How often does the L.A. Times 101 list make room for a first-timer? Every edition since 2013 is here. Pick a year to see who made their debut, who came back, and who stayed on.
Compare how many of the 101 slots each area received. Darker cells mark the busiest years within each region. Select a count to see the neighborhoods and restaurants behind it.
| Area | Slots | Entries |
|---|
Locations reflect the edition year. I used the guide’s location labels or its printed addresses when labels were unavailable. Broader regions use a consistent grouping for this tracker. A shared slot counts once. The mobile or multiple-location category covers entries without a primary location. The 2020 profiles of people and organizations have their own row.
Restaurants sorted by how many editions they appeared in. A restaurant can appear once per year, including when it shares a slot. Separately reviewed branches have their own records.
| Restaurant | Appearances | Editions |
|---|
* 2018 · First edition after Jonathan Gold
Gold died on July 21, 2018. His final list was the ranked 2017 edition.
That December, the L.A. Times food team published 101 Restaurants We Love,
an unranked guide organized by neighborhood. The team started with Gold’s 2017 list
and included 15 first-time picks he had reviewed.
Obituary
· How the 2018 list was made
Read the original L.A. Times edition
| Entry | Appearance | First listed | Last listed before this edition |
|---|
I compared all 101 published entries in each edition with the complete history up to that year. An entry is a first appearance if it has no earlier match, a comeback if its latest match was more than a year earlier, and a previous edition pick if it appeared the year before.
I matched spelling changes, moves and relaunches of the same restaurant. A separately reviewed branch can debut on its own, as Badmaash Venice did in 2026. A grouped entry takes up one slot and can establish an appearance for its co-featured restaurants. For example, the 2025 Mercado La Paloma entry keeps Holbox and Komal in the running going into 2026. Mentions in broader market write-ups and the separate Hall of Fame are excluded. The 2020 edition used nine slots for profiles of people and organizations, shown as other honorees.
The Times’ 2018 roundup highlighted 31 debuts. This tracker counts 28 new slots that year. Bar Amá and Somni appeared in shared slots with previously listed restaurants, and Jon & Vinny’s had already appeared in 2015.
Sources are the L.A. Times archive of annual lists and the original edition linked for each year.