Plugs — Mackenzie Hoffman

L.A. food, drink, and leisure recs from Stir Crazy's owner-operator + 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!)

To highlight the community that’s doing so much right now, I’m devoting an entire month of Plugs to restaurant industry players. Support restaurants! <3

#67 is Mackenzie Hoffman, the owner and operator of Stir Crazy, a restaurant I deeply love. She’s also a talented sommelier with over a decade of experience in the industry, working in the front of house and curating wine lists. Before opening the doors to her Melrose Ave wine café alongside Harley Wertheimer and Macklin Casnoff, she worked at several distinguished bars and restaurants in L.A. and New York, including in beverage operations at The Four Horsemen. Mackenzie is also, quite notably, the only person who has ever been plugged twice on Plugs! I’m thrilled to have her on today, sharing her Plugs.

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Restaurant — Cafe 2001

A slow yet steady reckoning has been taking place in the restaurant world: gone are the days of behemoth showstoppers, multi-multi-dollar-sign build-outs with attractive lead times to perfect mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, hierarchical staffs in what only resemble caste systems, their non-seasonal seasonal clichés of dinner menus, with their awful replicable steps of service and trite excuses for anything that resembles “hospitality.” (Why, yes, they're still being built, still being invested in, still being applied to and staffed, still filled to the brim with guests even, but inspire me? They do not!) In come the charmers, the breakers of “rules,” the askers of “why?” or rather “why not?,” the naughty nerds that tinker and play and make the most with what they have. They show their personalities, even show their flaws, but they’re more inventive and more authentic than anything I’ve experienced lately. The spaces that time travel, that are stuck in time, the “bistros,” the “cafés,” the “diners,” the more sustainable footprints–both physically and operationally (yes, they can be profitable and equitable)–that can really change this restaurant world we’re constantly attempting to shape and reshape again. Cafe 2001 is one of these places, and Giles Clark is one of my favorite nerds. Give me a long-winded conversation about taming the sugar levels on the formidable lemon tart with a bruléed top any day of the week! And please, slice me another inspiring pork terrine plate with impeccable technique and ingredient sourcing. Keep the Classical KUSC on full blast, pull up another chair, order a whacky matcha-topped beer, and this is cafe culture at its finest!

Photos by Mackenzie Hoffman.