Fighting Back Against the Pastry Hype With Craft’s Own Shannon Swindle

Shannon Swindle asks

Craft pastry chef Shannon Swindle is among the best people making pastry in Los Angeles, which also makes him among the best people to do it in America. Still, Swindle is convinced that he and many other deserving local pastry legends don’t often get the kind of broader respect they duly deserve, and took to Instagram to say so. Frankly, he’s not wrong.

In the post, shown below, Swindle offers a “reminder to anyone waiting in long lines to by NY-based pastries” that Los Angeles is home to a wide array of cake-makers, confectioners, kitchen pastry teams, and, yes, doughnut purveyors already. It’s not exclusively a knock on Dominique Ansel, inarguably one of the world’s most famous pastry chefs, but more a reflection on just how great the scene is locally, and all the deserving folks who don’t have lines out the door daily. And, naturally, it’s getting a lot of love from great LA pastry people in the comments section too.

The OB Bear life

Long time Los Angeles writer Frank Shyong has plenty to say about OB Bear, the iconic Koreatown restaurant known for its hot wings. But mostly he’s just personally forlorn that he may never get to be a regular at the bar, where the writer routinely stops in for Dodger games with friends. It’s understandable, of course; OB Bear is a Korean joint that plays to its audience, and Shyong is just hopeful to someday catch the right kind of glance from the owner to let him know he belongs.

Bar food from Erven

Chef Nick Erven chatted with Food & Wine about his love of bar food, and the cooking he’s been overseeing at The Venue in Koreatown. There are crispy ramen-style soft eggs, confit wings, and more to enjoy from the basement karaoke spot.

Locol love

Patton Oswalt shares some nice words for Locol, Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson’s Watts fast food initiative.

Pasadena Wokcano problems

It was a bad night for Old Pasadena’s Wokcano, as the place had a hood fire erupt through the top of the building before ultimately being beaten back by firefighting crews. They’ll likely be down for the count for a while.

Those coffeehouse dreams

A new mixed-use apartment building in Historic Filipinotown is looking to add a coffeeshop to its ground floor, and is crowdsourcing the tenant. The 333B property is doing an open call now through December 10, asking for visuals to show just what the space might look like, and a separate business plan to make it all happen.

At the grain source

Tehachapi Grain Project founder Alex Weiser (of Weiser Family Farms) spent some time in the fields talking to Zooey Deschanel about the roots of the work he’s doing, and what it means to actually use grains (in breads and beyond) the way they were originally intended.