Elysian Valley — Frogtown to almost everyone who goes there — is a strip about half a mile wide, squeezed between the concrete channel of the Los Angeles River on one side and a freeway on the other. There is no through traffic, because there is essentially nowhere to pass through to. What that has produced is a neighbourhood of light industry and warehouses where restaurants have opened inside buildings that were never meant to hold them, reached along a river path rather than a commercial street.
Nothing here is on a strip you can drive down and browse, and several of the good rooms are inside buildings with no obvious frontage. Tell Karpo where you are entering from and it will route you properly.
The sandwich shop
Wax Paper at 2902 Knox Avenue is the neighbourhood's best-known address, making sandwiches named after National Public Radio hosts. It is a small operation in a small building, and the naming conceit tells you a fair amount about who the room is for and how seriously it takes itself, which is: very seriously about the sandwiches, and not at all about anything else.
It is the correct first stop for anyone visiting Frogtown for the first time, partly because the sandwiches are good and partly because eating one outside is the right way to look at the neighbourhood — which is low, industrial and unusually quiet for central Los Angeles.
The river kitchen
Lingua Franca sits along the Los Angeles River and runs a hyper-seasonal menu built around Californian produce. It is from the same owners as Wax Paper, and it is the more ambitious of the two — a proper sit-down restaurant in a location that would have been considered impossible for one until fairly recently.
A restaurant that changes its menu with what is available is a different proposition from one with a fixed list: there is no dish to plan around and no wrong week to go, which removes most of the reason to research it in advance.
The rest of the strip
Salazar does mesquite-grilled Mexican cooking, largely outdoors, which is one of the better uses of a warehouse yard in this city. Loreto covers Baja-style seafood. Justine's Wine Bar pours natural wine alongside vegan plates, and Just What I Kneaded is the plant-based bakery — between those two, Frogtown has a stronger vegan layer than most Los Angeles neighbourhoods several times its size.
Frogtown Brewery is the neighbourhood's brewery and Spoke Bicycle Cafe is the bike shop that is also a café, which is the most Frogtown business model available given that the river path is the neighbourhood's main street. La Colombe operates a coffee roastery here.
How to actually get around it
This is the part people get wrong. Frogtown is long and thin and its addresses are spread along it rather than clustered, so the walk between two restaurants can be considerably longer than the map suggests. The Los Angeles River bike path runs the length of the neighbourhood and is genuinely the fastest way between points — Spoke Bicycle Cafe existing as both a bike shop and a café is not a coincidence.
If you are driving, the practical approach is to accept that you will move the car at least once. Street parking is available but the neighbourhood is residential in among the industrial buildings, and the streets are narrow. If you can arrive by bike, do — the whole place is designed around the assumption.
Choosing
First visit, one stop: Wax Paper. A proper dinner: Lingua Franca, on the river. Outdoors, with smoke: Salazar. Wine and no meat: Justine's. Beer: Frogtown Brewery. Coffee and a bicycle problem solved simultaneously: Spoke.
Practical notes
Addresses: Wax Paper 2902 Knox Ave. Lingua Franca, Salazar, Loreto, Justine's Wine Bar, Just What I Kneaded, Spoke Bicycle Cafe, La Colombe and Frogtown Brewery are all spread along the Elysian Valley strip between the Los Angeles River and the freeway. Hours here change more often than in established restaurant neighbourhoods — several of these are small operations — so checking before setting out matters more than usual. The LA River bike path runs the length of the neighbourhood and is the fastest way between addresses. Streets are narrow and partly residential; parking exists but expect to move the car.
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Ask Karpo first
Frogtown's restaurants are strung along a river rather than clustered on a street, and small operations here change their hours often. Ask Karpo what is open today, how far apart the ones you want actually are, and whether it is a walk, a ride or a second parking space.
