Chrissy Teigen Shares Her Favorite Restaurants in LA

Welcome to Dining Confidential, a series in which Eater gets restaurant recommendations from well-known personalities around town.

Thanks to lots of real talk on Twitter, Cookbook author and swimsuit model Chrissy Teigen has become a food-loving social media icon. She and her husband, singer John Legend, get around Los Angeles quite a bit to eat. Eater sat down with the half-Thai mother of one-year-old Luna at Chase’s Sapphire Sundays event at The Rose in Venice to learn about her family’s favorite spots.

Where do you like to eat in LA?

God, it’s so hard. I love Jon & Vinny’s and Madeo. We love Italian in general in LA. If we ever make it to Santa Monica we go to Via Veneto and Giorgio Baldi for sweet corn ravioli.

What about Thai food?

We go to a place called Pa Ord. Or for boat noodles Hoy Ka. They have the best pad see ew, which is my favorite.

What is your go-to order when you go to a Thai restaurant?

Papaya salad for John, because that’s the marker of if everything else is going to be good. Or he’ll do a crispy duck salad. I’ll order pad see ew and boat noodles no tripe, no liver, extra vegetables. What does my mom get? My mom is a boat noodle person, too.

How about sushi?

For sushi we love Katsu-ya on Ventura and always order the baked crab hand roll. We love the Nobu in Malibu because they do this kind of brunchy version of a sushi meal. It’s so gorgeous. It’s kinda ratchet sometimes because people are wasted.

What does Luna like to eat?

She eats everything. She loves meatloaf and my mom’s rice porridge. She loves ketchup specifically. Like by itself. She will take a French fry and dip it and suck it off and dip it and suck it off. You can’t even say ketchup in front of her. She has these two wooden toys, one is a tomato and one is a French fry, and she just bangs them together all day.

What’s your biggest restaurant grievance?

I really don’t like being served extra little dishes before my entree because I get full really fast. When they send out too much I feel pressured to eat it all then I can’t get to what I actually wanted.

What about Koreatown? What are your go-tos?

We love Korean barbecue, especially Park’s. I love cooking your own meat, basically. I like a good bibimbap place. In New York we go to a place in Tribeca that brings out this hot stone bowl with crispy rice on the outside. So good it’s incredible.

What is a dish you have to order if you see it on a menu?

Chicken pot pie is my number one. If I see it on a menu I’m like, gasp, I must have it.

So in LA your go-tos are Italian in general?

I’m totally over Italian right now though. Now I’m loving Mediterranean flavors, and that’s going into the cookbook too because I’m working on it now, and I’m like I don’t want to do a casserole, I want to do stuffed cabbage with raisins. Mediterranean food is so affordable and so amazing.

Israeli food is really having a moment in LA. Have you been to Kismet yet?

No, but I’m obsessed with figuring out restaurants out here now!

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