La Paella on La Cienega/San Vicente makes a nice socarrat on their paellas - I asked for it the only time I’ve ordered paella, so I’m not sure if they just do it by default. One of their super friendly servers even helped us scrape it up once they saw we were at the bottom of the pan!
Overall, the paella (I think we got Valenciana Mixta?) was solid if pricey, given how reasonable the rest of their menu is. Although it scratched an itch that time, I usually just order a bunch of tapas.
Not on any of my 10+ visits to La Paella. The last legit socarrat sighting at a L.A. restaurant was Chef Perfecto Rocher’s Smoke.Oil.Salt. However, the Saturday paella at La Espanola, though served without socarrat, remains very, very good. I only go to La Paella for their tapas now.
That’s too bad! I had the paella during lunch hours, and they weren’t busy at the time so I wonder if that makes a difference, like they weren’t just rushing the paella out. Did you request socarrat when you ordered? Either way, sounds like they don’t do it by default.
Just returned on Friday from 2 weeks in Spain including 5 days in Valencia for the purposes of seeking out authentic paella and have a few thoughts. First, it really annoys me that no restaurant in LA carves jamon iberico correctly. It’s supposed to be hand carved in roughly small rectangular shapes and not put through a slicer.
Second, regarding paella…I had very very fond memories of the paella valenciana I had in Valencia 15 years ago so I was excited and nervous to try it again this time around. I wasn’t sure if it would live up to the memories I had from back then when I was just a young naive backpacker eating what I could afford. We hit up two legendary places in Valencia, Ristorante Levante and La Pepita. We went to Levante first to get the paella valenciana and it was amazing, HOWEVER, no soccarrat to be found. A little disappointing but didn’t care because it was delicious.
Next, we hit up La Pepita for the seafood paella. While it was beautiful, it was such a salt bomb that it was hard to finish. Shame because the flavors were good. I don’t necessarily think that the kitchen messed up but rather, we found the food in this part of spain to be overly salty in general, but this one in particular was really salty. Also, no soccarat to be found.
So yeah, maybe soccarat isn’t the end all for good paella if these two legendary paella shops cook theirs w/o it.
Where else did you visit? I love and miss Spain so much (we were there in may and our spanish friends are visiting us soon). will be going to the spot OP posted!
from my memory right around then. they kept most of their staff but we noticed little things here and there… haven’t been back since… wonder if it is still good… to be transparent we never ordered paella… tapas only every time. during our 2 trips to spain we were told if you’re not around valencia you don’t order paella, so we never have lol
It’s generally true…don’t eat paella outside of Valencia. Having said that, there are some places that serve up really tasty arroz dishes (places with dignity will not call them paella) outside of Valencia. Had an awesome arroz negro in Madrid on our last trip.
Ah I see. I’ve only been a couple times since then, but it’s always been pretty good. I must say, though, I’m happy enough to have a tapas place - without a hip scene to contend with or much of a fuss to getting a table (not to say Otoño is those things, rather other restaurants that have come and gone) - that I prob forgive them for any small inconsistencies.
As for paella outside of Valencia, yeah I heard the same thing when I visited Spain, but I still tried it at a couple random places in Madrid and Andalusia. They were tasty but nothing special, which was as you would expect!
Or anyone who can answer this question…
Is socarrat not standard for paella? I’ve been under the impression that it should be, but I find that of the handful of times I’ve ordered it, I’ve only ever gotten socarrat maybe a couple of times.
