite. The home lacked doctors on call, and its workers understandably couldn’t risk helping her out of bed to do basic tasks. It’s unclear how it spread through the facility; the restaurant’s man50 L A M AG . C O M

ager had caught it. So did a few caretakers. Ultimately, 14 residents tested positive.

“I’m not well, darling,” she repeated several times. “I’m having trouble breathing and my head is pounding and I can barely see anything. It feels like someone has painted my legs and my chest and my arms full of pain.”

Every few sentences were punctuated with noisy lunges for oxygen. By this point, only four percent ICU capacity remained in L.A. County hospitals, and at the exponentially increasing rates, they would be completely overrun within days, if not hours. No medical professionals were about to pay a house call, and no one I knew had the VIP connections required to buy the miracle cures lavished upon the ultrawealthy. I mean, it would take days to get an oximeter shipped to her, a necessary gauge to see whether or not she needed a ventilator. By that point, it might be too late.

I begged her to go to the hospital, but she refused. The stories had reached her of patients waiting in ambulances for P H O T O G R A P H BY K R E M E R / J O H NS O N

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R I TA RO C K S

Poolside at the Lake Arrowhead Hotel in the 1960s; ringing in the millennium at the author’s high school graduation.

unbroken line of homeless encampments near the 101 on-ramp on the eastern edge of Silver Lake. I was heading to acupuncture, begun last summer as a way to mitigate the long-haul symptoms I hadn’t been able to shake since my own COVID exposure. After being first infected in the spring, spo-

radic vise grips of fatigue and brain fog seized me. A relatively minor case, I felt fully recovered within ten days.

Then throughout July, crippling fatigue blindsided me. My brain was a dumb bog, and reading was a maze. After a few sessions, the inflammation abated.

Then in January, just when I’d thought

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four hours. She saw hospitals as vectors for disease, and she preferred to be in her own bed, listening to country music, surrounded by the familiar twang of the past. Then she said that she was too tired to talk anymore; she told me how much she loved me, and she hung up.

For the first eight months of the pandemic, the contagion that had started to terrorize the city had graciously passed over her facility in Palms. Grammy attributed it to the administrator’s vigilance, which from what I could gather included little more than daily temperature checks of the employees.

Residents were allowed to visit their families, which meant possible exposure and easy retransmission in the building’s indoor dining hall. Servers and cleaning staff returned home every night, unable to avoid cramped living conditions due to exorbitant L.A. rents.

My grandmother said she felt immensely safe. My mom regularly compared it to a time bomb. And then it finally went off in December.

When you receive news like that, everything appears to crumble in slow motion. My car, silently sliced past the

that I’d permanently healed, that same who saw cotton masks as a constitutionmercury mind sickness grounded me al referendum on freedom; the people for a full week. blithely Instagramming from Tulum; the As I drove across town that Saturday copper-snake scammers of radio and camorning after hearble TV who’ve swindled ing the news about my millions from the lonegrandmother, I wanted ly and susceptible. Q. If you ask my to cry. Instead, I bled a Amidst the grim cross-eyed rage, a reckchaos, a few lingering grandmother less fury at every imagdelusions remained. how she inable target. At the Surely, the state or persevered, Trump White House the county or the city she’ll credit and the criminal politiciwould step in when zation of a public health the federal governcountry music crisis. At the blundering ment failed. “This is and positivity. of local and state offiAmerica,” I assured She claims cials who had had eight myself, but eventually, she has never months to procure more a fatalistic acceptance hospital beds to prepare took over. No action feared death. for a winter wave they could reverse the Roinsisted was imminent man decline. All there but somehow still blindwas left to do was call sided them. At the entire system that my grandmother every day, offering ad backed me into the choice of having to hoc prayers to gods that I don’t believe let a 90-year-old woman fight a lethal in, and hoping that she would somedisease at home while I ordered her dehow improve. For the next week, I agoliveries of soup because no better alternized about whether every call would native existed. My encephalitis included be our last and tried to brace myself for the conspiracy-addled Facebook cultists the moment when it would arrive.

O O O O

T H E T RU T H I S , I will never be prepared for her exit. A few months before COVID, I bought a video camera to memorialize her stories for future generations. But there was always next Saturday or the Saturday after that, until now, when life is suddenly measured in minutes. I considered the children that I don’t have and imagined how all the stories about my grandmother would ring hollow and distant, just as her stories of my unseen ancestors felt like colorless fables.

There are always exceptions. I’ve lost count of the times that Rita regaled me with the tale of her parents’ wedding in Roaring Twenties Chicago, where they hired their nephew, a clarinet prodigy named Benjamin, to entertain the guests for the princely sum of $15. “You should’ve paid him $10. He’s just a kid,” my great-grandmother, Jeanette, scolded my great-grandfather, Max. Little did she imagine that in two decades, her daughters would witness their cousin, Benny Goodman, headlining the Cocoanut Grove at the Am-

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L A M AG . C O M x x

bassador Hotel in L.A. After losing everything in the crash, Max moved the family to the West Coast, where he made and lost fortunes flipping real estate. His king’s gambit was purchasing the old Hollywood Hotel, the one-time haunt of studio moguls and Rudolph Valentino. Rita reminisced about visiting “Papa” at work, marveling at the bronzed hitching posts that remained from the horse-andbuggy days. He unloaded the property within a year or two for a small profit.

Had he kept it, the family would’ve become fantastically wealthy from its sale decades later, when it was redeveloped into the Hollywood & Highland mall.

My mom, instead, attended public schools in the Valley, a latchkey kid whose single mother worked three jobs to support her and her brother. Rita had left my grandfather in the late ’50s, a scandalous gesture for the Father Knows Best era, but imperative for the sake of her freedom. At night, my grandma moonlit as a vivacious bachelorette in

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the 818 dating scene. As for this phase of her life, there are questions that a grandson doesn’t want to ask of his grandmother—finding her Playgirls from the Ford years was evidence enough.

By the late ’70s, Rita Tubin (née Gellerman) remarried and took the last name of Kenneth Hausman, a retired engineer and bibliophile with a gambler’s taste for the stock market. They lived in Century City in the same condominium complex as Julie Andrews, across the street from the Die Hard building, two selling points that intrigued my sister and me. Alas, Mary Poppins never umbrellaed down, nor did terrorists overtake Nakatomi Tower. The true saving grace was a custombuilt, black bathroom with stainedglass monkeys that hooted every time you flipped on the lights.

During my first decade, Rita was in her fifties and still looked so young that people mistook me for her child.

In fact, she insists that she was so close to me that she often forgot that I wasn’t her own son. My unofficial education belonged to her: excursions to the L.A. County Museum to see Impressionist exhibits when I only wanted to see the mammoth drowning in asphalt at the La Brea Tar Pits; an attempt to expose me to fine dining when I only ate hamburgers; and countless MGM musicals from the ’30s through the ’50s. Gigi never took. My pursuit of a career in the arts is probably all her fault.

She infused vacations with a sense of magic. A journey to the castellated Hotel Del Coronado, where L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz. A tender ferrying us to Catalina, an island with an arcade, all the adventure a kid needed.

Don’t get me wrong: not everything was boat tours and Baked Alaska. At 13, Jewish children are sold the ancient hustle that a few prayers and a haftarah will usher in adulthood. The real selling point is the party with your friends where your parents’ friends give you checks that your father hopefully doesn’t pocket to pay for the cost of the ceremony. My bar mitzvah happened to coincide with the glory years of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, the zenith of gangsta rap, a time when a grandmother’s musical poetry couldn’t quite compete with G-funk. This notion was lost on her when she interrupted the party, telling the DJ to silence the jams. It was now her time to perform a loving musical tribute to her grand-

O O O O

I F YO U A S K my grandmother how

R E C K L E SS YO U T H

Rita with a two-year-old Jeff. “At 50, my grandmother looked so young that people mistook me for her child.”

son, Jeffrey, turning 13 on this immortal night. I was mortified and powerless to stop it: She and her friend Ginny sang a jazz-poetry call-andresponse. The theme—as you might surmise—was how much my grandmother loved me (“Always”). We didn’t speak for a few months after that.

The older I get, the more I realize that her perseverence is mostly luck.

My dad’s mother died in her late seventies, just months after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. What if I’d never got to meet Rita as an adult? It would’ve been one of the saddest things conceivable. Most grandparents get a decade or two with their grandchildren.

I would have missed the opportunity to return the favor to my grandma—these last dozen years where I’ve been able to buy us tickets to see Eugene O’ Neill plays at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, or take her to hear jazz at the Blue Whale. The dinners afterward at Norm’s on Pico, which made her nostalgic for the days when she grew up with the daughter of Norm himself.

Mostly, I would have never known the mundane power of these Saturday afternoon visits. Once a week for an hour or two, where I tell my grandmother about my stresses and travails, and she offers sage advice and summaries of the books that she’s listening to on tape. Lately, she’s become obsessed with old country ballads that she plays over and over—the soundtrack on a loop she listened to as she suffered from COVID. Charley Pride and Johnny Cash. Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty. The latter are the duo who famously sang “It’s Time to Pay the Fiddler,” a song I kept picturing her listening to in complete darkness, her life twisting in the wind, as the world disintegrated outside those four walls.

she persevered, she’ll give the credit to country music and positivity. She says that she never feared death for a second. In her words, “It just reinforced my belief that we can live through anything if we have the right attitude.” Three other residents at her facility weren’t as fortunate. For now, Rita’s health is relatively good, though the disease has accelerated her macular degeneration.

For the past year, I’ve constantly thought about the Italo Calvino quote, “The best we can hope for is to avoid the worst.” I might have been spared, but millions of others can’t say the same. A generation will be deprived of the surviving links to a bygone world we never witnessed: the recipes and familial wisdom, the zany vacations and uncomfortable bar mitzvah ballads.

But by some combination of luck, genetics, and the post-World War II penchant for early childbearing, Rita has

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stayed alive to guide me through the decades. My grandmother’s survival counted as something of a minor miracle, considering how COVID has ruthlessly scythed through the elderly population.

Late last November, before her diagnosis, we celebrated her 90th birthday in COVID fashion: a few members of my family, masked and six feet apart, set up a forlorn ring of chairs on a lawn outside her retirement community. In honor of her passion for poems (like the Serenity Prayer, which she’d gifted me, framed, when I was seven and interested only in Nintendo, baseball cards, and Calvin and Hobbes), I read a verse written to convey the depth of my love and a reminder that I’d always carry her joy for life, art, music, and conversation with me. She said that it was the best day of the worst year of her life and marveled at my niece, her newborn great-granddaughter, even though it devastated her to not be able to cradle her in her arms.

I couldn’t see her for the next two months. But then, over the last month or so, I’ve been allowed to visit again.

Rita is now well enough to walk outside, where we sit on lawn chairs in the sun, still masked and socially distant, talking about books and the Britney Spears documentary, the frustrations of quarantine and the impossible questions at the heart of life. Last Saturday, my mom and stepdad and my sister and her fivemonth-old daughter, Jeanette, came to join us. The baby was named after the great-great-grandmother whom she missed by a half-century.

If I want to understand how much Rita loved me as a child, I only have to see her gaze into the steel-blue eyes of the infant, named after her own longgone mother, who will likely still be alive long after everyone reading this sentence has shuffled off. Beset with joy, Grammy breaks into song in her Rodgers and Hammerstein voice. Reflexively, I reach into my pockets and start recording it all on my phone, desperate to capture this moment that almost never happened. She’s singing “You Are My Sunshine”—the Johnny Cash version.

Clapping her hands to the imaginary beat, Rita offers Jeanette a serenade: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine / You make me happy when skies are gray / You’ll never know dear, how much I love you / Please don’t take my sunshine away.

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The Blowup At Brentwood

BY MAX KUTNER

ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN METZ

How a shift to a racially progressive curriculum turned one of L.A.’s most elite academies into the latest culture-war battleground

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ARLY

LAST

June, Brentwood School posted an image of a black square on Instagram. This was eight days after George Floyd had been killed, and it was part of #BlackoutTuesday, a social media campaign against racism and inequality. Other Los Angeles prep schools also participated in the well-intentioned if largely symbolic online gesture, along with millions of other institutions, businesses, and individuals. But Brentwood’s black box got what’s known as ratioed; it received more negative comments than likes. Many more.

DRAMA SCHOOL Above: The entrance. Opposite: Shea Robinson and Heven Ambaye (right) in 2009. A public-school student from a low-income family, Ambaye attended Brentwood on a full scholarship.

“Brentwood is a toxic racist cesspool for students of color, but an ivory tower for the wealthy, white elite,” read one of the scores of scathing remarks that kept popping up on Inswoke alumni who want to tear the system down; teachers tagram throughout the day. “If you cared about racial justice, who’ve had a hard enough time getting through the year on you would close your doors and redistribute your obscene Zoom, let alone dealing with paradigm shifts in educationwealth,” read another. al priorities; and angry, frustrated moms and dads who just In the year since Floyd’s murder, the atmosphere at this want their kids to get into good colleges—are most dramatibucolic, super-exclusive, $38,000- to $45,000-a-year private cally and publicly clashing, like those stranded boys battling school has only grown more poisonous, with some Brentwood each other on a deserted island in Lord of the Flies, one of alumni of color not only hurling accusations of racism but also the novels Brentwood struck from reading lists last year. demanding that the school completely scrap what they see as a More to the point, there’s arguably no other school that’s biased curriculum. Meanwhile, parents, teachers, and adminisfaced more daunting challenges in coping with all this distrators spent much of last summer and fall wrestling over the cord. Somehow, despite its best efforts, Brentwood has manvalue of books like To Kill a Mockingbird—a civil rights clasaged to offend all sides of the debate, infuriating both the sic to some; an outdated, problematic text to others—in what’s forces of wokedom, who claim to have been frozen out of the shaping up to be an epic battle over the hearts and school’s anti-racism curriculum changes, and the minds of the children of America’s one percent. battalions of parents who don’t understand why To be sure, scenes like this are not occurring their kids aren’t reading Harper Lee (or Arthur only at Brentwood. Similar skirmishes are breakMiller or William Golding) in class anymore. As ing out at elite prep schools all over—at Harvardone exasperated parent tells Los Angeles, “George Westlake, Marlborough, and Archer School for Floyd dies, our kids show up for school two months Girls in L.A. and in New York at Chapin and later, and every book that’s been read for the last Dalton—making headlines across the country 20 years is out.” in publications as ideologically divergent as the ART OF THE REASON the black-square post proved New York Post and The Atlantic. But it’s worth so controversial was its painfully ironic historical focusing on what’s going on at this particular context. Until very recently, Brentwood, like most school off West Sunset. Because it’s here at Brentprep schools, had prided itself on its exclusivity, wood that all the forces arrayed in this conflict— 68 L A M AG . C O M

P

P H O T O G R A P H E D BY K R E M E R / J O H NS O N

not inclusivity. “The joke is that these [schools] are engines for sustaining and strengthening the plutocracy,” one former prep-school administrator explains. “These schools lecturing about equity and justice is like listening to Swiss bankers and asset managers lecturing the world about tax transparency.”

In fact, Brentwood was founded—in 1972, on property that was once a military academy—just as affluent white kids were fleeing L.A’.s public schools amid courtordered desegregation. In those days, the place wasn’t nearly as fancy as it is now. “It was just a bootstrap operation with no money, no facilities, struggling to pay its teachers,” says an alum. “Very traditional and very backwards,” is how a former L.A. prep school teacher describes it.

There had been talks of modernizing Brentwood in the past. A 1997 accrediting committee dinged the school for its “traditional” approach, and a teacher recalls that discussions with superiors to open up the curriculum were “fairly dead-ended.” But at that time, there was little incentive for the school to change. As it expanded, money began pouring in. A gymnasium and performing arts complex went up in the 1980s.

A second campus for lower grades was opened in the 1990s.

By 2000, Brentwood reported an annual revenue of $18 million. By 2010, that figure was closer to $36 million. Reputationally, the school still lagged behind Harvard-Westlake and Marlborough, whose roots went back to the turn of the century or earlier. But it was definitely in the game, graduating a slew of soon-to-be celebs like Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, producer Ryan Kavanaugh, and Conservative-media firebrand Andrew Breitbart. “It transitioned from a start-up to

a well-established, elite school with a strong donor base,” says one longtime insider. Real Estate mogul Rick Caruso and Arnold Schwarzenegger both sent their kids there.

Calista Flockhart sat on the school’s board.

Fittingly, when change finally did arrive at Brentwood, it came in the form of a TV personality. Before he’d been hired to head of school in 2011, Mike Riera, 65, had been hosting a talk show on the Oxygen network and appearing as a parenting correspondent on CBS’s Saturday Early Show. The author of several books on raising teenagers, Riera, who holds a PhD in psychology, was in many ways uniquely qualified for the job. And the culture at Brentwood did shift dramatically once the genial academic took over. Under his leadership, the number of students of color increased to 41 percent. (The school declined to provide a detailed breakdown of that figure. A faculty member claims that it includes Middle Easterners, a group the U.S. Census Bureau classifies as white.) Donations to the school almost doubled early in his tenure and remained consistent for years after. Among other initiatives, he announced a new, far-reaching 30-year plan that included the construction of a sprawling 70,000-square-foot middle school structure. The new building opened its doors (after gridlocking the neighborhood for years) in 2019.

T KT KT KT KT KT KT KT KT K

UNTIL RECENTLY, BRENTWOOD HAD PRIDED ITSELF ON EXCLUSIVITY, NOT INCLUSIVITY. But like any headmaster, Riera has his detractors. Some involved with the school criticize him for what they see as his intellectual intolerance and for fostering a stifling political correctness on campus. One former trustee goes so far as to describe Riera’s reign as “a leftist, progressive, social-engineering remaking of school culture,” with schoolsanctioned events like the annual Diversity Day and socialjustice-focused assemblies, publications, and curriculum updates. Some students have had complaints about Riera, as well. In 2016, more than a dozen of them wrote articles for a campus political magazine complaining about “the deepening intellectual totalitarianism of the PC thought police L A M AG . C O M 69

that is metastasizing throughout the country and at this very school.” They claimed conservative students were silenced and labeled racists. When Brentwood allegedly refused to let the students publish the magazine, they printed and distributed copies themselves.

Over the last ten years, Riera has faced other challenges, among them a 45-year-old Brentwood female chemistry teacher arrested in 2017 for having sex with a 16-year-old student (she’s currently serving a three-year sentence). And after a 2016 video circulated online showing white students on a boat rapping along to a song that contained the N-word, outraged community members denounced the school for not doing enough to educate against racism. Major League Baseball legend Barry Bonds, a school parent, posted his disgust on Facebook: “This is what 40K a year gets African American students at Brentwood.”

Nothing Riera had dealt with in the past, though, could have prepared him for the day of the black square. After that posting, and all the pent-up frustration and hostility it unleashed, nothing at Brentwood would be the same again.

O

N J U N E 4 , 2 0 2 0 , two days after the black-square debacle, a group of outraged alumni responded with a campaign on Instagram. “The time has come to call out and hold Brentwood School accountable for its past wrongdoings against Black and minority students,” the alumni announced from an account they named NoBlackoutBrentwood.

Within days, the group issued 11 demands to their former school, including a seat on the board of trustees, increased Black and Latino staff, and “the expansion of curriculum to include diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.” A petition listing the demands accumulated nearly 5,000 signatures (although not all of them from Brentwood alumni). It was joined on June 19—Juneteenth—when Brentwood’s Black Family Association, a school-sanctioned affinity group, released its own demands. These parents urged the school to hire a consultant to “audit . . . course descriptions, books, and projects” for signs of racial insensitivity.

They also called for anti-racism education for all parents.

Their petition quickly collected more than 3,500 signatures.

Riera clearly got the message. “With the murder of George Floyd, that put everything on the front page,” he told Los Angeles during a 20-minute Zoom interview from his Brentwood office in February. “We had to look hard at ourselves and say, ‘We can do better.’ We need to really have a curriculum that is explicitly more inclusive, that has more voices, that has different representation in race and gender and sexuality.” Riera approached his faculty with his new marching orders. “We need to shift the curriculum,” he says he told them. “I’m challenging you to do some work this summer and see how you can change this.” Not all teachers agreed.

Some wondered if changes were necessary; others wanted changes but felt rushed to make them; still others believed change was long overdue.

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DO THE RIGHT THING? Kate Savage taught art at Brentwood for almost two decades before leaving in 2018. Brentwood’s dilemma, she says, “is trying to be all things to all people. It wants to cater to families that want a traditional prep-school education. But it also wants to be a school for a diverse population. And therein lies the struggle.”

While those internal conversations were underway, NoBlackoutBrentwood ramped up the pressure by posting testimonies on Instagram from Brentwood alumni of color, who spoke about feeling tokenized and alienated at the school. “Behind their carefully manicured facade,” a 2018 graduate wrote, “Brentwood School is an incredibly racist organization from top to bottom.” The postings echoed a larger reckoning across the entire prep-school world. A Chapin School alum began posting about racism at that school from the Instagram account Black@Chapin.

Dozens more “Black@” accounts appeared, including one for Harvard-Westlake that called out the school for having “fostered bigotry for the entirety of its existence.” Janine Hancock Jones, Harvard-Westlake’s director of diversity, responded on a podcast, “We are not the same institution—we’re not even the same country—that we were 100 years ago. We’re not the same country that we were 20 years ago . . . six months ago.”

In mid-June, Brentwood’s board agreed to meet over Zoom with NoBlackoutBrentwood alumni. The trustees initially seemed open to giving them what they wanted. “All our demands were supposedly going to be met,” says Halle IhenaP H O T O G R A P H E D BY K R E M E R / J O H NS O N

ty triggering and hostile.” So when Brentwood announced an anti-racism task force in June, the group wasn’t impressed. Members felt the school had acted without them.

Talks between NBB and Brentwood completely broke down in August, just as Harvard-Westlake unveiled its own brand-new, 20-page anti-racism plan.

“The current national reckoning with systemic racism and injustice has led our community to its own self-examination,” the document said, alongside photos of the manicured campus. From now on, Harvard-Westlake would “make anti-racism an essential element of our curriculum and culture.” (One Harvard-Westlake administrator complained to friends at the time that putting the document together made dealing with the pandemic look easy.)

Meanwhile, Brentwood parents were growing concerned about changes at the campus over the summer. Some were offended when Riera “strongly” encouraged them to read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism and by his constant stream of antiracism email updates. Parents said they feared the school was transforming into something they hadn’t signed up for. Some alumni had felt the school wasn’t changing fast enough; now parents worried it was changing too much too fast.

By the time September rolled around and school reopened (virtually, at first), some of those fears seemed to be realized. All across L.A.’s Westside, moms and dads did spit takes when they saw their kids’ new reading lists. During the first week of classes, parents of Brentwood eighth graders were shocked to see To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, and The Crucible missing from the course description for English 8. When they logged onto Zoom for a virtual open house, a few parents voiced their objections, while many more stewed in silence, fearing community backlash if they spoke out (the same reason every parent who talked to Los Angeles for this story requested their names

cho, a 2016 graduate who is active with NBB. Another member, Natalie Gomez, recalls, “A lot of the feedback was, ‘This seems very, very doable.’”

But as summer went on and the talks became biweekly, the tone shifted sharply. According to the NBB alumni, board members who once seemed amenable to their input were now raising their voices. “We had people that were turning their cameras off,” Ihenacho says. “We had administrators yell at Black parents.”

Riera, who sits on the school’s board— along with former Honest Company CEO Brian Lee and Lance Milken, son of the Trump-pardoned financier Michael Milken, and around two dozen others—acknowledges there were problems. “The talks were —HALLE IHENACHO, A 2016 GRADUATE ACTIVE WITH THE SCHOOL’S BLACK ALUMNI hard,” he says. “I’m not going to pull any punches about that.”

As the discussions stumbled, the NBB alumni grew increasingly angry and upset. “We spent a whole not be printed). The teacher was said to have told the visitsummer playing cat and mouse with the administration,” ing parents, “If you want your children to read the classics, Ihenacho says. “It was very scary to see how serious and how you should have them do it in their spare time. This is the committed the administration was to just maintaining the stacurriculum.” tus quo.”

Even before George Floyd’s murder, Brentwood had been Other NBB alumni—many of who had gone from Brenttinkering with its curriculum. The previous school year, wood to attend college amid the safe-space debates that all tenth-grade British Literature had become Modes of Combut defined university life during much of the Obama era—felt munication and now explored “what it means to represent abused. NBB member Luz Perez describes the calls as “pretself with respect to race, gender, religion, and class.” Ameri-

“WE HAD ADMINISTRATORS YELL AT BLACK PARENTS.”

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R E Z A S H A M J I : CO U RT E SY S U B J E C T

equity, inclusion, and anti-racism,” he wrote. “This could result in discomfort for some as well as choices that are questioned by others. However, as a school we are pushing forward.”

Those words didn’t do much to calm parents. In October, trustees received an anonymous letter condemning the changes. “We respectfully demand an open forum to discuss the seemingly deliberate radicalization of the present curriculum,” the letter said. “It is not acceptable to indoctrinate young children and young adults without any context. To do so borders on child abuse.” Around the same time, a petition by “a current Brentwood School family” appeared online with similar gripes. “We do not need to be teachBY THE BOOKS Reza Shamji, a 2020 Brentwood graduate, spent his final days of school last year urging ing our children to be anti-racist by the administration to support Black Lives Matter. He questions the school’s recent practice of replacing ONLY having literature about the Afclassics like Lord of the Flies. Reading it seemed like a rite of passage, he says. “Even my dad remembers reading that book. That book was very important for me—that was the book.” Unifying Brentwood’s rican American experiences in Amerstudents and parents, Shamji adds, is “just one of those things that not a lot of books can do.” ica,” the petition said. At last count, it had 72 signatures.

“It is true that we probably have imcan Literature for eleventh graders—a course that previously plemented more curricular changes across all divisions in taught authors like T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott this one year than any other year in Brentwood’s almost 50 Fitzgerald, and J. D. Salinger—was turned into American years of existence,” Riera acknowledged in October, clearly Identity and Culture. The English department also added a feeling the heat. “Will we overstep in some areas? Possibly. new senior elective, “LAtinx—An Exploration of Identity in Will we under-step in others? Possibly.” But Riera insists Los Angeles,” in which students “study graffiti murals, taco the school wasn’t trying to brainwash anybody. “Every time culture, tattoos . . . and other forms of cultural expression.”

I hear or see that word ‘indoctrination,’ I cringe, because But now, in September 2020, it was the parents’ turn to that’s not what we’re doing,” he says. “We’re trying to teach mobilize over social media. They started a WhatsApp messtudents how to think. We’re not telling them what to think.” sage group to figure out how to fight the changes. InformalKate Savage, who taught art at Brentwood for almost two ly naming themselves Concerned Parents, the group drew decades before leaving in 2018, puts the school’s dilemma sucabout 40 participants. Their main complaint: while Brentcinctly: “Brentwood is trying to be all things to all people,” she wood had been talking with groups all summer about cursays. “It wants to cater to the families that want a traditional riculum changes, they forgot to ask the opinion of the folks prep-school education so that they know their kid can go to who were writing the tuition checks. But when they emailed Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. But they also want to be a school or called the school, their complaints seemed to go nowhere. for a diverse population. And therein lies the struggle.”

The administration’s response, according to one N E SAT U R DAY I N M I D - O C T O B E R , a member of parent, was, “We know what we’re doing. You have the Concerned Parents group met with a memgiven us the trust to educate your children. So it’s ber of the Black Family Association at a bar in up to us to determine the curriculum.” Another parCulver City to see if some sort of détente could ent summarizes the school’s reply as, “We are edube reached. It did not go well. cators. We know what’s best for your children. You The BFA parent, Kevin Monroe, brought a chose our school.” printout of a PowerPoint presentation he made, Riera recalls the talks differently. “At the end of which he’d also given to Riera. The slides called most of these conversations, people felt like, ‘OK, I out To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies understand it. I’m not sure that I agree with it. I’m for using the N-word. One slide suggested that going to give it some time. I trust many other asthe books would lead Monroe’s son to think, “I pects of the school. So we’re going to go with it.’” must be inferior to other people because I was Even when they disagreed, Riera says, “I [felt] like I a slave once,” and that the N-word “must be OK learned something. I hope they learned something.” to use.” Another slide said, “Peers should view my son” as He tried to further explain the changes in a September “strong”; they should know that he “loves and respects womnewsletter. “We are at an inflection point as a school, a time en” and is a “leader,” not a “victim,” “rapist,” or “passive.” The when we must take a deep look at ourselves in terms of

implication was that removing these books would help foster the latter perception.

As the meeting went on, the two parents seemed to get nowhere. “What if people leave? What if they can’t get people to apply to Brentwood?” asked the Concerned Parent member.

“We’ll be better off without them,” Monroe apparently replied, adding that changes were happening and it was time the other side moved on. The Concerned Parent member couldn’t shake the feeling that Monroe believed his side had won.

In some ways, his side had. Halfway through the school year, in December, Brentwood published its own diversity, equity, and inclusion brochure, which is almost as long as Harvard-Westlake’s. “Diversity is in the fabric of who we are,” the document solemnly began. In a press release the same month, the school announced it had hired a consultant to lead diversity efforts.

Perhaps not surprisingly, those efforts went about as well as the meeting in the Culver City bar. The consultant got off to a rocky start when he organized his virtual dialogue sessions by racial, ethnic, and identity groups, setting up separate (but equal) conversations for “white faculty,” “Black faculty,” “white parents and families,” “Black parents and families,” and others. After the blowback that the categories amounted to segregation, the school added a note to the event web page saying, “You are welcome to join any conversation. None are exclusive.” But it was too late; the “segregated” discussion groups made headlines around the country.

In January, another anonymous letter from a parent complaining about the curriculum landed in trustees’ mailboxes, and word of it quickly spread through the school.

“Our children should not be punished or re-educated like Khmer Rough [sic] captives or Uyghur Muslims in China,” it read. “We refuse to allow the mechanical and systematic dismantling of whole sections of education simply to pursue a point that may or may not be universally accepted, and may in fact be no more that a tautological hustle [sic].”

This time, Riera’s patience seemed at an end. He encouraged people to block the letter’s originating email address, claiming the sender had violated rules. “This continued defamation of the school, the board of trustees, and its employees is contrary to what every family agrees to when they sign their contract with the school,” Riera wrote. “You cannot dictate the school’s curriculum or its programs.”

The Concerned Parents found that pretty rich. To them, dictating the curriculum was precisely what the other side had done.

In any case, in March, the school sent another email making clear that its resolve to forge ahead with a new culture at Brentwood would not be derailed; Brentwood alerted parents that at least one day of school would be starting late so that faculty could spend a morning discussing chapters of White Fragility.

As the school year winds down, few in these camps seem particularly happy about Brentwood. Despite the changes that have been made, many members of NoBlackoutBrentwood aren’t satisfied. “They’ve made these changes, and they’ve cut us out,” says Ihenacho. “We should be credited for such changes because we are the ones that went in and did it.” Adds Gomez, “People like Doctor Mike Riera have to completely be radicalized. That’s what needs to change to transform a school like Brentwood.”

Parents, meanwhile, feel like the school has already been transformed beyond recognition. At least one parent plans to homeschool next year. Another will change schools. But many parents don’t see leaving as an option. Brentwood was tough to get into, and their children are happy there, they say. A lot of families fear that if they complain too much, the school could ask them to leave and that other places might refuse to admit their children.

Perhaps sensing parental discontent, the school lowered its annual fundraising goal from $4.2 million to $3.6 million.

“The morale at that school is the worst I’ve ever seen,” one faculty member says.

The middle school director left last year for another school, and that person’s former deputy has announced he’s doing the same, continuing a recent exodus of unhappy employees.

Through it all, it’s the

L AU R A C AVA N AU G H /G E T T Y I M AG E S

THE SLIDES CALLED OUT TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD FOR USING THE N-WORD. students who are caught in the middle. A few have shared their thoughts on the curriculum changes with the administration, but most are far too focused on schoolwork and other activities to join the battle.

“Every day, you’re doing homework, you’re studying, you’re working with friends, you’re working with teachers,” says Reza Shamji, who graduated from Brentwood last year. When a book is assigned in class, he says, “we just read what we’re given.”

L A M AG . C O M 73

MAD RAP Nipsey Hussle (left) and YG.

APPALLED BY DONALD TRUMP’S RACISM, L.A.’S NIPSEY HUSSLE AND YG RECORDED “FDT”—AKA “F*CK DONALD TRUMP”— A BROADSIDE THEY DROPPED INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE 2016 ELECTION. AS ROB KENNER REPORTS IN THIS EXCERPT FROM HIS NEW BIOGRAPHY OF HUSSLE, “FDT” WAS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL RAP PROTEST SONG SINCE “F*CK THA POLICE” AND PERMANENTLY DELEGITIMIZED TRUMP IN THE HIP-HOP COMMUNITY THAT ONCE EMBRACED HIM

L A M AG . C O M 75

T H E E A R LY M O R N I N G hours of Friday,

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HIP HOPE Hussle, left, and YG during the chaotic video shoot for “FDT.” Hitting the streets unannounced, they cast the responding LAPD as unwitting extras.

was paying close attention to Lamar at that moment. “You know we all conscious of each other’s movements on the west,” he told me a few years later. “What was dope about Kendrick to me is that he became such a commercial success but never really made commercial product, in intention. His music became consumable on the highest level, but I always respect when people find that balance.”

YG had a self-made mindset similar to Nipsey’s. “I’m the only one who made it out the west without Dre,” he declared on “Twist My Fingaz.” YG went on to build his own 4Hunnid brand, and negotiated his own label deal for the release of Still Brazy.

“Nip, we talked about a lot of family stuff, business stuff, life goals,” YG said. “He ended up bein’ like a big brother to me.”

The feeling was mutual. “YG represent a lot of things I represent,” Hussle said. “He important not only to the city but to hip-hop. I got a certain respect and understanding with anybody that come from L.A. and the street culture of L.A. I feel like I understand you a little better.”

It was thus almost inevitable for Hussle and YG to embark upon a collaborative project. They decided to call it 2 of AmeriKKKKaz Most Wanted, inspired by the classic Snoop and 2Pac collaboration.

O P E N E R : P H OTO BY J O E S C A R N I C I / W I R E I M AG E ; ST I L L : YG & N I P S E Y H U SS L E “ F DT ( F U C K D O N A L D T R U M P ) ” ( WS H H E XC LU S I V E - O F F I C I A L M U S I C V I D E O)

June 12, 2015, YG was in Studio City wrapping up a recording session on his sophomore album, Still Brazy, when “a little incident” took place. His account of what happened can be heard on the second verse of “Twist My Fingaz,” a song he recorded soon after. The short version: he was shot outside the studio by unknown assailants and rushed to the hospital where doctors removed the slug and patched him up. The very next day, he was back at the studio on crutches, and Nipsey Hussle stopped by to make sure his homie was good. “I got shit to do,” YG told Billboard. “This shit don’t stop for nobody.”

As brazy as that situation was, something altogether more bonkers was about to take place 3,000 miles to the east, at 721 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Four days after YG’s shooting, Donald J. Trump glided down the golden escalator of his 58-story skyscraper to announce his candidacy for president of the United States. Greeted onstage by his daughter Ivanka, Trump stood before a gaggle of media, curious bystanders, and actors who’d answered a casting call, earning fifty dollars cash to wear Make America Great Again T-shirts and hold up signs of support. Then Trump uttered the first lie of his campaign. Addressing a crowd that reporters later estimated at 100 at most, Trump gushed: “Wow! Whoa! That is some group of people—thousands!”

From the start, Donald Trump built his campaign on a bedrock of racist rhetoric. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said that day, straying from the official talking points distributed by his staff and presumably speaking from the heart. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

A few days after Trump started to take America on a long escalator ride down— and after a 21-year-old unemployed ninth-grade dropout and avowed white supremacist named Dylann Roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and murdered nine Black parishioners with a handgun—Kendrick Lamar performed “Alright” live at the BET Awards. “Alls my life I has ta fight, nigga,” the mighty MC roared, spitting truth from atop a graffiti-tagged prop police car surrounded by explosions and flames as a giant American flag waved behind him.

Like every other rapper in Los Angeles, Nipsey Hussle

COV E R A R T: D E F JA M , C T E WO R L D A N D P U S H A Z I N K

N T H E L A S T DAY of Black History Month, February 29, 2016, Trump threw a campaign rally at Valdosta State University, deep in southern Georgia. A group of 30 Black Valdosta State students decided to attend the rally, most of them dressed in black to protest that Trump had been endorsed by former KKK grand wizard David Duke. But they didn’t get the chance. Before Trump began speaking, security guards asked them to leave the auditorium. “We didn’t plan to do anything,” said Tahjila Davis, then a 19-year-old majoring in mass media. “They said, ‘This is Trump’s property. It’s a private event.’ ” Brooke Gladney, another Black Valdosta student asked to leave, said, “The only reason we were given was that Mr. Trump did not want us there.”

Cellphone footage of the distraught Black students being escorted out of the rally circulated on social media, along with reports that another group of Black students had been ejected from an earlier Trump rally in Virginia the same day. Campaign mouthpiece Hope Hicks denied allegations of racial bias, but her statement was contradicted by Valdosta police chief Brian Childress, who checked with the campaign staff and confirmed that it requested the Black students be removed from the event.

How could a candidate endorsed by the KKK get away with calling himself “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world”? Part of the explanation was that the media did not take Trump seriously until it was too late, playing his presidential run for entertainment value and big ratings. But another explanation for Trump’s ability to fly under the radar for so long despite his racist track re-

cord was that hip-hop moguls were infatuated with the billionaire playboy whose name had been branded as a signifier of success.

For years, Trump hung out with Puff Daddy and Russell Simmons at opulent rap functions. In 2005, he stopped by 50 Cent’s G-Unit Radio show to chat with DJ Whoo Kid and Tony Yayo. Trump said Ivanka was a big 50 Cent fan, and Curtis Jackson himself soon called in to chat.

“Let’s do a song,” Trump told 50.

“Write up some good lyrics.”

Yayo and Whoo Kid laughingly suggested they could call the track “You’re Fired.”

Trump was proud of his hip-hop clout. Mac Miller, Jeezy, Smif-N-Wessun, and Rae Sremmurd all released songs name-checking him in the title.

“I’m in more of these rap songs,” Trump bragged. “My daughter calls me up. She said, ‘Dad, you’re in another one!’ ” To Miller’s credit, he was one of the first hip-hop artists to denounce Trump’s political career. In December 2015, he sensed that the joke had gone too far and tweeted, “Just please don’t elect this motherfucker, man.” The late MC also appeared on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show in March 2016 to emphasize his point. “I fuckin’ hate you, Donald Trump,” Miller said. “You say you wanna make America great again? We all know what that really means—ban Muslims, Mexicans are rapists, Black lives don’t matter. Make America great again? I think you want to make America white again.”

Soon other hip-hop royalty distanced themselves. Simmons withdrew support for his “old friend,” publicly backing Hillary Clinton, as did Pusha T. Meanwhile, Killer Mike aligned himself with Bernie Sanders. There were qualified holdouts: Kanye West—struggling with mental health issues—would eventually rock the red MAGA cap, while Azealia Banks tweeted: “Donald Trump is evil . . . like America is evil. I only trust this country to be what it is: full of shit. Takes shit to know shit so we may as well put a piece of shit in the White House.”

When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, the unified power of hip-hop helped lift him to victory. Endorsements from Jay-Z and Jeezy to Common and will.i.am—not to mention two cover stories in Vibe magazine—helped mobilize record turnout among young voters from varied races, cultures, ethnic groups, and economic backgrounds. Eight years later, America was faced with the most openly racist candidate in modern history, but the popular resistance was in disarray. Somebody needed to step up, harness the awesome power of hip-hop, and speak with a clear voice, calling out Trump on his bullshit.

USSLE AND YG were about to start work on

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Trump was reaching a fever pitch. “Everywhere I went, everybody’s findin’ out all the real shit about him,” YG recalled. He and Nip always talked about using their platforms to make a bold statement about real issues. As YG put it, they aspired to do “stuff other motherfuckers are not doing. So we finally hit the studio and really did it.” For Hussle, Trump was “just a privileged rich dude that got an out-of-touch view of the world. That made me like, Dude is definitely out of his mind and our country sounded crazy for even taking him as a “legitimate candidate.”

Having grown up in L.A., both YG and Hussle found Trump’s attacks on Latinos particularly offensive. Hussle had always discouraged Black-on-brown conflict. “I feel like we got a common enemy, so I don’t feel we got time to be beefin’, ” he told Davey D in 2006. In the decade since, Hussle had put those views into practice, bringing different hoods and cultures together within his team, including his Mexican-born business partner and road manager Jorge Peniche. “The way Trump was campaigning was really affecting my guy,” said Hussle, who gained a new appreciation for the impact of Trump’s rhetoric. “This dude went to college. This dude is a good person.” The son of an immigrant himself, Hussle had a sizable Mexican fan base. “I felt like they needed somebody to ride for ’em,” he said. “Because we relate in the struggle and poverty and not 78 L A M AG . C O M

havin’ shit and bein’ incarcerated.”

By the time Blacks started getting thrown out of Trump rallies, YG felt they had no choice but to act. One day, he put it to Nip: “Look, bro, if we doin’ a project called Two of AmeriKKKaz Most Wanted, we gotta have a song called ‘Fuck Donald Trump.’ ” Nip thought the idea was “tight,” like a 2016 version of N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police.” His exact words, as YG remembered them, were: “Cuz, on Six-Owe, I feel you! Let’s do it!”

Everything unfolded quickly from there. “We heard it back through the speakers, and we already knew this was powerful,” Hussle recalled. YG thought Nip should be the one to rap the verses. “You always talk about real shit,” he said. But Nip challenged YG to set it off. “Nah, you rap it!” YG didn’t hesitate.

As soon as he laid down his first verse—evoking the Rodney King riots and declaring, “I’m ’bout to turn Black Panther/Don’t let Donald Trump win, that nigga cancer!”—everybody in the studio started looking around like, We should lock the door and finish this. “Me as an artist, Nip as an artist, we very straight up and down,” YG said later. “It is what it is. It ain’t no hidden messages when we rapping. You gon’ know what the fuck we talkin’ ’bout.”

With inspiration flowing, the song was finished in less than an hour. In case anybody missed the significance of what

1 : P H OTO BY TO M M AS O B O D D I /G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R E A N B A L I V E 1 9 ; 2 : P H OTO BY J E R R I T T C L A R K /G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R P U M A ; 3 : P H OTO BY J E F F KOWA L S KY/A F P ; 4 : P H OTO BY M A R I O TA M A /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; 5 : P H OTO BY N E I L S O N B A R N A R D/G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R B E T; 6 : ST I L L F R O M “ F DT ” - WS H H E XC LU S I V E

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ery song with a sense of purpose. With “FDT,” the stakes could not have been higher. It was one thing for Snoop to clown Trump after the election, but Nipsey and YG hit the candidate with a lyrical blast when it really mattered, rallying their fans to get involved.

“This was when he was still campaigning,” Hussle said.

“So we was just really trying to make sure he didn’t win.”

All they needed now were the visuals.

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H U SS L E A N D F LOW

1 . YG and Hussle, 2018, 2. Hussle speaks at an L.A. charity event. 3. Kanye West at a MAGA rally. “FDT” turned most hip-hop stars against Trump. 4.

Street tribute to Hussle after his murder in 2019. 5. Hussle and YG perfom at the 2018 BET Awards 6. The LAPD makes a cameo in the “FDT” video.

was going on, YG closed out with a promise to pay Trump a visit. “When your L.A. rally? We gon’ crash your shit!”

As soon as they knocked out the vocals, YG turned to Nip. “I’m like, ‘Ay, bro . . . you ready?’ ” “What you talkin’ ’bout?” Nip replied.

“You ready for what might come with this?” YG said.

“Like, niggas gonna get banned from shows. All the police, all them people, gonna be on us.”

Nip replied. “Fuck it. Let’s make it worth something.”

They called the song “FDT” and dropped it on March 30, 2016. Hip-hop’s powerful rebuke of the presumptive Republican candidate set the internet ablaze. The final version of the track included a sound bite of Trump talking about building his “great wall” on the Mexican border and a clip of Davis speaking about getting thrown out of the Trump rally. “We tryna touch the people,” YG told Billboard after the song was released. “We tryna motivate all the young people to vote. Really take your time . . . ’cause it’s important, you feel me. If not, it could be all bad for us.”

“FDT” represented much more than just two rappers dissing a controversial politician. A Blood and a Crip had come together to make a song repping for Mexicans—whose L.A. street culture dates back even farther than the Slausons and the Businessmen gangs. As hard as Nip and YG went in their verses, they still made space for open-minded white folks to join the movement. If California historian Mike Davis was right when he said, “I don’t think there’s anything the police fear more than an end to gang warfare,” then “FDT” was their worst nightmare.

Always using his music to motivate, Hussle invested ev-

N A P R I L 3 , 2 01 6 , YG and Hussle met up with director Austin Simkins to shoot the “FDT” video on the streets of L.A. YG and Hussle shot the first scenes together on Fairfax Avenue, then split up to do separate shoots in different locations. There was no need to recruit extras—as soon as the song started blasting, a crowd formed; the helicopters and squad cars that responded were provided courtesy of the LAPD at no additional cost. Hussle shot his scenes a few blocks south of The Marathon Clothing store, near Crenshaw and Florence. Cars cruising by slowed to watch the action as a group of young people hollered, “Fuck Donald Trump!” Cobby Supreme sat on top of his white Impala, waving his hands in the air as his homies climbed on top of the vehicle with him, enjoying the moment. A police officer approached, pointing a taser at him.

“This is my car,” he told the cop, who held his fire. But the squad cars kept arriving—as did the news crews. “Fucc Donald Trump video shoot was lit!” L.A. artist J23 posted on Instagram. “@nipseyhussle had the whole city behind him.”

As things were winding down, the police stepped up the pressure. “First they pulled out tasers, then pistols, then SHOTGUNS,” the L.A. artist Mosaicc posted. “Not sure any of that was necessary, but my nigga @nipseyhussle executed like a professional.” In his Instagram video, Hussle can be seen stepping in front of armed police with his hands in the air to protect the crowds taking part in the video.

On April 18, five days after Kobe Bryant played his final NBA game at Staples Center, the “FDT” video was released on the Worldstar YouTube channel. It opened with a statement in white type on a black background clarifying the intention behind the song. “As young people with an interest in the future of America,” Hussle and YG asserted, “we have to exercise our intelligence and CHOOSE who leads us into it wisely. 2016 will be a turning point in this country’s history. The question is in which direction will we go?”

The statement closed urging viewers to “register ASAP and choose wisely.”

The gritty black-and-white video soon began racking up millions of views. It wasn’t long before the powers that be took notice. “Secret Service hollered at the label,” YG told a TMZ reporter. In fact, the Secret Service didn’t complain to YG’s label, Def Jam; they escalated the conversation to its corporate parent, Universal Music Group.“They were basically saying we were sending death threats to a presidential candidate,” YG recalled. Hussle said it was freedom of speech.

“You know, we didn’t make no threats.” (CONTINUED ON PAGE 95) L A M AG . C O M 79

M A S K E D C RU S A D E R S

Lawry’s the Prime Rib CEO Ryan Wilson (front) and Lawry’s employees (behind Wilson, from left) Stephani Dolce, Nancy Navarro, Nanci Yager, Tera Ramirez, Daniel Rodriguez, Carlos Fragoso, Mark Becker, Karina Bautista, Ricardo Santiago, and (in mirror) Nannette Carrillo.

LAWRY’S LOST YEAR

Shut down by the pandemic, the thriving landmark was facing extinction.

Here’s how one beloved L.A. restaurant fought its way back to life

BY J E A N N E D O R I N M C D OW E L L

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY E R I C W. AX E N E

L A M AG . C O M 81

IN LATE FEBRUARY 2020, several weeks before

ers would somehow have to replace its famously Mayor Eric Garcetti officially ordered Los Angeles to shut down theatrical presentations: a salad servers prepare on account of COVID-19, Ryan Wilson was already moving to in front of diners, pouring the dressing from a ensure the survival of one of the city’s oldest and most beloved great height into a spinning bowl; and prime rib restaurants. The 40-year-old CEO of Lawry’s Restaurants Inc. carved tableside from gleaming 600-pound art gathered the nine people on his senior management team to deco silver carts that cost $45,000 apiece. brainstorm ideas for how the restaurant could stay afloat if “We’re known for our service as much as our guests were unable to dine on the premises. food,” says general manager Aniel Chopra.

“The idea of closing down seemed implausible. I thought, After lockdown, the restaurant was reconfigured ‘That’s never going to happen. It’s never happened before,’ ” says to accommodate the flow of food from the kitchen Wilson, whose great-grandfather Lawrence Frank cofounded to an outdoor area. With the permission of the the iconic restaurant with Walter Van de Kamp in 1938.

City of Beverly Hills, a side door was opened so The management team came up with plans for a takeoutthat customers could drive up along La Cienega and-delivery service and took an inventory of the supply of the for pickup.

Certified Angus Beef steaks stored in the restaurant’s freezer.

One of the biggest challenges was packaging.

“I thought, ‘Let’s get scrappy,’ ” says Wilson. “I remember seeContainer samples were ordered from vendors all ing a lot of product on the shelf and wondering, ‘How can we over the country. “It had to be large enough to package this perishable meat and create something for our cushold a ten-ounce piece of prime rib and two side 1 tomers as they’re learning how to adjust to the virus?’ ” dishes and not slide around or get dismantled.

In the many months since, Wilson and his team have opAnd it had to hold the temperature,” says Eric Lyerated in a near-constant crisis mode, riding a roller coaster saker, vice president of company operations. Ulof closings, reopenings, lost revenues, safety regulations, and timately, a large, Styrofoam box was found to hold the prime employee layoffs. As at other restaurants across the city, the rib, and a microwavable plastic vessel was selected to contain strategy has been to do anything—and everything—to generate smaller cuts of beef and two side dishes. business and somehow stay afloat.

Lawry’s new to-go business turned out to be successful, in “We’ve had to create countless revenue opportunities,” says large part due to the loyalty of longtime customers.

Wilson, who also oversees Five Crowns in Co“People are doing what they can to help rona del Mar, the Tam O’Shanter in Los Feliz, keep our business alive,” says Wilson, who and several other Lawry’s locations. “I didn’t notes that regulars often chose takeout rathhave time to be scared or angry.” er than delivery during the worst months of Lawry’s employees, many of whom have the pandemic just so they could wave to the worked there for decades, braced themselves. staff from their cars.

“It was a strange and eerie time,” says Tiffany While an extensive $5 million revitalization Coty, who has worn the affectionately named in 2018 updated the look of the restaurant, “brown gown”—the famous frock the resLawry’s remains one of the few classic, oldtaurant’s servers don—for 15 years. “We all world dining establishments in a city overthought we’d be back at work after two weeks flowing with hip upstarts. Cofounder Law. . . When it became apparent that the whole rence Frank was friends with Walt Disney, city was closing down, it was a big shock.” which may account for the theatrical flour“No one knew The day the doors closed, on March 15, 2020, ishes that are part of the traditional dining how long they Lawry’s furloughed 116 of its 124 employees. experience. For generations of Angelenos, Wilson committed to covering the cost of Lawry’s has been the go-to place to celebrate would be out of health benefits for employees for the duraholidays—carolers stroll about at Christmaswork. We were all tion of the pandemic, a promise he has kept. time—and special occasions. just watching the “It was harrowing,” recalls Lawry’s president Wilson has capitalized on the finely honed news and the body and chief operating officer, Tiffany Stith, who Lawry’s brand to make it through the bleakhas been with the company for 17 years. “We est period in restaurant-industry history. A count going up.” were putting together food bags and toilet customer-loyalty program targets longtime —LAWRY’S COO TIFFANY STITH paper for employees to pick up. We initially guests through email blasts and rewards thought this was a short closure, but then it deals for those who purchase meals online extended beyond our wildest imagination. No one knew how or through the to-go department. Facebook, Instagram, and long they would be out of work. We were all just watching the Google advertisements have also been used to keep people news and the body count going up.” thinking about prime rib.

With only a skeleton staff, Lawry’s launched its first to-go But even the most creative marketing and entrepreneurial business on March 25. Takeout and delivery were uncharted zeal haven’t spared Lawry’s from the economic toll of the panterritory—except for the occasional to-go meal offered on a demic. In 2020, sales declined by $7 million compared with holiday—for the Beverly Hills institution. Disposable contain2019, putting it firmly in the red. On a typical Saturday night 82 L A M AG . C O M

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CHANGING THE STEAKS

MATCHBOOKS FROM THE BOOK CLASSIC DINING: DISCOVERING AMERICA’S FINEST MID-CENTURY RESTAURANTS BY PETER MORUZZI; OUTDOOR DINING AND CARVER: COURTESY LAWRY’S RESTAURANTS INC.; INSTAGRAM.COM/LAWRYSTHEPRIMERIB

Lawry’s had to drastically alter its famous dining experience for the pandemic.

1. It offered outside seating for the first time in its history. 2. After careful consideration, the restaurant found a way to package its prime rib and sides for takeout and delivery. 3. The hulking Art Deco silver carts must now remain parked, rather than having servers wheel them about for dramatic tableside slicing.

before the pandemic, Lawry’s racked up between $70,000 and $80,000 in sales. “But when we were closed down, we were lucky to break $25,000 or $30,000 in takeout and delivery,” says Chopra. “We’re losing a lot.” Lawry’s received some funds under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the federal loan program established to help employees of certain businesses during the pandemic, but it did little to offset the losses. It was basically “12 weeks of money for ten months of the pandemic,” says Stith.

In June, as coronavirus case numbers dropped, Garcetti approved the reopening of restaurants with limited seating and indoor dining. Under the new guidelines, Lawry’s was permitted to accommodate 200 guests, down from the 500 seated for dinner prepandemic. Coworkers were organized into small pods to minimize interaction with other employees and customers. Only two servers were permitted to minister to each table. Sanitation stations were set up throughout the restaurant, and alarms went off every 30 minutes to remind employees to wash their hands. Masks, face shields, and gloves were mandated for all servers.

A two-day on-site training session helped employees familiarize themselves with the new procedures, but anxiety was still high. “It wasn’t like the new rules magically made everyone automatically feel safe,” says Stith. “When we reopened our doors, it happened very abruptly, and there was no time for people to adjust to the new information. Everything had been changed, from where we carved the beef to rules for maintaining a clean table to communicating with guests.”

But Lawry’s reopening was short-lived. On July 1, Governor

Gavin Newsom shuttered indoor dining at restaurants in 19 California counties, including Los Angeles County, as the coronavirus numbers spiked. “It’s been absolutely brutal,” Lysaker says. “This company has been around for almost 100 years, and we will survive this. We survived the Great Depression because of the family’s belief in their people.”

Monitoring the constantly changing health department regulations and ensuring the safety of employees over the past year has been almost a full-time job for Stith, who says she spent the better part of 2020 managing and implementing the voluminous number of missives from city, state, and federal health agencies. Her days began with reading countless COVID news stories and watching the mayor’s press conferences.

“We received checklists of what the state and city were putting out. In a good week, they would mirror each other. In a bad week, they would contradict each other, or one would lag behind another just as everyone was trying to figure out how to be as safe as possible. We have to live to get to the other side of this, but sometimes the goal post keeps moving,” she says.

As the pandemic continued, the adrenaline rush that characterized the early months of coping with the coronavirus was eclipsed by exhaustion.

“In the beginning, it was survive or die,” says Chopra, “and we kept coming up with new ideas to keep everyone safe. Then it became a real game of resiliency and staying healthy, mentally and physically.”

Last August, with city regulation around outdoor dining loosened indefinitely, Lawry’s debuted its Silver Cart Terrace.

A concrete parking lot adjacent to the restaurant was transL A M AG . C O M 83

“I wish I had a better sense in my stomach of what will happen, but I don’t.”

IN THEIR PRIME

ing instead on the Tuesday or Wednesday before. Eighty percent of customers agreed to do so.

Then, on December 7, Lawry’s launched lawrysathome.com. Using Five Crowns in Orange County as a shipping point, the operation was initially intended to be a West Coast trial.

But when orders came in from all over the country, the Lawry’s team seized the opportunity and decided to go national.

Though Wilson had been mulling over an e-commerce site for years, developing lawrysathome.com was fraught with complications. All containers had to be properly sealed to avoid contamination and frozen to withstand travel over long distances. The cost of getting the e-commerce site up and running was considerable, about $30,000, and entailed buying new freezers, packaging design, and building a new website.

But it’s been fairly successful so far—in its first few months of operation, some 634 Lawry’s meals, which cost $299 to $569, were sold, shipping to 48 states, including Alaska.

On January 29, Newsom—under enormous pressure from business owners—approved reopening 6 L.A. restaurants for outdoor dining. The following night the Silver Cart Terrace reopened. Almost two months later, on March 15, Lawry’s reopened its indoor dining, under strict COVID safety protocols. As of press time, the restaurant is allowed to seat 100 guests inside, but outdoor dining and e-commerce are likely here to stay.

“We’ve created a magical patio experience,” says Stith.

The past year has been a wild

Clockwise from top left: 1. Lawry’s “spinning bowl” salad features a showy tableside dressing application. 2.

A carver slices up prime rib in the 1950s. 3. Lawry’s first opened in 1938 at 100 N. La Cienega Blvd. 4. In 1947, the restaurant moved to a Wayne McAllister–designed building at 55 N. La Cienega Blvd. It remained there until 1993, when it moved back to its original location. 5.The classic Lawry’s meal is a thick slice of prime rib, mashed potatoes, and creamed spinach, though lighter menu options have been added in recent years.

6. The famous carving carts were designed in 1938, inspired by those at Simpson’s in the Strand in London.

84 L A M AG . C O M

ride and an erratic one in terms of how well the restaurant is doing, says Stith.

Some weekends are busy, others are slow, depending on the comfort levels of guests and the surge or decline in coronavirus numbers. The uncertainty that characterized the first few months of the pandemic, when the coronavirus burst onto the scene and changed life as we knew it, hasn’t disappeared, even as the vaccine holds the promise of a return to normalcy. Lawry’s is still operating in COVID mode.

“I’m evaluating the risk/reward every day,” says Wilson. “We’ve weathered months of not knowing what will happen, and we have a real sense of anxiety. It’s been an exercise in agility and resilience and how to be strategic in our business so we not only survive the pandemic but emerge stronger.

But we don’t know what any day will look like, and it is exhausting. Our resources are depleted, financially and otherwise. I wish I had a better sense in my stomach of what will happen, but I don’t.”

CREDIT

formed into a dining area with seating for 112—the first time the restaurant had ever offered alfresco dining. At a cost of about $50,000, a translucent tent was stretched over the parking lot, with strings of small lights to create ambience. A slatted wood fence was installed around the circumference of the newly converted space to foster a cozy atmosphere and help muffle the noise from traffic just feet away. “No one wants to sit in the middle of La Cienega with the sound of sirens heading to Cedars-Sinai,” says Stith.

Health regulations imposed additional limits on the classic Lawry’s experience: The silver carts had to be parked in pre-approved areas in the outdoor space that were outlined with tape on the ground. They could not be moved.

Any dish that required a close interaction between server and food was no longer allowed, and already sliced beef was delivered to the table by servers wearing blue latex gloves, masks, and face shields. All dishes and glassware on the table had to be disposable. Salt and pepper shakers were forbidden, and silverware had to be prewrapped tightly in a napkin and handed to guests once they were seated.

“We had to adopt a new way of serving for safety,” says Coty.

In the fall, another surge in COVID numbers set the stage for a decidedly unmerry holiday season. On November 25, the day before Thanksgiving, L.A. County’s Department of Health again shut down outdoor dining. Having been warned on November 19, managers reached out to diners who had Thanksgiving Day reservations to see if they would be interested in din-

1: PHOTO BY SVEN KIRSTEN, FROM THE BOOK CLASSIC DINING: DISCOVERING AMERICA’S FINEST MID-CENTURY RESTAURANTS BY PETER MORUZZI; 2, 4: FROM THE BOOK CLASSIC DINING: DISCOVERING AMERICA’S FINEST MID-CENTURY RESTAURANTS BY PETER MORUZZI; 3. AND ILLUSTRATION: COURTESY LAWRY’S RESTAURANTS INC.; 6. DOUG WHITE/SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON PHOTOGRAPHS AND NEGATIVES/THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, SAN MARINO, CALIFORNIA; 5. COURTESY LAWRY’S RESTAURANTS INC.

—LAWRY’S CEO RYAN WILSON

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Basque cheesecake from Saso PAGE 92

OUR MONTHLY LIST OF L.A.’S MOST ESSENTIAL RESTAURANTS E D I T E D

BY

H A I L E Y

E B E R

WEST James Beard Award–nominated chef Jeremy Fox gets personal with a sunny spot dedicated to comfort food and named after his young daughter. The high-low menu is full of playful riffs on comfort food, from a decadent stufffed latke called the Goldbar to a matzo ball soup with carrot miso to a next-level relish tray.

Don’t miss the jiggly Rose Petal pie for dessert. 2421 Michigan Ave., 310-310-3616, or birdiegsla.com. Full bar.

Broad Street Oyster Co. MALIBU » Seafood $$ If ever there was a car picnic scene, it’s at this openair spot overlooking Malibu Lagoon State Beach (and across from a SoulCycle, if we’re being honest). You can grab a great lobster roll (topped with uni or caviar if you’re feeling extra fancy), towers of raw seafood, great clam chowder, and a burger sprinkled with shio kombu (dried kelp) that shouldn’t be overlooked.

23359 Pacific Coast Hwy., 424-644-0131, or broadstreetoyster.com. Beer and wine.

Cassia SANTA MONICA

» Southeast Asian $$$

Bryant Ng mines his Chinese Singaporean heritage, honors wife Kim’s Vietnamese background, and works in the wood-grilling technique he honed at Mozza at this grand Southeast Asian brasserie. Hunker down at a table on the patio—or treat yourself to some great takeout—to devour turmeric-marinated ocean trout or chickpea curry with scallion clay-oven bread. Wherever and however you enjoy Ng’s cooking, you won’t be disappointed. 1314 7th St., 310-3936699, or cassiala.com. Full bar.

Colapasta SANTA MONICA

hearty and satisfying. 1241 5th St., 310-310-8336, or colapasta.com. Beer and wine.

T H E B R E A K D OW N

Birdie G’s

SANTA MONICA » American $$

» Italian $

It’s equally pleasant to grab and go or eat at this quiet, affordable spot that features fresh pastas topped with farmers’ market fare. The colorful, poppy-seed-sprinkled beet ravioli is delicate and delicious, while the gramigna with pesto and ricotta is

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2021

W EST

EAST

Includes Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Century City, Culver City, Malibu, Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, Palms, Santa Monica, Venice, West L.A., Westwood

Includes Atwater Village, Eagle Rock, East L.A., Echo Park, Glendale, Los Feliz, Pasadena, San Gabriel Valley, Silver Lake

Dear John’s » Steak House $$$

CULVER CITY

There’s still good times and great food to be had at this former Sinatra hang stylishly revamped by Josiah Citrin and Hans Röckenwagner. Steak-house classics— crab Louie, oysters Rockefeller, thick prime steaks— pay homage to the lounge’s Rat Pack past and can be enjoyed on a sunny new patio or to go. 11208 Culver Blvd., 310-881-9288, or dearjohnsbar.com. Full bar.

T H E VALLEY DOWNTOWN Includes Arts District, Bunker Hill, Chinatown, Historic Core, Little Tokyo, South Park

Includes Agoura Hills, Burbank, Calabasas, Encino, North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Van Nuys

CENTRAL

SOUT H

Includes Beverly Grove, East Hollywood, Fairfax District, Hancock Park, Hollywood, Koreatown, West Hollywood

Includes Bell, Compton, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, Watts

Denotes restaurants with outdoor seating $ $$ $$$ $$$$

I N E X P E N S I V E (Meals under $10) M O D E R A T E (Mostly under $20) E X P E N S I V E (Mostly under $30) V E R Y E X P E N S I V E ($30 and above)

Felix

VENICE » Italian $$$

At Evan Funke’s clubby, floral-patterned trattoria, the rigorous dedication to tradition makes for superb focaccia and pastas. The rigatoni cacio e pepe—tubes of pasta adorned only with Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper—nods to Roman shepherds who used the spice to keep warm, while the rigatoni all’Amatriciana with cured pork cheek sings brilliantly alongside Italian country wines. 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd., 424-387-8622, or felixla.com. Full bar.

Kato SAWTELLE

» Cal-Asian $$$

Jon Yao is now serving his acclaimed Taiwanese tasting menu outdoors. Dishes like 3 Cup Abalone and Dungeness crab soup are just as revelatory alfresco.

At $118 for more than a dozen courses, Yao’s prix fixe menu is one of the best deals in town. 11925 Santa Monica Blvd., 424-535-3041, or katorestaurant.com.

Mírame

Price classifications are approximate and based on the cost of a typical main course that serves one.

For restaurants primarily offering multicourse family meals, the cost per person of such a meal is used.

In the current climate, restaurant hours are changing quite frequently. Check websites or social media accounts for the most current information.

BEVERLY HILLS » Mexican $$$

Joshua Gil is cooking exciting, contemporary Mexican fare with market-driven ingredients and serving them on a stunning patio. Dishes are imaginative but not overly contrived—salmon-skin chicharrón with fermented garlic aioli; a divine slow-cooked Heritage Farms pork shoulder served with a black-lime gastrique, celtuce, and hearty, richly flavorful frijoles charros cooked with a pig’s head. The latter is available as part of Mírame’s to-go family meal, which includes house-made tortillas; a memorable riff on Caesar salad

F R I E D C H I C K E N SA N DW I C H ST U D I O S

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with pork chicharrón, roasted vegetables and goat cheese; chocolate flan; and an adorable little bottle of margaritas. At just $105 for two people, it’s an amazingly affordable way to sample Gil’s cooking. 419 N. Canon Dr. , 310-230-5035, mirame.la, or @mirame.la. Full bar.

Ospi VENICE » Italian $$$

Jackson Kalb’s sprawling new Italian joint brings bustle and outdoor tables to a corner on an otherwise quiet stretch. Pastas, including a spicy rigatoni alla vodka and raschiatelli with a pork rib ragù, are sublime, and most travel remarkably well if you’re looking to takeout, which is the only option for lunch. Roman-style pizzas boast a uniquely crispy, cracker-thin crust; to get the full crunch, have a slice as you drive your takeout home. 2025 Pacific Ave., 424-443-5007, ospivenice.com, or @ospiveni. Full bar.

Pasjoli SANTA MONICA » French $$$$

Dave Beran’s à la carte spot bucks the trends and eschews bistro clichés in favor of old-fashioned thrills— an elaborate pressed duck prepared just as Escoffier would have and served with potatoes au gratin dauphinois—and modern French fare. The showy duck must be reserved in advance as only a limited number of birds are available each night. But there are plenty of other exciting dishes on the menu, such as the chicken liver in brioche and a complex lobster, mussel, and clam bisque with shaved fennel and tarragon.

2732 Main St., 424-330-0020, or pasjoli.com. Full bar.

Pizzana BRENTWOOD » Italian $$

It’s not easy to make over the local pie joint, but 35-yearold chef Daniele Uditi has reimagined an urban standby with equal parts purism and playfulness that has become a neighborhood favorite in the process. Most impressive is the open-mindedness that has him deftly transforming the Roman pasta dish cacio e pepe into a pizza or putting a hearty short rib ragù on the Pignatiello pie. And in a real twist, appetizers and seasonal salads aren’t afterthoughts but highlights. Don’t miss specials, like an insane chicken parm sandwich. 11712 San Vicente Blvd., 310-481-7108, pizzana.com, or @pizzana. Also at 460 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, 310-657-4662.

DOWNTOWN Angry Egret Dinette » Sandwiches $$

spicy lamb burger. If tradition’s your thing, you’ll be comforted by spice-stewed chickpeas, potato and pea samosas, and what they call Good Ol’ Saag Paneer.

Wash it all down with carefully curated, reasonably priced natural wines. 108 W. 2nd St., 213-221-7466, badmaashla.com, or @badmaashla. Beer and wine to go.

Also at 418 N. Fairfax Ave., Fairfax District, 213-281-5185.

Guerrilla Cafecito » Breakfast $-$$

Pearl River Deli CHINATOWN » Chinese $ Chef Johnny Lee has gained a reputation as a poultry wizard, and his succulent Hainan chicken is a highly sought-after dish. Sadly, he’s serving it only as an occasional weekend special at his tiny Far East Plaza takeout spot. But don’t despair: the ever-changing menu is full of winners, from a pork chop sandwich on a pineapple bun to a beefy, memorable rendition of mapo tofu. 727 N. Broadway, Ste. 130, 626-688-9507, pearlriverdeli.com, or @prd_la.

Redbird HISTORIC CORE » New American $$$$

Neal Fraser has defined his own kind of L.A. elegance over the 20 years he’s been cooking in his native city.

Setting up shop in the deconsecrated St. Vibiana Cathedral offered an opportunity to add theatrics to a space that’s contemporary and classically plush and now boasts three distinct outdoor dining areas. A delicate curried carrot broth and beluga lentils transform slices of smoked tofu from wholesome to haute, while lamb belly spins on a spit in the former rectory.

114 E. 2nd St., 213-788-1191, or redbird.la. Full bar.

FASHION DISTRICT

Badmaash

WEST ADAMS

CARB DIEM Thai Town bakery Friends and Family, talks flour power in her new book, Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution.

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Venice: 10101 Venice Blvd. | (310) 202-7003 Full Bar | Sushi Bar Beverly Hills: 998 S. Robertson Blvd. | (310) 855-9380 Full Bar | Valet Parking

Dine In | Delivery | Take Out | Order Online

nataleethai.com

» Mexican $

At this downtown spot known for its flour tortillas, you can order à la carte or opt for affordable family-style takeout options to make your own tacos, burritos, or chimichangas filled with chorizo, carne asada, or mesquite-grilled chicken. Wash it all down with a six-pack of Tecate or seasonal aguas frescas. 208 E. 8th St., 213-628-3710, sonoratown.com, or @sonoratownla. Beer.

FASHION DISTRICT

» Roxana Jullapat, owner of the beloved

“The Best of Culver City”

Sonoratown

Wes Avila has left Guerrilla Tacos and is focusing on torta-esque sandwiches at this heartfelt new venture.

Standouts include the Whittier Blvd: beef belly braised in star anise-laced lard for eight hours, then stuffed in a roll with horseradish cream, avocado, queso fresco, serrano chile, and red pepper escabeche. It’s hearty and decadent—especially if you opt to add a duck egg, which you should— but also wonderfully nuanced. There’s ample outdoor seating, but sandwiches with fried ingredients, like a veggie number, with squash blossom tempura, miraculously manage to remain crispy and travel well. 970 N. Broadway, Ste. 114, 213-278-0987, aedinette.com, or @angryegretdinette.

» Indian $$

C U I S I N E

This newish breakfast offshoot around the corner from Guerilla Tacos makes a perfectly balanced brekkie burrito that rivals the city’s long-established best.

The doughnuts are wonderfully not-too-sweet: a doughnut even a non-doughnut lover can love.

No wonder they often sell out. 704 Mateo St., 213375-3300, or guerrillacafecito.com.

Superfine Pizza

This Indian gastropub concept comes from the father-and-sons team of Pawan, Nakul, and Arjun Mahendro, who are all well versed in the culinary techniques of East and West. The menu features contemporary mash-ups, like a version of poutine smothered in chicken tikka, tandoori chicken wings, and a

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HISTORIC CORE

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» Pizza $

Get a quick taste of Rossoblu chef Steve Samson’s Italian-food mastery at his casual pizzeria, which serves both thin-crust slices and whole pies. The pepperoni always pleases, but the honey—with spicy salami, provolone, and Grana Padano—really thrills.

1101 S. San Pedro St., Ste. F, 323-698-5677, super finepizza.com, or @super finepizza.

CENTRAL Alta Adams » California Soul Food $$

Riffing on his grandmother’s recipes, Watts native Keith Corbin loads up his gumbo with market veggies and enlivens his collard greens with a smoked oil.

Soul food in this city is too often associated with Styrofoam containers, but this verdant patio, which reopened March 18, is a lovely place to linger. Hot sauce splashed onto skillet-fried chicken is pure pleasure, enhanced by a bourbon drink the bar tints with roasted peanuts and huckleberries. Finish the night by taking on a heroic wedge of coconut cake. 5359 W. Adams Blvd., 323-571-4999, or altaadams.com. Full bar.

Antico LARCHMONT VILLAGE » Italian $$

Chef Chad Colby smartly converted his East Larchmont Italian restaurant into a takeout spot for foccacia pizzas and ice cream, fashioning a makeshift pizza oven with

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the plancha top that used to sit on the restaurant’s hearth. The ice cream has a wonderfully smooth texture, and the flavors are spot-on. The honeycomb and strawberry have garnered a lot of praise since the restaurant opened in 2019—and rightly so—but Colby has regularly been introduing new flavors like cookies-andcream and pistachio. 4653 Beverly Blvd., 323-510-3093, antico-la.com, or antico_la. Wine to go.

A.O.C.

BEVERLY GROVE » California $$$

Unforced and driven by culinary excellence, A.O.C. is anchored by a courtyard with soft sunlight and laurel trees. Caroline Styne’s wine list doesn’t shy away from the ecology of vineyards, while Suzanne Goin’s cooking has become indispensable. Carefully constructed salads showcase vegetables at their best, and the roasted chicken with panzanella is both an homage to San Francisco’s Zuni Café and a classic in and of itself. 8700 W. 3rd St., 310-859-9859, or aocwinebar.com. Full bar.

Brandoni Pepperoni WEST HOLLYWOOD » Pizza $$ Six nights a week, Brandon Gray turns out some of L.A.’s most exciting pizzas. Gray, a veteran of Navy kitchens and top local restaurants like Providence, brings boundless imagination to his pies. They’re topped with premium ingredients—Jidori chicken, Sungold tomatoes, Spanish octopus—in exciting combinations. A curry-Dijonnaise dressing renders a side salad surprisingly memorable. 5881 Saturn St., Faircrest Heights, 323-306-4968, or brandoni-pepperoni.com.

Wine to go.

Harold & Belle’s JEFFERSON PARK » Southern Creole $$ For Creole-style food—a mélange of French, African, and Native American flavors—Harold & Belle’s is as close to the Dirty Coast as you’ll come on the West Coast. The crawfish étouffée in spicy gravy will have you humming

zydeco, while the bourbon bread pudding will leave you with a Sazerac-worthy buzz. 2920 W. Jefferson Blvd., 323-735-9023, or haroldandbelles.com. Full bar.

mozza.com. Full bar. Pizzeria: 641 N. Highland Ave., 323-297-0101, or pizzeriamozza.com. Beer and wine.

Lalibela

HANCOCK PARK » Cal-French $$$

FAIRFAX DISTRICT » Ethiopian $-$$

The strip of Fairfax known as Little Ethiopia has long been dominated by the same handful of restaurants.

Chef-owner Tenagne Belachew worked in a few of them before opening her own sophisticated haven, which invites with the swirling aromas of berbere and burning sage. Stretchy disks of injera—the sour, teff-flour pancake that doubles as a utensil for scooping up food by hand— arrive piled with uniquely pungent delights. There are wots, or stews, made with chicken or spiced legumes or lamb sautéed in a creamy sauce. 1025 S. Fairfax Ave., 323965-1025, or lalibelala.com. Beer and wine.

Luv2Eat Thai Bistro HOLLYWOOD » Thai $$ Vibrant flavors and spices abound at this strip-mall favorite from two Phuket natives. The crab curry, with a whole crustacean swimming in a creamy pool of deliciousness, is not to be missed (it travels surprisingly well), but the expansive menu is full of winners, from the massaman curry to the Thai fried chicken with sticky rice and sweet pepper sauce. 6660 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-498-5835, luv2eatthai.com, or @luv2eat.thaibistro.

Osteria Mozza/Mozza2Go » Italian $$$

HANCOCK PARK

Nancy Silverton aims for end-times elegance with a parking lot that’s been transformed into a piazza where you can spend an evening nibbling on pastas, pizzas, and thoughtful salads from Mozza, Chi Spacca, and Pizzeria Mozza. Mozza2Go’s expansive menu is heavy on the pizzas, with an $85 five-pizza package that’s a steal. Don’t miss the Spacca burgers, offered only on the weekends, for takeout and delivery only.

Osteria: 6602 Melrose Ave., 323-297-0100, or osteria

République

République may be devoted to French food, but its soul is firmly rooted in Californian cuisine. Walter Manzke is as skilled at making potato and leek beignets as he is at roasting cauliflower and local dates. Meanwhile, Margarita Manzke’s breads and pastries are always spot-on. Like a fine wine, this classic L.A. restaurant just gets better and better. 624 S. La Brea Ave., 310362-6115, or republiquela.com. Full bar.

Ronan

FAIRFAX DISTRICT » Cal-Italian $$

At Daniel and Caitlin Cutler’s chic pizzeria, the pies—especially the How ‘Nduja Like It? with spicy sausage, gorgonzola crema, green onion, and celery—are the clear stars, but it’s a big mistake not to explore the entire menu. It’s filled with delicious delights, from cacio e pepe risotto to a sea bass served with an ever-changing assortment of banchan. 7315 Melrose Ave., 323-917-5100, ronanla.com, or @ronan_la. Full bar.

Slab BEVERLY GROVE

» Barbecue $$

Hungry diners used to line up in the driveway of Burt Bakman’s home, desperate for a taste of his famous smoked barbecue meats. In 2018, Bakman came up from the underground, opening a sleek storefront that’s now filling to-go orders for hearty fare, from perfectly marbled brisket to pulled-pork sandwiches and collard greens. You can even get a six-pack of Bud Light. 8136 W. 3rd. St., 310-855-7184, slabbarbecue.com, or @slab. Beer and wine.

Son of a Gun » Seafood $$

BEVERLY GROVE

Florida-raised chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo deliver

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a certain brand of sun-drenched seashore nostalgia.

Dropping into the nautically themed dining room for chilled peel-and-eat shrimp and a hurricane feels as effortless as dipping your toes in the sand. There are buttery lobster rolls and fried-chicken sandwiches alongside artfully plated crudos. 8370 W. 3rd St., 323-7829033, or sonofagun restaurant.com. Full bar.

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EAST All Day Baby SILVER LAKE » Eclectic $$

F O U R T O T RY MINT CHIP ICE CREAM DESSERT MAESTROS ARE SCOOPING UP FRESH TAKES ON THE CLASSIC FLAVOR

1 FRESH MINT CHIP SW E E T R O S E C R E A M E RY

Fresh spearmint leaves from Kenter Canyon Farms—rather than spearmint extract— give this scoop a more herbaceous flavor.

“We steep the spearmint leaves in the base and infuse for a few hours,” explains kitchen director Jen Bolbat. “Then we give it a little blend to bring out more of that fresh minty flavor.” $5.75, 2726 Main St., Santa Monica, sweetrosecreamery.com.

2 FRECKLED MINT TCHO-COLATE CHIP SA LT & ST RAW

This vegan version’s coconut cream base works especially well for the flavor. “It stands up to the mint and balances out the intensity in a way that I don’t think a more mild dairy base would,” says owner Tyler Malek. $5.50, multiple locations, saltandstraw.com.

3 MILK, MINT, AND CHO COLATE FATA M O R G A N A G E L ATO

This gelateria boasts that it uses all-natural ingredients, including a chocolate sauce made with premium cacao that’s stirred into a frozen minty base. It freezes on contact to create unique streaks of chocolate. “That’s why we do not call it ‘mint chip,’ ” says owner Alessandro Jacchia. $5.75, 12021 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, gelateriafatamorgana.com.

4 DIRTY MINT CHIP

CO U RT E SY CO O L H AU S

CO O L H AU S

A brown-sugar base and flecks of mint leaves make for a unique iteration. “When we were first testing ice cream in the very early days, we ran out of white sugar, and we were too lazy to strain the mint leaves,” explains cofounder Natasha Case. “The lesson is laziness leads to innovation!” $6, 8588 Washington Blvd., Culver City, cool.haus.

— G R AC E JA E G E R

Jonathan Whitener’s Here’s Looking At You is, sadly, closed, but his thrilling cooking continues on a bustling Eastside corner. Whether you opt for smoked spare ribs, a hot catfish sandwich, or a breakfast sandwich on pastry chef Thessa Diadem’s sublime biscuits, it’s all great. 3200 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-7410082, alldaybabyla.com, or @alldaybabyla.

Bar Restaurant » French $$$

SILVER LAKE

Chef Douglas Rankin, who worked under Ludo Lefebvre for years, struck out on his own with this charming “neo bistro” in the old Malo space in Sunset Junction. The menu features playful Gallic-ish fare, like curly fries and plump mussels Dijon atop milk toast; classic cocktails; and plenty of funky wines available by the glass. A large parking-lot seating area has huge plants, twinkling lights, and good vibes. Somehow it manages to feel both festive and safe. 4326 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-347-5557. Full bar.

Eszett SILVER LAKE

» Eclectic $$

This stylish, cozy wine bar brings warm hospitality and tasty plates, large and small, to the strip-mall space formerly occupied by Trois Familia. Chef Spencer Bezaire’s menu showcases Japanese, French, and German influences, making for hearty yet refined togo meals. The big fries alone are worth an order.

3510 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-522-6323, or eszettla.com.

Wine and beer.

Found Oyster EAST HOLLYWOOD

» Seafood $$$

This tiny oyster bar was a pre-pandemic favorite, and chef Ari Kolender’s seafood dishes still thrill when taken to go or enjoyed on the restaurant’s “boat deck.”

The scallop tostada with yuzu kosho and basil is a must-order, and a bisque sauce takes the basic lobster roll to new heights. Interesting, affordable wines add to the fun. 4880 Fountain Ave., 323-486-7920, foundoyster.com, or @foundoyster. Wine and beer.

Hippo HIGHLAND PARK

» Cal-Italian $$

Hidden in a wood-trussed dining room behind Triple Beam Pizza, this Cal-Ital restaurant from Mozza vet Matt Molina balances casual and refined. Snappy wax beans are sluiced with vinaigrette for a picnicworthy salad. Great pastas and juicy grilled chicken thighs deliver the unfussy pleasure found at the best neighborhood spots. Eclectic regular specials like haute corn dogs add to the fun. 5916 ½ N. Figueroa St., 323-545-3536, or hipporestaurant.com. Full bar.

Maury’s Bagels SILVER LAKE » Bagels $ East Coast transplant Jason Kaplan spent a decade in L.A. before deciding he had to take matters into his own hands if he wanted a great bagel in this town. He started out as a pop-up at farmers’ markets and coffee shops, but his appropriately modestly sized, delightfully chewy bagels and quality smoked fish now have a brick-and-mortar location. On a quiet Eastside corner next door to Psychic Wines, it’s quite charming. 2829 Bellevue Ave., 323- 380-9380, maurysbagels.com, or @maurys_losangeles.

Northern Thai Food Club EAST HOLLYWOOD » Thai $ Offering specialty dishes unique to northern Thailand, this family-run favorite doesn’t skimp on flavor, spice,

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L A M AG . C O M 9 1

or authenticity. Tasty takeout meals include the khao soi gai (curry egg noodle with chicken), laab moo kua (minced pork), tam kha noon (jackfruit salad), and pla salid tod (fried gourami fish). For those unfamiliar with the region’s distinct cuisine, the illustrious sticky rice is still a reliable bet. Need more incentive? Everything on the menu is less than $10. 5301 Sunset Blvd., 323-474-7212, or amphainorthernthaifood.com.

Saso PASADENA

» Spanish $$$

The arrival of this splashy new spot suggests that the good times might soon be here again. It shares a charming, sprawling courtyard with the Pasadena Playhouse, and the seafood-heavy menu from chef Dominique Crisp, who previously worked at L&E Oyster Bar, begs for reuniting with friends on nice summer nights. Orange zest enlivens jamon iberico crudite, while miso butter takes grilled oysters to new heights. 37 S. El Molino Ave., 626-808-4976, saso bistro.com, or @sasobistro. Full bar.

Sōgo Roll Bar » Sushi $$

LOS FELIZ

So-go is hardly the only concept in town devoted to

C H E F FAVO R I T E S L AU R E L A L M E R I N DA PASTRY CHEF, HUCKLEBERRY

SWEET CHEEKS PIZZA RONAN “With ricotta, guanciale, and honey, it’s sweet, funky, and salty. Plus, I love the blistery sourdough crust.” $24, 7315 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, ronanla.com.

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PATATAS BRAVAS GASOLINA CAFE “For breakfast and lunch, they do potatoes with serrano ham, chorizo, and a sunny-side egg. The ham is shatteringly crisp, and it all just comes together.” $16, 21150 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, gasolinacafe.com.

SANGAK WOODLAND HILLS MARKET “They bake this traditional Persian bread fresh every hour. The recipe is a closely guarded secret, but they will disclose that it’s whole wheat and it’s sourdough. It’s covered with sesame seeds, and it’s just chewy, nutty, earthy perfection. It’s shaped in this swath that’s, like, three feet long. It’s so fun. I never think we’ll eat the whole thing, but my husband and I always do.” $3.50, 19964 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, woodlandhills market.com.

rolls, but it has mastered the form. Rice is cooked with the same careful consideration and seasoning that sushi master Kiminobu Saito uses at the high-end Sushi Note, and it manages to maintain a great temperature and texture, even when being delivered. Fish is not just fresh but also flavorful, each type thoughtfully paired with ideal accompaniments, from a tangy yuzu-pepper sauce that makes salmon sing to brandysoaked albacore with garlic-ginger ponzu and crispy onions. 4634 Hollywood Blvd., 323-741-0088, sogoroll bar.com, or @sogorollbar. Beer and sake.

Spoon & Pork » Filipino $$

SILVER LAKE

The go-to for Filipino comfort food offers a variety of dishes, all featuring one shared ingredient: deliciousness. Spoon & Pork puts an innovative spin on some Filipino favorites—just try its adobo pork belly, pork belly banh mi, or lechón kawali. The dishes, which can be ordered at the counter to enjoy on the patio or for takeout and delivery, elegantly mix decadence with some authentic soul. 3131 W. Sunset Blvd., 323922-6061, spoonandpork.com, or @spoonandporkla.

Beer and wine.

Sunset Sushi SILVER LAKE » Japanese $$$ With omakase boxes priced from $30 to $85, this new sushi place in the old Ma’am Sir space strikes the sweet spot between affordable and indulgent and is another exciting addition to the Eastside’s growing number of quality sushi options. It’s a sister spot to Highland Park’s Ichijiku, but with a more luxe vibe and a larger menu, tailor-made for takeout. 4330 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-741-8371, sunsetsushila.com, or @sunsetsushi. Beer and sake to go.

Union PASADENA

» Italian $$$

The food shines at this cozy trattoria just off Pasadena’s main drag. Chef Chris Keyser, an acolyte of Philadelphia pasta maestro Marc Vetri, joined in 2019, keeping classics, like a great cacio e pepe, on the menu while adding his own dishes, such as a thrilling crispy octopus appetizer. Most of the eat-in menu is also available to go, and family-style meals for four are also available. The pastas all impress, but don’t miss the wild mushrooms and polenta with a sublimely delicious sherry vinegar and truffle butter sauce. 37 E. Union St., 626-795-5841, unionpasadena .com, or @unionpasadena. Wine.

THE VALLEY Black Market Liquor Bar » New American $$

STUDIO CITY

Some nights it seems as if half the Valley is here, enjoying the colorful patio. Top Chef graduate Antonia Lofaso’s Italian chops are visible in the buxom ricotta gnudi with brown butter and pistachios. The deepfried fluffernutter sandwich is a reminder that food, like life, should not be taken too seriously. 11915 Ventura Blvd., 818-446-2533, or blackmarket liquorbar.com. Full bar.

The Brothers Sushi » Sushi $$$

WOODLAND HILLS

This hidden gem, reinvigorated when chef Mark Okuda took the helm in 2018, is worth traveling for.

Keep spirits up with the Hand-Roll Party home kits (there’s even one for kids), or splurge on an omakase that can be enjoyed on the patio or to go. You can also order à la carte or get non-sushi items like soyglazed grilled chicken. 21418 Ventura Blvd., 818-4564509, thebrotherssushi.com, or @thebrotherssushila.

Beer, wine, and sake.

» Mexican $

The Vega family’s 64-year-old institution has put up a massive tent in its parking lot to keep the margaritas flowing amidst COVID-19 restrictions. And if you prefer takeout, there’s a drive-through setup that makes it easy to pick up a plate of enchiladas or a

92 L A M AG . C O M

M AT T A R M E N DA R I Z

Casa Vega SHERMAN OAKS

hulking “oven-style” burrito topped with enchilada sauce and melted cheese. The expansive menu has a great selection of hearty crowd-pleasers, cocktails, and tequilas. You might leave tipsy, but you’ll never go hungry. 13301 Ventura Blvd., 818-788-4868, or casavega.com. Full bar.

Hank’s BURBANK

» Bagels $

The L.A. bagel revolution continues at this stylish spot in the Valley that serves up carefully constructed sandwiches. Tomato, aioli, and maple-glazed bacon elevate a simple bacon, egg, and cheese, while a classic salmon-and-lox construction has thoughtful touches like salted cucumbers and pickled onions.

Sammies shine with plain cream cheese, but it’s worth grabbing a tub of Hank’s “angry” spread—a spicy, slightly sweet concoction—to have in your fridge. And no cream cheese is needed for Hank’s everything jalapeno-cheddar bagel, a stunning gut bomb. 4315 Riverside Dr., 818-588-3693, hanksbagels .com, or @hanksbagels. Also at 13545 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

SOUTH Ali’i Fish Company EL SEGUNDO » Seafood $$ This small, unassuming spot shames all of the glossy poke purveyors popping up around town to serve mediocre versions of the Hawaiian dish. Glistening cubes of tuna, flown in fresh from the islands daily, remind you how great poke can be. Even a vegan poke, with tofu and sea asparagus, manages to satisfy.

If you’re not looking to go raw, there are various salmon and tuna burgers to choose from, and the smokedahi dip with house-made potato chips is not to be missed. Perfect for picking up a beach picnic. 409 E. Grand Ave., 310-616-3484, or aliifishco.com.

Fishing With Dynamite » Seafood $$$

MANHATTAN BEACH

A premium raw bar near the beach shouldn’t be unusual, but it is. The same goes for velvety clam chowder. Here, it achieves smoky richness—you can thank the Nueske’s bacon for that—without any of the floury glop. On the menu, you’ll find several kinds of oysters from across the country, Peruvian scallops, and Alaskan king crab legs. 1148 Manhattan Ave., 310-893-6299, or eatfwd.com. Full bar.

Hotville BALDWIN HILLS CRENSHAW

» Fried chicken $

After three years of running a pop-up, Kim Prince has opened a brick-and-mortar that does her family’s legacy justice—she’s the niece of André Prince Jeffries, owner of Nashville legend Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, where hot fried chicken is said to have originated. Prince adds spice at every step in the cooking process to produce a complex, layered flavor. The sides ($5 and up), like spicy mac and cheese and kale coleslaw, are also winners. 4070 Marlton Ave., 323-792-4835, or hotvillechicken.com.

No alcohol.

Little Sister REDONDO BEACH » Asian Fusion $$

Chef and co-owner Tin Vuong deftly translates the flavors of Vietnam for a casual drinking scene. Nibble on fresh spring rolls with shrimp, pork, and a peanut dipping sauce, then wash it all down with a craft beer or three. 247 Avenida del Norte, 424-3980237, or dinelittlesister.com. Beer, wine, and sake.

M.B. Post

and charred scallions. There’s plenty of wordplay on the menu (“Meat Me Later”), but no pun can do justice to his bacon-cheddar biscuits with maple butter. 1142 Manhattan Ave., 310-545-5405, or eatmb post.com. Full bar.

Little Coyote LONG BEACH » Pizza $ That most amazing slice of pizza you had that one, very drunken, late night in your early twenties in New York lives on . . . in Long Beach. The crust, made with dough cold-fermented for 48 to 72 hours, is carby perfection: tangy, crispy, thin but with a healthy puff. The concise menu doesn’t offer any revelations about what should be atop pizza, but instead perfects the usual suspects: pepperoni comes in generous quantities, tiny porky cups glistening with grease; a veggie supreme transcends the usual half-cooked-produce mediocrity of the form. This is pizza worth driving south for. 2118 E. 4th St., 562434-2009, littlecoyotelbc.com, or @littlecoyotelbc.

Tamales Elena Y Antojitos BELL GARDENS » Afro-Mexican $ This small spot, with counter service, a drivethrough window, and a patio purports to be the only Afro-Mexican restaurant in the area. It focuses on a distinct cuisine from a part of Guerrero to which former slaves fled. Pozoles are rich and slightly thick, and the memorable pork tamales with red sauce are wrapped in fire-tinged banana leaves that impart a hint of smoke. 81801 Garfield Ave., 562-0674-3043, ordertamaleselenayantojitos.com, or @tamales elenayantojitos.

MANHATTAN BEACH » New American $$

David LeFevre (the Arthur J, Fishing With Dynamite) cuts a swath through genres and latitudes with the gusto of someone who’s clearly pleased to be at the stove. He sears Scottish salmon with roasted garlic puree, sugar snap peas, truffle vinaigrette,

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MAD RAP Nipsey Hussle (left) and YG.

APPALLED BY DONALD TRUMP’S RACISM, L.A.’S NIPSEY HUSSLE AND YG RECORDED “FDT”—AKA “F*CK DONALD TRUMP”—A BROADSIDE THEY DROPPED INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE 2016 ELECTION. AS VIBE COFOUNDER ROB KENNER REPORTS IN THIS EXCERPT FROM HIS NEW BIOGRAPHY OF HUSSLE, “FDT” WAS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL RAP PROTEST SONG SINCE “F*CK THA POLICE” AND PERMANENTLY DELEGITIMIZED TRUMP IN THE HIP-HOP COMMUNITY THAT ONCE EMBRACED HIM

L A M AG . C O M 75

Nipsey Hussle C O N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 7 9

After reviewing the lyrics, the Secret Service objected to YG’s “Surprised El Chapo ain’t tryin’ to snipe you” and Hussle’s “And if your ass do win, you gon’ prolly get smoked” and demanded that these lines be removed or else the album would be pulled.

“Ever since John F. Kennedy was assassinated, there’s somewhere in the law that you’re not allowed to cite any type of violence towards a sitting politician,” Steve “Steve-O” Carless, YG’s A&R and one of Hussle’s business partners, explained in an interview.

“I was just like, Damn,” said YG, who considered leaving “FDT” off of Still Brazy altogether. Carless convinced him to keep the song on the album with the offending lines removed. “It’s still explicit,” said Carless. Says YG , “Donald Trump definitely heard ‘Fuck Donald Trump.’ ” Even in the song’s edited form, Rolling Stone hailed “FDT” as the summer’s “most jubilant protest anthem . . . a catchy middle-finger track.” But acceding to government censorship didn’t make it any easier to get the song played on the air. “We can’t get it cleared,” YG said during a visit to Big Boy’s Neighborhood. “Radio stations banned the joint. It’s understandable, though.” Undaunted by the radio blackout, Hussle and YG doubled down by dropping a remix of “FDT” featuring G-Eazy and Macklemore, spreading the message to fans of the clean-cut white rappers.

While Hussle stayed close to home awaiting the birth of his son, YG hit the road in the summer of 2016 for a nationwide Fuck Donald Trump tour, pledging to donate a dollar from each ticket to victims of police brutality. YG was used to dealing with pushback from concert promoters concerned about his gang ties, but after “FDT,” the pressure increased. “One day they just started trippin’, ” he said. “My shows

started gettin’ canceled.” When one reporter asked YG if he was actively proHillary, he replied, “I ain’t pro-nobody.

I’m just pro-‘Fuck Trump.’ ” Inspiring young voters to say “FDT” would prove easier than inspiring them to register, vote, and support his opponent. In between the Chicago and Minneapolis gigs, with a month still to go on the FDT tour, Trump won the presidency—despite Hillary Clinton earning almost three million more votes.

Hussle was shocked when he heard the results. “I be so busy working that I catch it as it’s unfolding,” he recalled.

“They were like, ‘The polls lookin’ like he’s gonna win,’ and I’m like, ‘He ain’t finna win.’ ” One of Hussle’s business associates, the marketing maven Karen Civil, had been working with the Clinton campaign. “She had the celebration set up for Hillary,” Nipsey said. Like many, Hussle assumed Hillary had it in the bag. “When they said Trump won, I was in shock,” he said. “Almost how I felt when Obama won, but at the opposite end of the spectrum.” YG took the loss even harder. After all that he and Hussle had put on the line, it was devastating to see Trump win. “It’s America, that’s how it was designed,” YG said. “We came here as slaves. It wasn’t designed for us to win.” Still, he felt good for speaking his mind.

“That’s what rap is made for,” he said.

“Too many rappers keep saying shit with no substance.”

S THE SHOCK OF

Trump’s victory wore off, YG focused on “knowing my rights, chasing my dreams, and taking care of people.” The “FDT” experience had a profound effect on him. “I’m on that positive now,” he said. “We’re playing for keeps, for survival. We’ve got to play chess, we can’t be playing checkers. We have to motivate, but we’ve also got to make our own moves and fight out there to keep our heads above water.

What else can we do?”

If there was any silver lining to Trump’s win, Hussle appreciated a certain “era of honesty” that came with his election. At least there was no pretense of fairness. “He’s not even hiding it,” Hussle said. “His shit is coming out, and he’s sayin’, Fuck it.”

As the Trump administration settled in, lying about the size of the crowd at his inauguration and instituting a travel ban against primarily Muslim countries, “FDT” gained new resonance. “When he won, the song became that much more meaningful,” Hussle observed. Global outrage over Trump’s policies spread, inspiring Hussle to tweet, “A wall won’t erase hate, only increase it. And a ban won’t protect us, only divide us.”

In some ways, the trajectory of “FDT” mirrored Hussle’s own, thriving on fervent grassroots fans rather than mainstream support. The song has become a protest anthem alongside N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police”—and remains so even in the George Floyd era.

On April 28, 2018, Hussle was booked at Broccoli Fest in Washington, DC, performing for a crowd of 33,000.

While he was in the nation’s capital, it seemed only right to close his set with “FDT.” Even two years after its release, the song always got a good response.

Fifteen minutes before Hussle took the stage, his team noticed a photo of Kanye with his red MAGA hat trending on social media and threw it onto the screen behind the stage. The crowd at Broccoli Fest booed the picture loudly.

“We let the people react to seeing the hip-hop icon that Ye is represent somebody who is completely opposite of what hip-hop stands for,” Hussle explained. “I don’t do the subliminal.

I’m not finna halfway diss you. I just thought that the picture had a lot of conversation around it. The White House is around the corner. I was gonna perform ‘Fuck Donald Trump.’

I wanted to create a moment.”

Hussle posted a shot of the stage with MAGA-capped Kanye on his Instagram with the caption “Performed #FDT in Washington D.C. Picture Speaking A Thousand Words.” As Hussle said later, “I think all of us as hip-hop artists, we gotta be liable. Even if you don’t come from the hood or you’re not from no block or you’re not from no area where there was standards. You a part of hip-hop. Hiphop got a standard. And you gotta hold yourself to that standard or else you gonna be ostracized. And if you don’t check yourself you might be revoked.”

From THE MARATHON DON’T STOP: The and Times of Nipsey Hussle by Rob Kenner.

Copyright © 2020 by Robert J. Kenner. Reprinted by permission of Atria Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. L A M AG . C O M 95

Q

E MAI L YOUR BURNI NG QUEST IONS ABOUT L.A. TO ASKCH RIS@LAMAG.COM

How long has the Twin Towers Jail been around? How many people are held there?

A:

The Twin Towers Jail is part of L.A.’s biggest big house, which includes the Men’s Central Jail and administration and infirmary buildings. The county built the complex on the site of an old cement factory a block from Union Station in 1963 to replace the decrepit Jazz Age cellblocks at the Hall of Justice. The 3,300 beds at Men’s Central Jail were joined by 4,100 bunks in 1997 when the Twin Towers opened. The perennially overcrowded facility had an average daily population of 14,949 at the end of last year, almost enough inmates to fill the Hollywood Bowl. Maybe they can take a field trip for some music therapy.

the steering system failed, the oak-andbrass behemoth was beached outside the shop, famed for customizing the cars of Paramount bigwigs in the ’60s and ’70s.

During the bar’s COVID closure, someone moved in and set the trolley on fire. “Now,” Paniagua says. “It’s a Porta Potty for the homeless.”

Q: Is it true that the cheese bread at

the Smoke House is made with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese?

A: “That’s the number one question we get,” says manager Manny Munoz. “I think it’s the color, but I tried doing that copycat one at home, and it doesn’t taste anything like ours.”

The Burbank restaurant’s comfort loaf includes sourdough, garlic, Parmesan, and two mystery chees-

es. The top-secret recipe was created by the original owners in 1946 and covertly passed on to generations of chefs.

Online sales have spiked since COVID hit our shores, and the restaurant now ships 300 vacuum-wrapped loaves across the country weekly, each filled with mouthwatering neon-orange cheese, sans Kraft.

Q: Does Goodwill siphon off the good stuff before donations reach stores?

A: While some goodies sneak through to build buzz around the “treasure hunt” appeal of the shops, Chanel bags, Rolex watches, and fine art usually end up on eBay, Amazon, and shopgoodwill. com. The charity’s L.A. district received 13 million pounds of donations last year, 98 percent of which made its way to store shelves. But since 2013, a team of 50 eagle-eyed experts has been employed at the Atwater Village store to hoard plunder. An Ed Ruscha print recently fetched $5,000 online, which helps the charity’s employment programs a lot more than my $5 would.

TWIN TOWERS: BOB CHAMBERLIN/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES; VAN GOGH: MICHAEL BROSILOW

Sheriff Sherman Block at the dedication of Twin Towers Jail in 1997.

9 6 L A M AG . C O M

Van Gogh A-Go-Go

A TRIPPY TRAVELING ART SHOW

JA I L T I M E

Q: What is that burned-out trolley parked across from Paramount Pictures?

A: “It’s an eyesore!” says Fidel Paniagua, owner of Theatrical Auto Body, located next to the Parisianthemed bar Pour Vous, where the vintage trolley once served as an outdoor dining room. “It was their—air quotes— ‘smoking section,’” says Paniagua. When

C H R I S ’S P I C K

O Instagrammers and art lovers have flocked to Immersive Van Gogh, a larger-than-life traveling show that projects the tortured artist’s greatest hits all over the floors and walls of historic halls around the world.

The animated art showcase turns the nineteenth-century oil paintings into a walk-through experience of shadow, light, and color starting May 27th at a top-secret Hollywood location.

Digital sunflowers and starry nights will dance across every surface as moody music transports you to a dreamscape of the European countryside. Since the promoters have rules against having paint, alcohol, and weapons inside the show, I’m sure they don’t want to see any absinthe or earcutting.

VOLUME 66, NUMBER 5. LOS ANGELES (ISSN 1522-9149) is published monthly by Los Angeles Magazine, LLC. Principal office: 5900 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA, and additional mailing offices. The one-year domestic subscription price is $14.95. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to LOS ANGELES, 1965 E. Avis Dr., Madison Heights, MI 48071. Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or other materials, which must be accompanied by return postage. SUBSCRIBERS: If the Postal Service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year.

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