
Olivia in K-Town Is Using Food to Unite Korean and Latino Cultures
Olivia is a vegetarian restaurant that opened five months ago in Koreatown, Los Angeles, co-founded by entrepreneurs Danny Oh and Chef Mario Alberto. Their cuisine is vegetarian and vegan, and they focus on the Korean and Mexican flavor palette as Danny and Mario are Korean and Mexican, respectively. They don’t like to label their cuisine as fusion, though, but rather as just “Angeleno food.”
Mexicans and Central Americans have been living in Koreatown for several decades by this point, and as Chef Mario Alberto says, “our communities are dependent on each other…at El Taurino, you have Mexicans cooking for Koreans, and at KBBQ, that’s where they feed us.”
This interconnectedness is what Danny Oh drew on in the naming of the place, aptly named after the olive branch but in Spanish, hoping to extend a welcoming hand to all residents of Koreatown so they may have a healthy, delicious meal.
Continue reading… (via L.A. Taco)