In a city as vast as Los Angeles, coming across your own special, semi-secret place is like possessing a valuable weapon. I’m often on the defensive for loving Los Angeles, but I’m always up for a good fight ““ as long as my ear doesn’t get bitten off. I love showing off my favorite places in the city to my friends who may have previously slandered it as a place devoid of worthy cultural aspects, by proving them wrong with a beautiful view, or a delicious meal, or a genuinely radical atmosphere (many times, all three ““ or more).
I’m an unabashedly proud, Dodger blue-blooded Angeleno, so anytime I can please a stubborn non-believer with a Thanksgiving cornoucopia of Los Angeles’ offerings, I feel a sense of satisfaction as great as when Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn.
But despite this desire to impress a substantial group of people, sometimes it can seem like the lesser-known a place is, the better it is. Exclusivity gives something good, old-fashioned streetcred, the main ingredient of a Hipster Stew. In many cases, it’s true. Once one of your favorite places starts to get too popular and crowded, it can lose some of its special appeal. Maybe the scene’s demographic changes. I know that when the first Starbucks opened in my hometown, that was the cool place to hang out for me and my friends in the Latin Club. But once the 13-year-old gutter punks found out about it, they too started flocking there on Thursday nights, and it just got so lame. So we took our allowance-funded business elsewhere.
But this weekend, I found this juvenile philosophy to be faulty in regards to my latest Los Angeles propaganda weapon ““ sausage.
Wurstküche, located in the Arts District, is an “exotic sausage grill” that sells sausage sandwiches, Belgian frites with a million different dipping sauces and over 20 imported beers. It was actually featured in the first issue of the Daily Bruin magazine prime in the “Hoods” section and has been highly praised from the beginning, probably because people are relieved that the vegan trend is over and we can stop pretending to like quinoa.
Let me give you some background into my relationship with Wurstküche. Due to a wild twist of “only in Los Angeles” fate, I happened to be visiting my friend Phil ,who lives in the Arts District, on the day that Wurstküche had its grand opening. The place was pretty empty ““ the owner was there with just a couple of staff members, maybe one person on the grill, one at the register and another person kind of futzing around, although I’m sure he was doing something of sausage-y worth. The restaurant space itself was small but seemed sufficient ““ especially since the deliciousness of sausage erased any relative discomfort.
As I went back over the next two or three months, the crowd at Wurstküche kept getting bigger, along with the space itself ““ a previously empty back room has evolved into a buzzing dining hall with an additional bar.
The Wurstküche hype has spread like grainy Dijon on a juicy kielbasa. It’s gotten some excellent write-ups in the Los Angeles Times and by LA Weekly’s Jonathan Gold. But as I can personally attest, its popularity has rapidly skyrocketed not because of complimentary reviews in newspapers (though that has certainly helped) but by verbal word of mouth. That’s how I found out about it initially, and when I bring friends from Westwood, they tell their friends, and then they tell their friends ““ mathematical, I know. It’s like “Napoleon Dynamite,” but with less obnoxious merchandising.
I visited Wurstküche again this Saturday and was shocked to see it so packed with sausage fiends ““ it looked like the line for Space Mountain, not Sausage Kitchen (the English translation of Wurstküche). I should have been frustrated at the extra-long wait time or by the increased difficulty in finding a table to sit at, but I was elated to see a fabulous, locally-owned business succeeding, especially given the dismal economy. I guess the ghost baseball player guy in “Field of Dreams” was right: If you build a gourmet sausage restaurant, they will come.
The changing demographics of a fanbase can be a common gripe when it comes to a place getting overexposed. But the diversified scene at Wurstküche was totally welcome ““ hipster architecture students are fine and dandy, but when my friend saw one of her old UCLA professors, that was a true testament to the restaurant’s ability to appeal to sausauge, beer and frites-loving people of all shapes and musical preferences.
It’s less “exclusive” now ““ but the scene is far more vibrant. As long as Wurstküche doesn’t sell out by making a quinoa-and-wheatgrass sausage, they’ll remain one of my most potent L.A. weapons.
If you’re craving rattlesnake sausage with a side of cool, then e-mail McReynolds at dmcreynolds@media.ucla.edu.