Why Los Angeles will always be a better place to eat than New York

Oct. 25, 2024 12:32 PM PT

Even in foods where New Yorkers claim eternal superiority, L.A. just does it better. Yes, we’re talking pizza, bagels and pastrami.
When it comes to depth and quality of our food scenes, Dodgers fans have always had it better. Take the taco alone.
Here’s my breakdown, dish by dish.

It’s taken our beloved Dodgers reaching the World Series against the Yankees today for me to finally write these words: When it comes to old rivalries in America, Los Angeles has always been the better food city than New York.

Many New Yorkers remain suspended in an echo chamber of superiority that claims the best public transportation system (I’ll give them that one), restaurants and four seasons. As Angelenos, our superpower is a general indifference to our haters everywhere, powered by sunshine, our proximity to the freshest produce, and the ability to go on a mountain hike, surf and eat tacos in the same afternoon.

I’m tempted to tackle the coast-to-coast rivalry every time a New Yorker spends 48 hours in this great city and decides to gripe about an expensive smoothie or our supposed wellness-obsessed culture in yet another story that hemorrhages stereotypes about Hollywood and our toned, bronzed bodies. Now seems as good a time as any to set the record straight.

About a decade ago, East Coast media, friends and complete strangers started asking me when Los Angeles became a great place to eat. “It’s such a great food city now. Why do you think that is?”

There was frequently a pettiness when an East Coaster would acknowledge something they love, with comments like: “That new place is like good — for an L.A. restaurant. You know what I mean.”

Many New York tastemakers by now have come around and acknowledge the culinary gifts we have in L.A. But I’ll repeat what I’ve felt in my bones since my first plate of dumplings in the San Gabriel Valley before I had a full set of teeth. A belief I held even tighter when I tried my first pair of tacos dorados de camarones from Mariscos Jalisco in Boyle Heights. And felt even deeper when I used a piece of injera to scoop up my first mouthful of Genet Agonafer’s doro wat in Little Ethiopia.

As tens of thousands of fans gather at Dodger Stadium today for the first pitch in the great baseball classic Dodgers vs. Yankees, let’s just go ahead and say it: Los Angeles has always been the best food city — period — and everyone else just decided to start paying attention.

Here’s why.

We have the meats (and the bread)

Let’s begin with the never-ending great pastrami debate of Langer’s Delicatessen vs. Katz’s Delicatessen. Both push their brand of brined, smoked and steamed brisket on rye bread by staffs that could best be described as pleasantly salty. Langer’s has occupied the southwest corner of 7th and Alvarado streets since 1947. The first iteration of Katz’s Delicatessen (called Iceland Brothers) has been operating out of New York City’s Lower East Side since 1888.

The pastrami at Langer’s is steamed for close to three hours, rendering the meat so luscious and tender, it wobbles and surrenders to the slightest touch. Even if you prefer the stiffer meat at Katz’s, there’s no besting the Langer’s double-baked rye bread. That extra crunch creates the perfect contrast of textures and temperatures with a slight tang from the caraway seeds.

And at Langer’s, you can eat the sandwich in a brown tufted booth in peace, without someone making orgasmic noises in the middle of the crowded dining room.

If you won’t take my word for it, perhaps you’ll listen to the late New Yorker Nora Ephron, the woman who wrote the infamous orgasm scene in “When Harry Met Sally.”

In a 2002 New Yorker piece titled “A Sandwich,” Ephron concluded: “The hot pastrami sandwich served at Langer’s Delicatessen in downtown Los Angeles is the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world.”

There, it’s settled. L.A. has the better pastrami.

The bread roll with the hole in the middle

Owner Arielle Skye preps bagels at Courage Bagels

There is a bagel for every persuasion in Los Angeles. If you want a New York-style bagel, otherwise known as a dense, chewy mass of dough that will land like a brick in your stomach, you can find it at one of our bagel chains. But L.A.’s best bagels aren’t trying to mimic the dough boulders of New York.

Here, bagels are treated like artisanal breads that are proofed, boiled and baked into something worthy of a sit-down meal.

The bagels at Courage Bagels, Arielle Skye and Chris Moss’ Virgil Village shop, are far better than anything I’ve tried in New York City, and entirely their own thing.

Imagine the best parts of a baguette and a bagel in one roll, with a light, crackly crust and an airy crumb structure that still delivers a chewy bite. You can eat a Courage bagel hot, no cream cheese, straight out of the bag. Though the “rip + dip” with butter is even more fun.

These may be the only bagels in the universe worth sitting in traffic for.

Just admit you like the fancy smoothies

This is more of a rebuttal to all the hate, but just indulge me for a moment. It’s easy to mock a $20 smoothie from a grocery store like Erewhon. It contains everything you need to keep your skin glowing and taut, your brain sharp and your waistline trim. Though they’re sold at one chain of stores, the “Erewhon smoothie” has somehow become the cornerstone of haterade for Los Angeles culture for grumpy New Yorkers.

Though founded by a Japanese couple named Aveline and Michio Kushi in Boston in the 1960s, Erewhon didn’t flourish in Los Angeles until the Antiocs, a wealthy family from Brentwood, bought the Beverly Boulevard store in 2011. Now, there are 10 locations all over Los Angeles.

And you can get an $8 smoothie at Erewhon too. It just won’t come with all the nutrients a newborn baby might require in their first six months of life, blended into a slush-like substance the color of a pretty sunset. But I appreciate the opportunity to be as pretend-healthy as I’d like to be on any day that I can afford that luxury.

New Yorkers hate our life-affirming elixir smoothies so much that they line up for a slightly more than half-priced dupe at a health food store in the East Village some have dubbed “the mini Erewhon of NYC.”

Womp womp.

All the slices

A slice of off-the-menu square pizza at Apollonia's Pizzeria in Mid-Wilshire.

For years, New Yorkers have claimed the best pizza, as if the floppy, tire-sized pies they reheat before handing over on grease-soaked paper plates are the very peak of the genre. They may have more slices per capita, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in variety and overall quality of ingredents. L.A. is practically its own universe of pizza.

Not only do we have our own locations of the New York shop New Yorkers love to love (Prince Street Pizza), we have Apollonia’s, where you can find a proper slice that doesn’t droop and a square pizza with a cheese-crowned crust. We can claim Pizzeria Mozza, where Nancy Silverton created her own style of pizza, spotted with crisp bubbles and topped with things like squash blossoms and house-made sausage.

Los Angeles is also the birthplace of the biggest trend in pizza to happen in the last decade. Pizzana’s Daniele Uditi created the cacio e pepe pizza that’s now being copied all over the world. And we can claim pizza king Chris Bianco as one of our own. The market pie and slice at both his Pizzeria Bianco and Pane Bianco in downtown Los Angeles are some of the greatest expressions of Southern California produce in pizza form.

And those are mere examples. L.A. = better pizza.

Korean everything

A hand with chopsticks pulling noodles and beef from a steaming bowl of stew at Origin Korean BBQ in Koreatown

Our Koreatown is bigger, richer, brighter and just better than yours, no argument. Los Angeles continues to have the largest population of Koreans in the United States and outside of Korea. Our Koreatown includes more than 2 square miles of restaurants, shops and other Korean-owned and -run businesses. And as far as cuisines go, K-town may be our biggest flex, with restaurants serving every regional specialty, and places devoted to a single dish.

There’s almost too much. We recently published the ultimate guide to all things Koreatown, with recommendations for fried chicken, late-night bars, karaoke clubs and, of course, barbecue.

Even the most L.A.-hating New Yorker would have to agree, if begrudgingly: We have far better Korean food.

Any of our burgers > Shake Shack

In-N-Out Burger is better than Shake Shack. After a childhood of post-AYSO-practice Double Double cheeseburgers and chocolate milkshakes, there’s no convincing me and thousands of Angelenos otherwise.

There’s magic in the In-N-Out spread, the Thousand Island dressing-adjacent condiment that’s stained more shirts than I can remember. And extra is always free.

The iceberg lettuce is consistently crisp and abundant. And those tiny, perfect diced grilled onions will turn any fries (just ask for them well-done if you’re not a fan) into a masterpiece.

A quick glance at Shake Shack’s latest menu reveals the New York-based chain is attempting innovation with a truffle sauce-topped burger made with truffle oil. Give me the chili at Tommy’s Burger, In-N-Out spread, the hickory sauce from Apple Pan, the squirt of ketchup and mustard for Burgers Never Say Die. Please, anything but truffle oil.

L.A. burgers reign supreme.

I see your hot dog, and I raise you my taco

If you think of the one food people associate most with New York City, it’s the hot dog. In Los Angeles? It has to be the taco.

California is home to the most Mexican restaurants in the entire country. And out of the entire state, 30% of those restaurants are in Los Angeles. It’s simply who we are.

You can find a taco stand or truck in just about every neighborhood of the city. On any day of the week, give me an al pastor taco with the meat shaved off a glistening trompo piled onto a handmade tortilla hot off the comal, over a processed log soaking in cloudy water on a bun heavy with dough conditioner.

Did I mention we have more tacos? Our taco vendors are our forever mic drop on this forever rivalry. And while we can all celebrate that New York over the last two decades has gotten more taco-obsessed, our immense taco culture and its thousands of cleaver-wielding taqueros everywhere are reminders why Los Angeles will always be on top.

Still not convinced? Here are 101 of the best tacos in the city that will change your mind.

There’s just no argument any longer. Los Angeles is the better food city over New York. Go Dodgers!