Where Anthony Bourdain Ate in Los Angeles

In the Los Angeles episode of No Reservations, season 3 episode 6, Bourdain skipped the beef and went for the lamb French dip with gravy and a beer at one of the communal tables. Regulars have been quietly making that same case for decades. Hit the hot mustard before the first bite.

Bourdain put this East Los Angeles dining room in the Los Angeles episode of No Reservations, season 3, episode 6, and ordered roasted goat tacos with consome on the side. Four generations into the recipe, that is still the order. If the mariachis are working the room, budget for a song.

Thai Town got its turn in No Reservations season 3, episode 6 in 2007, and the order here was boat noodles, the small dark bowl that was once sold off canal boats in Bangkok. Nothing about the strip mall room has been softened in the years since.

Bourdain ate here in the Los Angeles hour of No Reservations, season 3 episode 6, starting with chicken and waffles and then going to Stymie's Choice, the chicken livers and grits most first timers walk straight past. Both plates arrived and neither was decorative. Take the livers second, once the waffle has done its work.

No Reservations spent its Los Angeles hour in season 3, episode 6, and Bourdain used this Thai Town counter as the sweet ending, ordering khanom tokyo, the rolled crepe filled with pandan cream. It is the right first move in a shop where most of the case is unfamiliar. Buy more than one and eat them on the walk to the car.

Bourdain came to this Atwater Village stand in The Layover, season 1 episode 10, for breakfast tacos and the papas burrito with chorizo, which is the one people still queue for. Maria Flores was making them the same way long before a camera showed up. Go early, with cash.

The Layover's Los Angeles hour, season 1 episode 10, put Bourdain inside this indoor version of a Seoul drinking tent with a kettle of makgeolli, roasted chicken gizzards and spicy stir fried octopus. It is drinking food and it lands best late. Come with a group and order past what you can finish.

Season 1, episode 10 of The Layover ends up here, with Bourdain nursing a beer while the dancers ran sets they had chosen themselves. There is no kitchen and no pretense about what the room is for. Sit at one of the clown painted tables, tip well, stay for a full rotation.

The fish taco as Southern California knows it was invented in Ensenada, beer battered and fried, dressed with cabbage and crema, and it came north with students and surfers. The Little Tokyo location closed in 2014; Eagle Rock and Main Street carry the recipe forward. Order them fried rather than grilled, then work the salsa bar.

The Layover season 1, episode 10 sat Bourdain at this Sixth Street address for grilled pork spare ribs, samgyeopsal and a pot of gamjatang, with banchan filling whatever space was left. The room changed hands and names in 2025 and the recipes stayed put. Order the ribs and the stew together, the way it was filmed.

Bourdain worked the Filipino chain into the Koreatown episode of Parts Unknown, season 1 episode 2, ordering the Aloha Burger, a Spam Little Big Bite and halo-halo to close. The halo-halo is the one that converts people. Take it last and do not overthink the layers.

Parts Unknown put this counter in its Koreatown episode, season 1 episode 2, where Bourdain took on the wang mandu, a dumpling closer to the size of a fist than a bite, then a sweet dessert mandu after it. Two people can split one and still feel it. The red bean version is how the meal ends.

The Koreatown hour of Parts Unknown, season 1 episode 2, put Bourdain in this Third Street dive over an Italian deli spread, though the plates themselves went undocumented on camera. What the room hands you is time, which is the actual reason to go. Order a beer and a shot and settle in.

Bourdain stopped at the Olvera Street stand during Parts Unknown season 9, episode 2, for taquitos under the avocado sauce with a burrito alongside. The recipe has not moved since 1934 and neither has the stand. Eat standing up, the way the line does.

Parts Unknown season 9, episode 2 arrived here in 2017 before the restaurant had opened, with Danny Trejo putting out Jidori chicken in chipotle cream, branzino and pork tacos. Bourdain walked in expecting an actor's vanity project and walked out with no jokes left to make.

Parts Unknown season 9, episode 2 brought Bourdain to Maria Ramos's mole negro, which he ate off chips and tortillas before getting anywhere near the barbacoa de chivo. The mole runs past thirty ingredients and does not need a plate under it to make its case. Order both and the mole is still what you will remember.

The Los Angeles hour of Parts Unknown, season 9 episode 2, sat Bourdain down with Ray Garcia for carnitas, lamb neck tamales and the chicharron Garcia cures himself before it ever hits the fryer. Dessert was foie gras rabanada, which shows how far the argument was willing to go. That downtown room has since closed and the cooking moved to Culver City.

Camarones borrachos are drunken shrimp, hit hard with butter, garlic and crushed chile and finished with tequila in the pan, a Nayarit and Sinaloa coastal dish that came north with the families who cooked it. The Diaz family ran this address for years as Mariscos Chente before the sign changed. Same room, same lineage, different name over the door.

When Parts Unknown filmed its Los Angeles episode, season 9 episode 2, this was still a cart at 4th and Clarence, and the order came back carne asada, lengua and al pastor. The cart is a stand on South Indiana Street now, cooking the same three. Get one of each and settle it yourself.

Bourdain walked this swap meet for No Reservations season 3, episode 6 in 2007, eating his way along the food stalls rather than shopping. The vendors cook birria, carnitas and huaraches for people who came in for boots and quinceañera dresses, which is what keeps both the prices and the standards honest.

No Reservations season 3, episode 6 took a detour out to Sun Valley in 2007 to eat steak with a friend at the meat supplier instead of at a restaurant. This is a wholesale room dealing in dry-aged Prime, wagyu and Kobe, and it will sell to you direct if you ask.

A Cook's Tour season 1, episode 17 started its Los Angeles morning in 2002 with raspberry glazed and Texas glazed doughnuts from this South Normandie counter. The fiberglass donut bolted to the roof is a survivor of a 1950s drive-in chain, and the frying underneath it has not changed either.

Season 9, episode 2 of Parts Unknown put Bourdain in Los Angeles in 2017, and this downtown rum room is where the drinking happened. The shelf runs deep in agricole and Jamaican pot still, and the staff would rather pour you something neat than shake it into a cocktail.

The Layover gave Los Angeles its tenth episode in 2012, season 1, and the airport run ended here with a Double-Double animal style and a chocolate shake. The Sepulveda branch sits at the end of a runway, so the widebodies come over low enough to stop the conversation.

A Cook's Tour filmed its seventeenth episode of season 1 in Los Angeles in 2002, under the title My Own Heart of Darkness, and it lands in a Los Feliz booth over a classic burger and fries. The diner still runs to 3am on weekends, which remains the hour it makes the most sense.

When A Cook's Tour filmed its Los Angeles episode in 2002, season 1, episode 17, the order at this stucco frankfurter was a chili cheese dog with tomatoes. The building was crated into storage not long after and only came back in 2022, a short walk from where it had stood.

For A Cook's Tour season 1, episode 17, Bourdain worked the La Brea counter through a Millennium dog, a chili cheese dog, a bacon dog and a fajita dog in 2002. The chili recipe is the one Paul and Betty Pink started with in 1939, and so, more or less, is the queue.