The Most Healthyish City in America is Los Angeles
Health food goes with Los Angeles the way Oscars just go to Meryl Streep. L.A. folk have been aboard the healthy-ish train since, well, trains were how most people got out here. As far back as the 1880s, the sick flocked here to heal themselves with sunshine, raw food, and lots of kale. Replace “the sick” with “aspiring actor/model” and the same pretty much holds true today. We can’t promise you’ll instantly morph into Jessica Alba after one macrobiotic grain bowl (but, say, your skin does look positively dewy!), though we’d bet our avocados you’ll enjoy the meal. Because whatever other insults you want to lob at Los Angeles (sprawling, fake, star f*#%y, etc.), the truth is that this town has healthy yet insanely delicious food in the bag. So pull on your Vans and step to our picks for the best healthy-ish spots in America’s best heathyish city. (Cab rides are also allowed.) Just try not to breathe in too much of the smog, okay?
Photo by Brandon Harman1/8Rose Cafe
Chef Jason Neroni’s Rose Cafe may be newly revamped and newly gigantic—it now takes up a whole Venice block—but on a Sunday afternoon there’s still a swell of beachgoers waiting to put their name on the list. The bar area, replete with glowing orbs of light and hanging terraria, is especially charming. But we’re partial to the chef’s table, which offers a clear view of the pastry station, where bakers roll out dough and interlace pie crusts in plain sight. (Try the berries-and-cream croissant. Fruit is healthy!) The menu offers plenty of meat options for die-hard carnivores, but you’ll convert them with a cauliflower T-bone seared to perfection.
Photo by Brandon Harman2/8Crossroads Kitchen
You can waste away your entire dinner conversation debating “Is this really vegan?” at Crossroads, Tal Ronnen’s white-tablecloth all-veg mecca in Melrose’s fancy-schmancy shopping district. Start with the oysters—fried oyster mushrooms topped with kelp caviar to be slurped off an artichoke-leaf “shell.” Then tuck into some carbonara, composed of yellow-tomato purée in algae film that somehow—through sorcery and/or science—breaks runny. But for the truest “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” moment, get the vegan chicken Parm, which tastes like real breaded, cheesy chicken Parm. Vegans, you have found your Westworld.
Photo by Brandon Harman3/8Cafe Gratitude
Lunch at Café Gratitude comes with a healthy dose of self-affirmation. All the dishes at the plant-based chain have names that sound like Stuart Smalley mantras—“I Am Vivacious” or “I Am Immortal.” (Shhh, no one’s told them yet.) If you can’t stomach the new-age-church feel—the waiter will ask you what you’re grateful for (try: “A discount”)—head to its vegan Mexican outpost in West Hollywood, Gracias Madre. Grab a seat at the gorgeous bar and get some totopos con chile (corn chips with salsa and cashew crema) and a pesticide-free organic margarita. In this case, organic means that you should have two.
Photo by Brandon Harman4/8Destroyer
At Destroyer, a new daytime spot with a Scandinavian-modern look in Culver City, chef Jordan Kahn and his team serve sous vide avocado in a puddle of sorrel juice and kale oil, topped with puffed teff (a quinoa-type grain). Feel free to leave the bread on the side.
Photo by Brandon Harman5/8Kismet Falafel
It might be the perfect gumdrop-size falafel balls that lure you in, but it’s Kismet Falafel's veggies that keep you coming back. In lieu of tomatoes and cukes (yawn), chefs Sarah Hymanson and Sara Kramer pack sandwiches with pickled fennel, cauliflower, radishes, and fresh herbs. Wash it down with a beet-sumac soda, which has such a gorgeous purple hue it seems criminal not to Instagram it. The café is inside downtown L.A.’s giant food hall, Grand Central Market, so the line can get lengthy on weekends. But don’t let the taco stand next door tempt you away with samples; just eat them as you wait.
Photo by Brandon Harman6/8Honey Hi
Until now Echo Park’s most acclaimed food might have been the Dodger dog, which is why Honey Hi—a new sunlit breakfast/lunch café created by a pair of college besties, one of whom trained as a nutritionist—is a welcome addition to the neighborhood. Like most hip healthy restaurants in L.A., Honey Hi’s locally sourced veggies and pasture-raised meats often come in bowls, which would seem unoriginal at this point if they didn’t turn out to be so damn good. The breakfast bowl—greens with olive oil and lemon mixed with sweet potato hash and topped with a turmeric poached egg—is a tongue-pleasing start to any day. You can consider us bowled over. (Sorry.)
Photo by Brandon Harman7/8Moon Juice
Muzzle your inner cynic before stepping into Moon Juice. Because to buy Amanda Chantal Bacon’s drinkable potions is to buy into the idea that you can support your brain, your sex life, your skin, and sure, even your soul through a $9 bottle of turmeric Golden Tonic. And maybe you can? I mean, Moon Juice employees are all, in the words of Derek Zoolander, really, really ridiculously good-looking. My Matcha Pearl moon milk with added “sex dust” didn’t make me want to jump any passing men, but a stranger did compliment me on my hair later that day, and hey, that’s not nothing.
8/8Sqirl
The splendor that is Sqirl is no secret—as evidenced by the permanent line of attractive Eastsiders that stretches down the block from morning to afternoon. (For what it’s worth, once you’ve snagged a seat, the food comes out at lightning speed.) The daily specials are usually the most enticing, like the roasted sweet potato, which tastes like coziness on a plate in the best possible way. But it’s an unspoken rule that you can’t visit Sqirl and not order one of their ginormous “burned” brioche slices topped with ricotta and jam. Split it four ways and call it dessert. Health is about balance, right?
