The LA Food Podcast

It’s a Christmas-week episode of The LA Food Podcast, and we’re celebrating with one of the most joyful restaurants in Los Angeles.

This week, Luca Servodio sits down with Eric Bedroussian and Josh Hartley, the hospitality-driven duo behind Budonoki, the wildly popular Virgil Village izakaya that started as a roaming pop-up and grew into one of LA’s most electric dining rooms.

In this How I Built This–style conversation, Eric and Jos...

The LA Food Podcast does awards… our way. In this first-ever LA Food Awards, Luca Servodio and Father Sal toss out the tired “Best Chef / Best New Restaurant” formula and replace it with an audio awards ceremony celebrating the restaurants, chefs, and cultural moments that actually defined LA dining in 2025. At least for us. 

From the FOMO Award for the restaurants we’re most anxious to finally visit, to debates over the hottest res...

The LA food equivalent of a new Taylor Swift album dropped this week. The Los Angeles Times has released its annual 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles list, and Acquired Taste got early access before anyone else.

On this episode of The LA Food Podcast, Luca Servodio sits down with LA Times restaurant critics Bill Addison and Jenn Harris at Mercado La Paloma, which was named the number one restaurant on the 101 for 2025. The trio di...

Welcome back to The LA Food Podcast. This week, Luca and Karen Palmer dive into one of the most fascinating food stories of the year: the global fight over wagyu. Karen breaks down what Japanese producers are trying to protect, whether A5 wagyu is actually worth the hype, and why the debate mirrors DOP fights in Italy over ingredients like San Marzano tomatoes and Neapolitan pizza standards.

We also unpack Esquire’s Best New Restaur...

This week on The LA Food Podcast, Luca welcomes back Nancy DaSilva, co-host of Compliments to the Chef, certified New Yorker, and our official ambassador from LA’s louder, older, and more globally hyped culinary sibling: New York City.

We kick things off with a Thanksgiving ice-breaker before diving straight into the State of Dining in NYC. Is the vibe doom, boom, or mellow in-between? Nancy walks us through the restaurant openings ...

This week on The LA Food Podcast, Luca and Sal dive into the most chaotic, delicious, and debate-worthy stories shaping Los Angeles dining and the national food world.

We kick things off with recent eats at Wilde’s and Camphor before launching into our first-ever extended Chef’s Kiss or Big Miss lightning round.

We break down Eater National’s Best New Restaurants 2025, including L.A.’s powerhouse showing with Ki, Komal,...

This week on The LA Food Podcast, Luca sits down with Ben Leventhal — the founder of Eater and Resy — to talk about his most ambitious project yet: Blackbird, a next-gen restaurant loyalty and payments app that might reshape how we dine out and how restaurants survive. Recorded at Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica, the conversation breaks down how Blackbird rewards you for actually showing up and paying at your favorite restaurants, wh...

On this episode of The LA Food Podcast, host Luca Servodio sits down with legendary chef Ludo Lefebvre — the culinary rockstar behind LudoBites, Petit Trois, and some of Los Angeles’ most influential restaurants. Recorded inside his intimate Paris-inspired bistro, this candid conversation dives into Ludo’s early days disrupting the LA dining scene, his transition into a restaurant empire, and why he still believes food — and butter...

It’s a spooky milestone — 150 episodes of The LA Food Podcast! In this special Halloween edition, Luca Servodio and Father Sal dig into your listener questions in our first-ever mailbag episode: from the meals we felt peer pressured into liking to the undercooked food stories LA media ignores, and even what we’d do for restaurants if we were Mayor of Los Angeles. Expect chaos, confessions, and Father Sal’s unsolicited online dating...

Did the New York Times just cross the line with its brutal review of an LA dining icon? 🍽️ This week on The LA Food Podcast, we unpack Tejal Rao’s headline-grabbing critique of Wolfgang Puck’s Spago, the Beverly Hills institution she labeled merely “Satisfactory.” On our segment Chef’s Kiss / Big Miss, we debate: was this fair criticism, coastal bias, or just plain nonsense?

Plus, we’re diving into:

• 🍔 Bold new Califor...

Today on The LA Food Podcast, we’re flipping the script — focusing not on the restaurant, but on you, the diner. Joining Luca and Father Sal is James Beard Award–winning author Adam Reiner, whose new book The New Rules of Dining Out redefines how we experience hospitality from the other side of the table. Reiner shares insider wisdom on how to dine like a pro, earn the respect of even the most jaded servers, and why “enlightened ho...

What do Marilyn Monroe, Jeff Bezos, and Henry Kissinger have in common with The LA Food Podcast host Luca Servodio? They’ve all dined at Chez Jay, the legendary Santa Monica dive bar that’s been serving surf, turf, and stories since 1959.

In this week’s episode, Luca sits down with Mike and Chris Anderson, the father-son duo behind Chez Jay, and longtime chef Memo De Arcos to celebrate the restaurant’s 66th anniversary. They talk Ho...

On this week’s LA Food Podcast, Luca Servodio and Father Sal recap recent eats in NYC and LA before diving into Tejal Rao’s review of Baby Bistro — is it really the perfect encapsulation of LA dining in 2025? We also break down the new North America’s 50 Best Restaurants list: Atomix takes #1, New York dominates, Canada surges, and LA lands just three spots (Providence, Holbox, Kato). Plus, in Chef’s Kiss / Big Miss, we tackle mode...

Santa Barbara might be known as the American Riviera, but its food scene is finally demanding the spotlight. This week on The LA Food Podcast, we recap 72 hours of eats — from surprisingly great Mexican food to a bao joint everyone’s obsessed with — and explain why SB might just be California’s most exciting dining city right now.

Plus, we sit down with the team behind Dom’s Taverna, the Basque-inspired newcomer from Dominique Crisp...

This week on The LA Food Podcast, we dive into one of the most heated debates in the LA dining scene: why are Angelenos calling for a boycott of Enrique Olvera’s acclaimed downtown restaurant Damian? Is the backlash justified, or has a whistleblowing media outlet (LA Taco) gone too far?

Father Sal joins the conversation as we unpack the Damian controversy, celebrate the two Los Angeles spots that landed on Bon Appétit’...

Today on The LA Food Podcast, Dave Beran—the award-winning chef behind Santa Monica’s Pasjoli and the tasting-menu temple Seline—sits down for his most candid interview yet. We talk about stepping into roles before you feel ready, the line between an intense kitchen and a toxic one, fundraising and vision, and how he truly feels about Seline not earning a Michelin star in year one. We also rewind to his Chicago years with Grant Ach...

Today on The LA Food Podcast, we’re joined by none other than Nancy Silverton — LA’s Queen of Carbohydrates, President of Pizza, and Secretary of Sourdough. Recorded at Osteria Mozza, our free-flowing conversation covers Nancy’s legendary career, her impact on multiple eras of Los Angeles dining, and why she continues to bring new and exciting concepts to life. We also preview her upcoming panels at LA Chef Con 2025, including a tr...

What happens on the pod, stays on the pod—or does it? Following the hit Palm Springs recap, Luca is joined once again by his wife to break down a herculean three-day eating marathon at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the Strip’s buzziest new food destination. From Mother Wolf’s pasta to indulgent dinners at Don’s Prime and Chyna Club, dim sum at Washing Potato, and an ambitious food crawl at the Prome...

This week on The LA Food Podcast, Luca and Sal dig into the biggest story in food media: the latest round of layoffs at Eater. With reporters like Jaya Saxena and Amy McCarthy let go and LA’s newsroom slimmed down, what does this mean for local food journalism, restaurant coverage, and the future of dining media in Los Angeles? We also debate whether influencer content and guides like The Infatuation can really replace in-depth rep...