Restaurant Spotlight: cult food. coffee. cocktails.
Mar. 08, 2021 at 6:00 am
As outdoor dining reopens and local restaurants begin the road to recovery the Daily Press is highlighting one excellent eatery a week.
This week the spotlight is on Cult: an all-day restaurant, cafe, and bar paying homage to the latest and greatest Californian culinary phenomena in a prime Promenade location.
Situated on the corner of 3rd Street and Broadway, Cult looks like a classic French bistro fell in love with a cheeky beach bar. The dining room’s plush emerald booths rest on a checkered marble floor while leafy plants and beaded chandeliers dangle from the ceiling.
Big changes have come to the long-awaited Soulmate restaurant in West Hollywood. Reps for the project have confirmed that the patio-focused space at 631 N. Robertson will no longer be helmed by former Manuela star Wes Whitsell, meaning the menu will
also no longer feature Whitsell’s personal brand of Texas heritage cooking done over live fire.
While no cause was given for Whitsell’s departure, it now seems that Rudy Lopez, the former chef de cuisine at the NoMad in Downtown LA (and previously an executive chef for the H.Wood Group) is on to run the project. With that update comes a new menu direction, as Lopez leans into a more Spanish Mediterranean direction. As for timing, Soulmate was originally plotting a December 2020 opening, but is now on track for a late spring arrival. Whitsell, meanwhile, tells Eater that he’s moving on to pursue other personal restaurant projects, but will remain in Los Angeles.
Listen 7 min MORE Kim Prince brings her family s legacy to her Baldwin Hills restaurant, Hotville Chicken. Photo by Andrea D’Agosto.
Southern California s Black population grew considerably from 1940 to 1970, when Black people from the American South moved west and north for better job opportunities.
The Second Great Migration also led to a hot trend in LA: Nashville hot chicken. Eater LA’s Mona Holmes profiles the Prince family, who moved from Nashville, Tennessee to Antelope Valley, California with a mouthwatering recipe. They left an indelible mark on LA’s food scene.
Kim Prince (L), the owner of Hotville Chicken, with her brother, Martin Prince, and her twin sister, Kelly Prince-Harris. Photo by Andrea D’Agosto.
Sacramento has been invaded by Nashville-style hot chicken. The Tennessee-born variety of fried chicken, lacquered in a cayenne-based spice paste and served with pickles, was once a novelty in the Capital Region. Last year, it became almost as easy to find as tacos or teriyaki. There are now four businesses in Sacramento focused on hot chicken, plus one in Citrus Heights, and at least 10 Nashville-inspired sandwiches at other restaurants in the city. Some add a tongue-curling pinch of ghost pepper or habanero to the spice blend, others temper the heat with a salve of ranch or Thousand Island dressing. One place slips potato chips between
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n 1992, Kim Prince and her twin, Kelly, rode with their mother, Louise Prince, to Lancaster’s second-ever California Poppy Festival. The springtime event usually coincides with the flower’s annual bloom and draws visitors from around the world just to catch a glimpse of hills covered in a sea of orange and yellow flowers. California’s magnificent state flower is always a draw, but the Prince sisters who were home from college on a visit came to see what their father, Martin, was up to.
As the family parked the car and wandered through rows of food and retailers, they caught the scent of something familiar. Right there in the middle of the festival was Kim’s father hovering over a fryer in a small easy-up tent, knee-deep in a familiar process. Martin was busy deep-frying batch after batch of the Prince family’s signature dish, Nashville hot chicken.