Bristol Farms Once Again Peanut Butter
50.A.'s Best Fancy Grocery Store Is This Bristol Farms in the Valley
Woodland Hills gets a 25,000-square-foot "concept shop" that nosotros hope is the future of supermarkets.
If you lot're a sure kind of Angeleno, the kind who buys a lot of organic produce, prime beef, California wine, sparkling h2o, and freshly broiled desserts, Bristol Farms is a gourmet grocery store concatenation that probably gives y'all lots of feelings.
Bristol Farms is very much a part of L.A.'s food-forward, relaxed-chic customs. It'southward where Oscar-winning pic producers behind billion-dollar blockbusters volition get for huge trays of sushi on their manner to a poker game. Bristol Farms is also where you can purchase half a pie, which makes information technology easy to try all of its wonderful pie flavors (strawberry rhubarb is excellent). I assume that the half-a-pie affair exists because Bristol Farms understands that pie is the best dessert and you shouldn't limit your pie options.
If you're Lawrence on HBO's Insecure, Bristol Farms is where you can accidentally show up without enough cash or any credit cards and have two coeds buy you booze and and then convince yous in the parking lot to ditch hanging out with your boy and hang out with them instead.
Credit: Courtesy of Bristol Farms
Bristol Farms is a grocery store with serious reach in Los Angeles. The store Lawrence hit is in Westchester, nearly LMU and the LAX airport. Last November, Bristol Farms opened a store all the way on the other side of Fifty.A., in the San Fernando Valley community of Woodland Hills. And the Woodland Hills store on Mulholland Drive is, I believe, the single greatest fancy grocery store in Los Angeles. Yes, this means that L.A.'s best gourmet supermarket is in the Valley.
The first time I visit the 25,000-foursquare-foot "concept shop," I instantly feel happy. Everything is then civilized. In that location's no Whole Foods-similar parking nightmare at all. The high-ceilinged store is airy and delightfully sprawling and non overcrowded on a Sunday afternoon. At that place are so many cashiers that the lines to check out are short.
The first thing you meet when you walk into the store is a rainbow of local produce, like pixie tangerines and organic greens and radishes. The $5.99-per-pound fresh fruit bar, with sliced berries, melons, grapes, and more, is a bargain compared to the pre-packaged fruit salads you'll find at other upscale supermarkets.
Credit: Courtesy of Bristol Farms
It's the meat department, though, that stuns me. There's a broad selection of 100-percent grass-fed Showtime Light wagyu beefiness from New Zealand. This is the aforementioned stellar beef used by HiHo, the exemplary burger restaurant in Santa Monica. The First Calorie-free options at Bristol Farms include ground beefiness, marinated Korean-style short ribs, and many kinds of steaks. I become a bone-in New York and a marinated BBQ spice rib eye. The meat is tremendously beefy and marbled, with beautiful fat that virtually tastes like stinky cheese afterward the steaks are grilled. At $27.99 a pound, these steaks are pricey merely not more than expensive than domestic beefiness y'all'll find at competing butcher counters. The Bristol Farms seafood counter, with Dungeness crab cakes and frequent sales on wild-caught fish, also offers premium proteins and good value.
This new Bristol Farms also excels at being a solution for those days when you lot don't feel like cooking. There's an abundance of prepared-food stations, part of what's billed as an "epicurean food hall and market place feel:" wild-caught seafood salads and poke, sushi, sandwiches made with house-smoked meat, an impressive olive bar, and a build-your-own-bowl wok option that resembles Mongolian BBQ, among others. The serve-yourself soup area has staff of life bowls and soups like Peruvian shrimp, Russian cabbage, matzo brawl, and both beef and organic vegetarian chili.
There's a coffee bar with gelato, affogato, and $1 drip coffee. At that place'south a smoothie and juice bar. The "dairy deli" has more than than 300 cheeses. The shop's staff keeps a close eye on the organic salad bar and the hot food bar. On a recent lunchtime visit, I'm bummed to see that the tray of carnitas is empty. But during the moment it takes me to put some fried rice and spaghetti and meatballs in my container, an employee puts in a new tray of carnitas. You tin can accept dejeuner here at a leisurely pace: Some of the community seating inside the store is next to power outlets, and so you lot can you charge your phone while taking advantage of the free wi-fi.
Credit: Courtesy of Bristol Farms
And and so, of form, there's the bakery with its one-half pies, assorted cakes, and a warm, chocolate-y delight known simply equally The Cookie. Beyond the bakery, Bristol Farms also has your sweet tooth covered with sections for Sugarfina candy and Godiva chocolate. There's fifty-fifty a section devoted to dessert toppings, everything from Hershey's chocolate syrup to artisanal caramel sauce created by Berkeley's CC Fabricated. The vino and spirits area too runs the gamut, with everything from a display of x wines under $ten to top-tier options like $299 bottles of Opus 1 and $349 bottles of Macallan 17.
There'south a funny moment in Insecure when Lawrence realizes he tin can't pay for the six-pack of Corona and canteen of Maker'south Marker he's trying to purchase at Bristol Farms. The young ladies behind him in line offer to purchase it for him. "What is information technology, like, $xv or something?" one of his new benefactors asks. "$46.92," the stone-faced checkout clerk replies. Information technology's a skillful joke about overpriced alcohol at a high-end grocery store.
But I should too point out that the Woodland Hills Bristol Farms had six-packs of Guinness, Harp, and Smithwick's on auction for $7.99 right before St. Patrick'south Solar day. This concept shop is all about choosing your own chance, whether you're shopping with a upkeep or ready for a blowout. Val party!
Bristol Farms , 23379 Mulholland Dr., Woodland Hills, 818-449-8606
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Source: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/bristol-farms-valley-best-fancy-grocery-store