Alma
Dubbed by Bon Appétit as the country's best new restaurant of 2013, Downtown LA's Alma is a small, intimate wonderland of creative and exquisite food. Chef and co-owner Ari Taymor (who, at twenty-eight-years-old was just named Food & Wine's best new chef of 2014 -- making this twenty-eight-year-old food aficionado feel like quite the lump!) crafts a beautiful, seasonal 10-course tasting menu that draws upon ingredients grown in the restaurant's Flower Avenue garden and other local farms. Beginning and ending (one savory, one sweet) with pastel green tarts topped with brilliantly orange nasturtiums, the menu, accompanied with the restaurant's optional wine pairings, takes you on a palatably magical journey that reads like a poem:
Puffed trout with roe
English muffins with uni, creme fraiche, and caviar
Seaweed and tofu beignets with lime curd
peaches cooked in embers with crème fraiche and caviar
Cod with fava beans and almond foam
Frozen duck liver with carrot and coffee granola
Bouillabaisse with mussels, zucchini, and squash
Sweetbreads, carrots, peaches, white chocolate, juniper, and thyme
Pigeon with cherry, porcini mushrooms, and hazelnut
Each course is impeccably plated by the kitchen brigade, who fit snugly within the restaurant's exposed galley-style kitchen, working seamlessly as a team under Taymor's direction. The food is refined, both in presentation and flavor, and there is no doubt Alma deserves the many accolades it has received (as well ones it will surely continue to garner!).
Pinup Girl Clothing Deadly Dames Hotrod Honey Dress in 1950s Leopard Print
Lips: MAC Lipstick in Ruby Woo
English muffin with uni, crème fraiche, and caviar.
Frozen duck liver with carrot and coffee granola.
Bouillabaisse with mussels, zucchini, and squash.
Pigeon with cherry, porcini mushrooms, and hazelnuts.
