One of L.A.'s best pizzerias expands to Chinatown, and it's a tribute to the Dodgers

A close-up of a pepperoni pizza on blue-and-white checkered paper at La Sorted's pizzeria in Chinatown

Oct. 3, 2024 3 AM PT

Plus, one of L.A.’s most celebrated Thai restaurants opens a street-food spot
Find a duo of Japanese restaurants in a former recording studio on Sunset
Sonoratown’s Long Beach location is now open

The walls are coated in memorabilia: ticket stubs, childhood photos at the baseball stadium, trading cards, the framed sheet music to Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” For La Sorted’s first sit-down pizzeria, owner Tommy Brockert knew he wanted to build not only a space where diners could sit down to enjoy his hybrid-sourdough pies but a place to bask in Dodgers history, especially considering the location mere blocks from the stadium.

It’s equal parts ode to the city, the Dodgers and pizza.

An interior wall of La Sorted's pizzeria in Chinatown filled with vintage sports memorabilia.

The bric-a-brac, much of it collected throughout the restaurateur’s life, is meant to help the pizzeria feel lived-in and provide a space for the city’s sports fans to watch games with a beer and a slice of some of L.A.’s best pizza.

“Compared to Midwest places or the East Coast,” Brockert says, “you go outside of Yankee Stadium or to see the Cubs, and there’s places that’ve been there forever.”

Brockert is a third-generation L.A. Dodgers fan, tracing back even longer on his mom’s side, when his ancestors cheered the team on in Brooklyn.

His love of pizza is more recent. The photographer began cooking pizza for friends and family, then selling it out of his home during the pandemic. When its popularity grew he invested in a mobile pizza truck that began popping up around L.A. In 2021 he debuted a walk-up pizza counter in a Silver Lake strip mall for his pies made with house-milled flour.

“I think I’ve somehow managed, through a window, to get people to feel what my food is about,” Brockert said, “but it’s important for me that people should be able to feel my world.”

Now, surrounded by vintage scorecards, bobbleheads and other Dodgers trinkets, he’s serving a more pared-down menu of pizzas than in Silver Lake, along with new items he hopes guests will also take to Dodger games: custom-blend hot dogs and a fried mortadella sandwich among them. The wines are curated by John Cerasulo of Anajak Thai. Eventually, Brockert said, he’d like to offer collaborative dishes made with surrounding Chinatown businesses.

Two halves of a stacked fried mortadella sandwich on blue-and-white checkered paper

One section of wall space is devoted to Brockert’s late longtime season-ticket partner. Another spotlights the tickets, programs, photos and posters from musicians who’ve played at Dodger Stadium. A corner devoted to the restaurant’s namesake — legendary Dodgers pitcher and manager Tommy Lasorda — showcases personal documents and merchandise from Lasorda’s now-shuttered restaurant.

The counter overlooking the kitchen gleams; it’s a piece of the floor from Inglewood’s Kia Forum, where the WNBA’s Sparks played basketball (legend has it that it’s also the former floor of the Lakers, who played on it in the 1980s). Brockert hopes to give the floor new life — and new action — slinging pizza.

Beginning Oct. 5 La Sorted’s is soft-open Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. (and Monday and Tuesday from 4 to 11 p.m. if the Dodgers are scheduled to play). After the grand opening Oct. 12, look for more menu items such as salads and appetizers.

984 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 537-0475, lasorteds.com

A side view of the round "sushi cake" topped with salmon, tuna, ikura and more at Roshuko restaurant in Hollywood.

Rokusho and Udatsu Sushi

With a sleek ground-floor lounge and a traditional sushi omakase upstairs, a duo of Japanese restaurants is now open in the former home of a historic Hollywood recording studio. Rokusho and Udatsu Sushi are a collaboration between Boulevard Hospitality Group (which also operates Yamashiro, Kodo and other L.A. restaurants) and Tokyo-based company Three Star Lane (3SL), taking over a portion of Sunset Sound.

Black-crusted Ibérico tonkatsu with sauce, cabbage and mustard on a red-and-black plate at Rokusho in Hollywood

At the base is a new rendition of 3SL’s modern Tokyo restaurant Rokusho: Here, Sushi by Scratch alum Carlos Couts serves grilled skewers; hand rolls; crispy rice in the form of a shareable “sushi cake” piled with uni, Wagyu, gold leaf, caviar and shiso; and sukiyaki plated almost as if it were abstract art, splattered with Japanese Hollandaise and ginger oil.

Beverage director Felix Campos (formerly of Enrique Olvera’s international restaurant group) assembled a menu of Japanese and Mexican spirits, some rare, that can be ordered a la carte or in cocktails such as the signature martini, which uses a house-made green tea vermouth, or the Blood and Sanjuro, which blends Japanese whisky with Oaxacan chile liqueur, grapefruit and cherry.

Upstairs, Udatsu Sushi is a carbon copy of 3SL’s Michelin-starred Tokyo restaurant of the same name. The eight-seat sushi counter serves a 17-course seafood omakase headed by Hisashi Udatsu and his protege, Shingo Ogane. It sources its fish from Tokyo’s Toyosu Fish Market but also offers a vegetarian omakase, and a focus on natural wines.

Rokusho is open 5 to 11 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday. Udatsu Sushi is open Wednesday to Sunday with seatings at 6:30 and 8 p.m.

6634 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, rokushola.com and udatsusushila.com

Luv2Eat Express

A street-food-inspired sibling spot to one of the 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles recently opened in a Hollywood strip mall with steam trays full of curries, whole fish, bitter-melon soups and other Southern Thai specialties. Luv2Eat Express, from Noree Burapapituk (often called Chef Pla) and Somruthai “Chef Fern” Kaewtathip, is now open two doors down from their celebrated Luv2eat Thai Bistro.

While the original Luv2Eat serves Phuket-style cuisine, such as the signature crab curry, it also offers Thai food from other cities and regions. Luv2Eat Express is dedicated to Phuket’s more casual foods, offering combo plates or a la carte orders of braised meats, noodle soups and more. Much of it is inspired by recipes from Burapapituk’s mother and father, and the childhood mornings she spent preparing dishes for her mom’s street stall before heading to school.

“I’m from a chef family,” she said. “I’ve loved to cook since I was young.”

The menu rotates daily while they determine customer favorites, but offerings on any given day could include whole braised mackerel simmered with pineapple, sugar cane, cilantro root and palm sugar, or a version of the fish that’s thickly coated and fried in a crust of chile paste packed with fresh turmeric and shrimp paste.

For the tod mun pla, or lemongrass-fragrant fish fritters, Burapapituk hand-mixes fish meat with house chile paste, lime leaf and green beans. Thick wedges of pork belly simmer with dark soy. Whole hard-boiled eggs get fried with palm sugar and tamarind. Flecks of fish and bamboo soak in spicy yellow curry. The green curry, with pops of eggplant and chicken, is far more herbaceous than the versions served at sibling restaurants Noree Thai or the full Luv2Eat Thai Bistro, and here, the creamy fish tom kha is brightly hued thanks to turmeric. Durian and Thai tea puddings are also house-made for dessert using a recipe from Burapapituk’s father, who cooks in a five-star hotel in Thailand. Luv2Eat Express is open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

6660 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, instagram.com/luv2eat.thaibistro

An interior of Sonoratown's Long Beach location. Guests line up to order at the counter, and sit in the full dining room.

Sonoratown Long Beach

Some of L.A.’s top taco makers recently expanded their empire, bringing award-winning flour tortillas filled with mesquite-grilled meats, crisp shredded cabbage and bright salsas to downtown Long Beach. Sonoratown, included on the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants list nearly every year since its 2016 opening, recently debuted its largest location yet. The roughly 2,000-square-foot Long Beach space serves owners Jennifer Feltham and Teodoro Diaz-Rodriguez Jr.’s stable of tacos, chivichangas, caramelos and burritos inspired by Diaz-Rodriguez Jr.’s upbringing in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora. The menu is identical to the outposts in downtown L.A. and Mid-City; the opening follows the late-summer launch of the duo’s Sonoratown Cantina in Mid-City, which serves micheladas and new bar snacks. Sonoratown is open in Long Beach from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, with extended days and hours of operations to come.

244 E. 3rd St., Long Beach, (562) 714-1442, sonoratown.com

Zoku

A new kushiyaki-focused restaurant has landed in Redondo Beach, the first U.S. offshoot of prolific Japanese yakitori chain Torikizoku. Zoku is a departure for the Osaka-founded company, whose dozens of Torikizoku restaurants specialize in wallet-friendly grilled skewers in a casual setting, with meals often ordered on tablets.

At Zoku, diners can expect table service and slightly more upscale skewers with options such as thick cubes of Wagyu, whole prawns and chicken with unique-to-L.A. sauces such as miso honey mustard. The central focus of the restaurant is binchotan-grilled skewers, seen in action via the partially open kitchen, though starters such as scallop carpaccio, tempura jumbo shrimp and tofu salad are available, as is an ample selection of sake and wine.

“America is much bigger than Japan, with much more diverse populations and tastes,” said Justin Chiang, the managing director of Torikizoku USA. “We wanted to target different communities with different restaurant concepts.”

By the end of the year, a more traditional, chicken-focused Torikizoku is planned to open in Torrance, with additional locations of Zoku and Torikizoku slated to eventually launch across L.A. and in San Diego. Zoku is open from 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday, with extended days of service to come.

261 Avenida del Norte, Redondo Beach, (650) 376-5476, zokuyakitori.com

Tacos el Más Cabron

Tacos a Cabron’s puestos can be found popping up in the evening across multiple locations, lines spanning the block. Now the popular street vendor’s flame-grilled meats and handmade tortillas are available all day long at a new restaurant, along with new dishes. Husband-and-wife duo Francisco and Nancy Arizpe began their stand roughly five years ago, but with help from Nancy’s brother, Miguel Diaz, they’ve opened the first bricks-and-mortar, in East L.A.: It’s called Tacos el Más Cabron, and it serves all of Tacos a Cabron’s signature items.

Tijuana-inspired tacos, vampiros, mulitas, cemitas, burritos, costillas and the “papa cabrona” — a potato loaded with cheese and meat — are all available, as are new items such as chilaquiles, potato flautas and a wet chile relleno burrito with al pastor all drenched in salsas, avocado and crema. A range of daily rotating aguas frescas and cafe de olla also are available. By the end of the year, the team hopes to launch an outpost in Hollywood. Tacos el Más Cabron is open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

4226 E. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, instagram.com/tacos_elmas_cabron