Conceived as part-restaurant, part-marketplace by two former food-writing editors—Heather Sperling, of Tasting Table, and Emily Fiffer, of Daily Candy—Botanica serves colorful, feel-good, mostly vegetarian plates composed of the highest-quality local produce. Here, diners with a naturalist streak (and their sympathetic companions) can treat themselves to a strawberry-grain bowl for breakfast, spice-braised chickpeas with garlic yogurt for lunch, and seared striped bass with fermented jalapeno zhoug for dinner. The market in the front of the sunlit 1940s space, converted by the Silver Lake design firm Weekends, serves local fruits, vegetables, dairy products, olive oil, and breads, not to mention a host of house-made specialties, like granola, salsa verde, and whipped tahini. What’s more, the goods can be incorporated into Sperling and Fiffer’s recipes from the restaurant’s namesake online magazine Botanica Mag.
Botanica
Images by Alan Gastelum
