City Of Gold

Foodies will be in torment over this documentary about Los Angeles-based, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, Jonathan Gold.  Not because it is not good but precisely for the opposite reason.  The cleverly punning-entitled City Of Gold captures with unadorned simplicity, the love that Gold has for his hometown, a sprawling metropolis which he has single-handedly mapped in terms of its ethnically-diverse eateries.  

Director Laura Gabbert largely follows the iconic and hugely influential food critic (a positive review from Gold can make a new restaurant’s fortunes) as he drives around LA in his Dodge pick-up, eating his way not through the Michelin-starred world of haute cuisine but rather the strip malls that constitute the real heart of the city, tasting food that comes directly from LA immigrant cultures, less melting pot than, as Glass points out, a jigsaw puzzle of discrete ethnic communities with their regional sub-cultures.

What is remarkable about Gold, evidently a thoughtful, gentle man, is that he writes not just about the food as such but its social meaning, much as he once did when he was a music critic, a trained cellist writing about punk rock and rap.  Occasional readings of extracts of his reviews reveal a rich and deep understanding of food as a defining human phenomenon and one can understand why he has the following he has. Somewhat disturbingly one can also understand why he has the girth he has. Clearly lean cuisine is not something of which Gold has much experience, or would want to. Even so, I'd be going easy on those hot dogs and tacos bro'!

 

Want something different?