Food & Hope In The City Of Angels

When an angel called to tell me I had been invited to Los Angeles, I momentarily had cold feet. The source of my concern was a recent conversion to vegetarianism, or, to be more accurate, veganism. To my fevered brain, America was the land of T-bone and trans fat, where vegetar&shyians cowered under bushes and didn&rsquot venture out onto the streets.

I could not have been more off the skewer (bless the angel who coaxed and cajoled me). Unbeknownst to my ignorant, fretting self, a vegan revolution had swept through America, particularly under the benign Californian sun. For all its laidback vibe, Los Angeles&mdashoriginally El Pueblo de Nuestra Se&ntildeora la Reina de los &Aacutengeles del R&iacuteo Porci&uacutencula&mdashhas embraced this culi&shynary shift whole-heartedly. My imagina&shytion may be stuck in the 1980s, but modern American food has moved on, and is now all about farm-to-fork concepts, with a heavy emphasis on fresh, locally sourced produce, the revival of heirloom vegetable varieties and, when applicable, the use of sustainably reared meat. The portions, as I learned, have remained reassuringly American. You don&rsquot starve in the land of milk and honey.

Shortly after landfall, I found myself at the Larchmont Village location of Café Gratitude (cafegratitude.com), brimming with the eponymous emotion. It wasn&rsquot the food, about which in a sec, but because I had an enviable perch by the window, patting myself for reserving ahead as the raw-food mecca filled up rapidly with patrons. There was a strong likelihood I was sitting at the very table where Beyoncé and Jay-Z had celebrated the latter&rsquos 44th birthday in 2013 after they had declared they would go vegan for 22 days. That must have been hard, but Beyoncé cheered her&shyself up by turning up in pepperoni leggings and a mini-pizza-printed crop top by Kiko Mizuhara for Opening Ceremony.

&nbspWhile I waited for my repast to arrive, my dreamy-eyed server left me with a question &ldquoWhat are you excited about today&rdquo It&rsquos something of a ritual at Café Gratitude. They also name their dishes after moods and affirmations. I can vouch that the young coconut ceviche was cor&shyrectly labelled &lsquoBrilliant&rsquo on the menu. Naturally, I couldn&rsquot resist following that up with the Indian curry bowl (neither could Beyoncé and Jay-Z, incidentally). Called, um, &lsquoHumble&rsquo, it had squishy-soft red lentil dal, roasted garnet yams, coconut mint chutney and spicy tomato jam all piled onto a mound of fluffy, brown rice. My libation was their best-selling Chloro&shyphyll juice (&lsquoHealing&rsquo).

The owners of this chain of popular caf&eacutes did land head first into controversy a couple of years ago when it was revealed that, after 40 years of being vegetarian, they were raising, slaughtering and eating animals on their farm north of San Fran&shycisco. &ldquoCows make an extreme sacrifice for humanity but that is their position in God&rsquos plan as food for the predators,&rdquo they said in a statement, earning them death threats in the bargain. This did not affect the enjoy&shyment of my meal in any way&mdashthe food was just too damn good.

Dinner that night was at the Hearth & Hound (thehearthandhound.com). Set in an historic Hollywood landmark on a quiet stretch of Sunset Boulevard, it opened last December to much applause. Chef April Bloomfield&rsquos fame rests on the casual-chic Spotted Pig which has been operating in New York&rsquos West Village since 2004. She&rsquos trying to replicate the same vibe&mdashand success&mdashin her LA restaurant. Not your obvious vegetarian choice, but it was at&shymospheric and there was plenty of chatter worth eavesdropping on. Having stuffed myself injudiciously at lunchtime, I had no option but to scale back. It was just going to be salad. My bright-eyed, bushy-tailed server looked concerned at this man who was dining alone, nary eating a thing. When I expressed some interest in the Mexican Coke&mdashnot what you think&mdashlisted under the beverages, she brightened up. In fact, when I told her I&rsquod never had it, she was amused enough to put it on the house. I&rsquoll always remember the Hearth & Hound as the place where I had this ambrosial drink (it&rsquos made with cane sugar, not the dreaded high-fructose corn syrup, which is what makes the difference).

Next morning, I enjoyed an uninterrupt&shyed view of the Hollywood sign along with breakfast, from my rooftop perch at the new Dream Hollywood hotel, the latest from a chain of stylish properties run by the Indi&shyan-origin Chatwals. The Highlight Room (thehighlightroom.com) is noted for simple flavours and splendid grills. I ordered the avocado toast, with a perfect poached egg sitting atop (eggs allowed, right), washed down with cold-brewed coffee.

I was now fuelled up for a walk through the Original Farmer&rsquos Market (farmers marketla.com), an LA classic since 1934. With over 100 gourmet grocers and res&shytaurants, it&rsquos paradise for foodies. Notable vendors include Magee&rsquos Kitchen, Light My Fire hot-sauce shop, Magee&rsquos House of Nuts and Kip&rsquos Toyland, LA&rsquos oldest toy shop. I waded through a sea of camera-wielding Japanese tourists and climbed the stairs to the market&rsquos office to pick up a T-shirt for my wife.

Although the market boasts a slew of dining options, I was lunching down the road at Jon and Vinny&rsquos (jonandvinnys.com) where I managed to nab the last seat on the communal counter facing the kitchen during peak lunch hour. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo are the chef&rsquos behind this restaurant, having made their mark with Animal just down the block. With pastas, salads and pizzas, it&rsquos comfort-food central. When my order was ready, the chef just handed it over. A rocket and parmesan salad and a warm chocolate chip cookie to go and I was out the door in a jiffy.

There was more walking in store that day, at the Warner Bros Studios, so I revived myself with coffee at Central Perk (wbstudiotour.com), the iconic coffee shop from F.R.I.E.N.D.S., which still operates at the studios. Then it was time for an early dinner at H.O.P.E. (&lsquoHealthy Organic Posi&shytive Eating&rsquo eatwithhope.com) in Studio City. After some retail therapy across the road at Trader Joe&rsquos, that supermarket for the upmarket and health conscious (neither of which I am), I tried to size up the diners. They seemed...normal. I had ex&shypected woolly headed hippies, I guess. The bright, modern café serves vegetarian Thai with add-on meat substitutes like seitan. My red curry was decidedly American-sized and excellent to boot.

But the current toast of this town fixated on acronyms is P.Y.T. (pytlosangeles.com). With a mostly plant-based menu, Josef Centeno&rsquos restaurant in downtown LA made it to Esquire&rsquos list of &lsquoAmerica&rsquos Best New Restaurants&rsquo in 2017. The plan was to do lunch there, but when I turned up the next day, they were shut. I think this was serendipitous because, otherwise, I wouldn&rsquot have gone into B&aumlco Mercat (bacomercat.com) next door. Run by the same chef, the offerings at this casual sandwich place centre around the b&aumlco, a soft, signature flatbread created by the chef himself (a little yoghurt added to the dough does the trick apparently). I chose the only vegetarian b&aumlco on the menu, the Fava Frit&shyter (feta-poblano, chickpea, salmorejo). It reminded me of our own bready kulchas, but this stuff was divine. I had it with a surprisingly good salted cucumber and avocado salad and a side of patatas bravas.

That evening, I cast the net a bit wider, heading out to Venice Beach for dinner. Occupying a high-ceilinged rustic-chic space on Abbot Kinney, Venice&rsquos most hap&shypening boulevard, Gjelina (gjelina.com) reminded me of a cosy barn. Everyone else had the same idea, and I had to wait for the better part of an hour before securing a seat. The joint was positively buzzing.

This is where I had the first of my two lapses. The star of Chef Travis Lett&rsquos menu revolving around New American fare is the crispy duck confit and, purely out of curi&shyosity, I ordered one. Little did I know that I would wolf the entire thing down. Perhaps the impending end of a memorable trip had led to that brief moment of weakness. I have no regrets, however.

What are the chances that my dining companion at the communal table would turn out to be Corey Daniels, a soothsayer who tells fortunes using fashion maga&shyzines (thefashionmedium.com) I guess someone&rsquos gotta do it. Corey could not predict, however, that I would deprive him of most of his pizza. As for what he did tell me, that&rsquos a tale for another day.

Next morning, I was back on the same boulevard. My Uber driver&rsquos eyes popped out of their sockets when I told him that the Butcher&rsquos Daughter&mdashsetting of my last breakfast in LA&mdashwas a vegetarian establishment (thebutchersdaughter.com). It&rsquos styled as a &lsquovegetable slaughterhouse&rsquo, and they treat fruits and vegetables the same way a butcher does meat&mdashchop&shyping, filleting and carving fresh produce into appealing creations. My stack of buckwheat pancakes was scrumptious, but so high I had to cycle to the Santa Monica Pier to work off the extra calories.

And, before I knew it, I was at the air&shyport, bidding a teary farewell to Los Ange&shyles. For comfort, I turned to food...and suf&shyfered my second lapse. In my defense, I had starved on the flight in, despite two meals, a snack, and an extra meal that landed on my lap purely by chance. So I felt a need to tank up and gravitated towards the Larder at Tavern&rsquos airport outlet (tavernla.com/the- larder.html). Conceived by James Beard Award-winning chef Suzanne Goin and James Beard nominee sommelier Caroline Styne, the Larder is all about local, organic produce and meats, and celebrating the people who produce them. I was promptly transfixed by the Pilgrim, a sandwich as big as my head, which was commandeer&shying commandeer&shying their display. It was Christmas in a bun, delicious slices of slow-cooked turkey breast, resting in a bed of tangy cranberry sauce and caramelised onions. Yes, Lord, I gave into temptation. I had been a bit of a pilgrim myself, so did I not deserve this

If an airport outlet can dish out such delicious fare, you know you were just in culinary heaven. They don&rsquot call it the City of Angels for nothing.