The San Fernando Valley spans more than 250 square miles and houses roughly 1.8 million residents. Dining scenes often hide in strip malls and sun-bleached storefronts that reveal culturally specific restaurants. Recommendations identify 65 restaurants and 24 bars, tea stops, and coffee shops across the Valley from Burbank to Canoga Park. Notable dishes include cinnamon-laced noodle kugel, latkes with sour cream and applesauce, and kasha varnishkes at Brent's Deli in Northridge. Van Nuys offerings at Kobee Factory feature cinnamon-infused broth for rice-stuffed lamb intestines served with hummus, fried kibbeh, and grilled preparations. The Valley offers abundant, diverse eating.
As with all of Los Angeles, one word or phrase can't characterize the San Fernando Valley, or its 1.8 million residents. When it comes to dining within its 250-plus-square miles, the golden rule germane throughout Southern California very much applies here: Look past the visual ubiquity of strip malls and chock-o-block businesses to find the beauty - the cultural specificity - just inside the sun-bleached storefronts.
Our guide to dining in the Valley There's an overwhelming amount of good eating filling the vastness between Burbank and Canoga Park, which the Food team confirmed over the last several months. This week we published our extensive guide to the Valley, featuring 65 freshly researched restaurant suggestions, plus another 24 recommendations for standout bars, tea stops and coffee shops.
I remember my first meal in the Valley. It was at Brent's Deli in Northridge in 1997. I was visiting Los Angeles, and as we settled into one of the booths spaced in neat rows the friend who lived in the area talked about the 1994 earthquake, how it felt to her like yesterday and already the distant past. I think she took me to Brent's because I was a vegetarian at the time.
My second meal in the Valley was nearly 20 years and about three lifetimes later, in the middle of my run as Eater's national critic before I moved to L.A. in 2018. The meal, at Kobee Factory in Van Nuys, also carries a memory of cinnamon, one of the sweet spices infused in the broth in which rice-stuffed lamb intestines are served.
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