Los Angeles Nets Three Names on This Year’s Eater Young Guns List

Eater’s annual search for the best young talent in the country has come to a close after a whopping 2,000-plus submissions, with today’s announcement of 18 Eater Young Gun winners from all across the nation. Three of those winners are working jobs right here in Los Angeles, whether as integral kitchen staff for a Chinatown restaurant that’s changing the modern Filipino food conversation, or as general manager for one of the busiest restaurants in the entire city. These are Los Angeles’s 2018 Eater Young Gun winners.

Christine Larroucau is the general manager at Majordomo, David Chang’s first foray into the Los Angeles dining market. As predicted the restaurant is a massive hit, and alongside Chang Larroucau is tasked with keeping the madness manageable for hundreds of diners and fans every single night. Prior to Majordomo, Larroucau was a manager for the sprawling Mozzaplex on Melrose.

Nico de Leon is a sous chef at Lasa in Chinatown, but don’t be fooled: He’s practically been there since day one. The Los Angeles native was living in San Francisco when the Valencia brothers started to put the wheels of Lasa into motion, and would drive down on weekends just to help cook at the pop-ups around town. Now he’s a key member of the kitchen staff, and is crafting his own modern Filipino menu items to help push the national conversation forward.

Wonho Frank Lee

Sumi Ali is a coffee wunderkind. The co-founder of Yes Plz Coffee is hoping to revolutionize the coffee industry by offering approachable, inexpensive beans direct to consumers, and that’s after spending years trying to perfect the $1 cup of coffee for Watts give-back cafe Locol.

All of the Young Guns winners for 2018 can be found here.

• David Chang’s Majordomo Is No Minor Feat [ELA]