Altadena’s burgeoning, tight-knit food community hit hard by Eaton fire

In a profound week of loss for Los Angeles, I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

‘Altadreama’ interrupted

Seasonal fruit pies were one of the customer favorites at Fox’s restaurant in Altadena, which burned in the Eaton fire.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

It was a beautiful day in Pasadena on Sunday when my friend John and I took one of our semi-regular walks into Altadena. Often we’ll pick up a package of Maury’s bagels or a Bub and Grandma’s house loaf at Altadena Beverage & Market, the longtime spot (since 1949) that Kate and Adam Vourvoulis reopened in 2022 and made a community hub with frequent wine, coffee and gelato tastings and charmingly goofy booster gear — “Living the Altadreama,” says one of their stickers. Across the street, we might stop in for a few Persian cucumbers, a bundle of mint and a piece of good feta cheese at Armen Market, the former Altadena Food Fair at Allen Avenue and New York Drive that Armen Gharibi bought in 2012.

But on this day, John wanted coffee. So we headed northwest toward Mariposa Junction on upper Lake Avenue where good coffee has become abundant. Not long ago, for instance, after getting paint samples mixed from the always helpful staff at Altadena Hardware, we’d walked two doors down to Paola Guasp‘s Amara Kitchen and managed to find a spot near the window to sip on cortados as happy weekend diners ate breakfast burritos and buckwheat pancakes, filling every table inside and along the sidewalk.

Since I wanted a moment of calm with our caffeine, we instead stopped at Café de Leche, where I’ve been loving the coffee and colorfully landscaped back garden that Anya and Matt Schodorf set up. The tidy shop, with geometric blue tile that I’ve coveted since the first time I saw it, sits on Lake between Victoria Morris Pottery studio with the most beautiful minimalist window displays, and Chris Larson‘s always lively Rancho Bar, which at night turns into a hub for sidewalk vendors always cooking up something tasty for thirsty drinkers. You couldn’t dream up three more different businesses, but together they made a more interesting whole.

It was nearly closing time when we ordered our Café de Leche cappuccinos and found a spot in the garden, so we didn’t dawdle. What struck me on that late afternoon was how kind the staff was about letting us finish our coffee even though they likely wanted to get home. It was one small moment among a thousand others that made me love my neighborhood.

As we walked out the side gate and started back down the hill, I had no idea my neighborhood was about to change forever. Just a few days later, Café de Leche and its garden were consumed by the Eaton fire, along with Amara Cafe, Rancho Bar, the hardware store, the pottery studio and too many more homes and small businesses, including the longtime fast-food spot Everest Burgers, which was loved for its pastrami cheese fries; the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop, which has been run by the Shay family on Fair Oaks Avenue since 1955, and has been considered an essential hub for Altadena’s Black community; plus newcomer Minik Market, opened just last year.

Stories of shattered dreams and lives forever changed across L.A. County have filled our newsfeeds this week. The fire not only took lives and property, it’s changing the very fabric of our neighborhoods, our sense of belonging.

“It’s like Armageddon ... it rocks your world,” Patrice Winter, owner of the still-standing Canyon Bakery in Topanga told reporter Stephanie Breijo in a story about the loss of “four iconic Malibu restaurants ... destroyed along PCH by the Palisades fire, including the Reel Inn, Moonshadows, Cholada Thai and Rosenthal Wine Bar and Patio. (A later story by Cindy Carcamo, Danielle Dorsey, Noah Haggerty and Jasmine Mendez has an updated account of the losses.)

NBC journalist Jacob Soboroff long ago moved away from Pacific Palisades, his childhood home, but in a report detailing the restaurants, grocery stores and so much more that was destroyed in the community, including Cafe Vida and Cathay Palisades, said, “Nobody in my family has lived there since I was 10 years old, but ... it’s all just in my bones. This is a place that I know better than the back of my hand.”

A particularly vulnerable moment

For those of us who have lived for years in north Pasadena and Altadena, the Eaton fire comes at a particularly vulnerable moment for a food community that was in the midst of renewal. A fresh generation of small-business owners, some from within the community and some from other places, had been starting new businesses or reviving old ones. Less than two weeks ago, the long-awaited Pasadena outpost of Historic Filipinotown’s Woon Kitchen opened on Washington Boulevard, just across from the coffee spot Lavender & Honey and the always-packed Millie’s diner.

Fox’s restaurant on Lake, which burned to the ground on Tuesday night, was a prime example of a long-standing business given new life. In 2018, Paul Rosenbluh and Monique King — a chef that my late husband, restaurant critic Jonathan Gold, once called “one of the most underrated of Los Angeles chefs, a farmers-market-obsessed woman I once called the Lauryn Hill of New American cuisine” — reopened the landmark spot that began its life in Altadena in 1955. My call was Fox’s green goddess omelet with asparagus, artichoke, gruyere cheese and parsley pesto served with house potatoes with a bowl of roasted chicken posole for the table and whatever seasonal fruit pie they were offering. King and Rosenbluh also own Cindy’s diner in Eagle Rock, which continues to operate.

Pizza of Venice, also destroyed in the Eaton fire, was another pioneer in this latest wave of restaurant renewal. Featured in Daniel Miller‘s deep dive into the origins of a strangely designed but ubiquitous pizza box, Pizza of Venice was an entirely original operation when it opened on Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena in 2013. Founders Sean St. John and Jamie Woolner set themselves apart with their toppings, many based on farmers market finds, and the conviction that a pizza didn’t necessarily have to be round. In fact, I think Pizza of Venice helped prepare the neighborhood for what our restaurant critic Bill Addison called owner “Kevin Hockin’s beautifully pocked and asymmetrical pizzas” at Side Pie Pizza, which opened at the top of Lake in 2021, but burned down in this week’s fire.

Hope

Not everything in the immediate burn zones was destroyed. Bernee, opened just last month by Ashley and Tyler Wells of All Time in Los Feliz, escaped the nearby flames. I’m still waiting for word about Bulgarini, Leo Bulgarini‘s gelato shop turned restaurant and cooking school in the Rite Aid complex. And after rumors that Miya Thai had burned, we heard that the restaurant opened in 2023 by Sticky Rice‘s David Tewasart survived. On Sunday night, a few hours after my walk to Café de Leche, I stopped by Miya to pick up a takeout order of green curry and pad see ew. The dining rooms were bustling and I ran into the chef Fred Eric, who lives in the neighborhood. Miya is that kind of place where you’re likely to encounter friends and neighbors. With places like Miya as an anchor, my hope is that the restaurants that burned can rebuild and that the Altadena/Pasadena restaurant renewal can continue and become even stronger than before.

Yuca’s pioneering taco “mama” dies

Socorro Herrera, right, with daughter Dora Herrera in 2016 at the tiny Los Feliz taco stand Yuca’s Hut.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

• More loss in L.A. Socorro Herrera, the founder of tiny Los Feliz taco stand Yuca’s Hut, died Dec. 23. Erica Zora Wrightson, who interviewed Herrera in 2016, wrote the obit.