The James Beard Foundation has given a ‘Best Restaurateur’ nomination in their national 2016 awards to Roy Choi. Choi, whose Kogi food truck innovation had already made him a big name in the game before he grabbed the old House of Pancakes on Washington Boulevard and turned it into the amazing A-Frame. His most recent adventure with chef Daniel Patterson has been to open LocaL in Watts, bringing healthy and inexpensive food to a community long underserved.
According to the Beard Foundation, their standard for nomination is “A working restaurateur who sets high national standards in restaurant operations and entrepreneurship. Candidates must have been in the restaurant business for at least 10 years. Candidates must not have won a James Beard Foundation chef award in the past five years.”
About his Culver City location, Choi says “A-Frame has always been Hawaiian. Look at our popcorn, our ribs, our island Maui onion salad. It was a translation of aloha in an abstract sense. A modern space filled with communal picnics and sharing and generosity.”
When Jon Favreau did his film “Chef‘” in 2014, Choi served as co-producer and oversaw all menus and food production on the film – which bears a more than passing resemblance to his own biography.
With A-Frame in Culver City, along with Chego, Sunny Spot, Pot, the above mentioned LocaL and the always welcome Kogi trucks, Choi does a lot to bring good food to Southern California. We hope this award goes to a very deserving chef who shares his joy in feeding people in so many different and delicious ways.
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