GQ USA – May 2017

To paraphrase my favorite protest sign,

I can’t believe we still have to talk about

this shit.

But these are times in which it seems

that everything that should go without say-

ing needs to be said—among them that the

very qualities of pluralism currently under

attack are what make our eating more excit-

ing than ever before. That’s why this year’s

Best New Restaurants is dedicated to cele-

brating places owned or helmed by immi-

grants or the children of immigrants. Being

born elsewhere, or of parents who were, and

choosing to build their lives in the United

States—those were the sole criteria (besides,

of course, opening in the past 18 months or

so and being wonderful).

No particular immigrant narrative was

required: Daniel Boulud would have qual-

ified, as would David Chang, Wolfgang Puck,

Lidia Bastianich, and many others who have

profoundly shaped the way we eat. The final

Best list includes restaurateurs with roots

in Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Spain, Palestine,

Israel, China, Japan, and that most sur-

prising adversary of this administration:

Sweden. While it would be stupid to pretend

that émigrés from each of those countries

faced the same obstacles—or that they face

the same dangers today—it’s worth remem-

bering that cultures and foods that once

seemed hopelessly alien and unassimilable

are now so much part of the fabric of our

cuisine that they go unnoticed. Take Young

Joni, in Minneapolis, which serves both

wood-fired pizzas and Korean small plates;

in 2017, could there be a more red-blooded

American combination?

One thing the xenophobes have right:

Immigrants are everywhere—in every cor-

ner of the restaurant world, cooking food

that defines the dining ecosystem in this

moment. They are a driving force of a food

scene that resembles an enormous rummage

closet of seemingly endless tastes, styles,

influences, and economic models we are

privileged to browse for three meals a day, a

hive mind of so many tireless bees that it can

sometimes feel there’s no room for an origi-

nal buzz: No sooner does the thought “What

Flowers of Vietnam

chef George Azar, the

son of Palestinian

immigrants, cooks Asian

food in a Greek diner in

Mexicantown, Detroit...

...including, here,

Korean-fried wings

and papaya salad.

OPENING PAGES: COURTESY OF BLACK & STEIL/ASKA. THIS PAGE: MICHELLE & CHRIS GERARD (2).

DESIGN

• Gwen, Los Angeles
  You’ll find few rooms more ˆ
  dramatic than the one Australian
  brothers Luke and Curtis Stone built
  at their Hollywood steak house, a
  lair clad in copper and pink
  marble, Art Deco chandeliers,
  and a roaring fire for Curtis
  to rule over.

BEST OF

2017