In L.A., there is an abundance of eateries that exist in private — an underground food scene that you only know about if you’re lucky or loved.
‘At the end of the day, chefs care; they want to feed everyone. But they’re also struggling to figure things out for themselves.’Just being invited into someone’s home, like you said, is such a special thing. And I feel like I’m at a quinceañera right now in a lot of ways. And I really like that. That’s a very nostalgic, comfortable, exciting feeling.Or even a backyard party. You always know that the food you get there…… Is going to be homemade and bomb.
This organic, natural, tangential way that people find their clientele will happen, and then a rupture happens and the place is in trouble. The exclusivity vanishes, because it becomes too well known, becomes too mainstream. There can be tensions with neighbors, tensions with the local gangs over parking. So it’s actually a very magical thing in that sense. If one [of these places] survives and thrives for very long, it’s a very vulnerable thing.