Plugs — Ed Cornell

L.A. food, drink, and leisure recs from the Café Tropical co-owner + LINKS

Plugs is The Angel’s recs column. Every week, you’ll get six picks—a restaurant, a bar, a shop, an ingredient, a person, and a treat—from someone in Los Angeles who knows what they’re talking about, plus a selection of Angel-curated links. (Plugs are for paid subscribers of The Angel only; upgrade your subscription to receive all six!)

#95 is Ed Cornell, co-owner of Café Tropical and the man known as Milk Cult. Ed oversees culinary at the historic Silver Lake café, having brought it back to life alongside partners Danny Khorunzhiy and Rene Navarrette last year. He’s responsible for the seasonal donuts, the chilaquiles burrito, and the soft serve, in addition to all sorts of other wonderful things about the shop. Before taking the reins at Tropical, he worked at Quarter Sheets, and prior to that, he founded a Washington, D.C.-based ice cream company called Milk Cult, which produced custom flavors for high-end restaurants like Anju and Rose’s Luxury, as well as ice cream sandwiches. Ed’s a pastry chef, but he’s also a jack-of-all-trades hospitality professional, a great friend, a partner in Rosi’s Hot Oil, and a hysterical writer. There’s a reason why I’ve chosen him to close out Plugs in L.A., read on and you’ll find out. Here’s Ed.

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Restaurant — Boston Lobster

I moved to Los Angeles three years ago. I was working with my friend Angelino on a very “Hello, fellow kids” hospitality brand strategy project when he introduced me to the very real and best spite restaurant in the L.A. Basin. Under normal circumstances, tearing a former nautical-themed tiki bar named Bahooka Ribs & Grog down to the studs would be a crime. Welcome to Boston Lobster. Nothing is from Boston, the lighting is atrocious, the service is non-existent, the menu has full pages filled with giant question marks “??”, and it’s maybe the best group dining experience you can have in L.A. that isn’t sharing the bar snack mix at Jumbo’s. As the story goes, some resentful cooks at Newport Seafood around the corner all quit and said, “We can do this better!” A solid argument could be made that they did. I’ve been going there for my birthday every year since and it always delivers.