• On Culver City’s art gallery row, Chef Zadi of Café Livre whips up French and North African dishes in line with his motto, “Eat. Good. Clean. Food.” The smell of freshly baked baguettes fills the air. Tagine is always simmering. Desserts like fruit strudel and almond baklava are made with farmer’s market ingredients. And house-made charcuterie specialties include rabbit pâté, jidori chicken and duck prosciutto terrine, and a veal, fig and pistachio sausage.
  
  Said Charles Perry in his Los Angeles Times review, “The fact is, Zadi is a brilliant chef. Everything he touches explodes with fragrance.”

Chef Farid Zadi has cooked in five different countries and knows his way around French techniques and North African flavors. He can whip up a mean couscous and deliver a fine, finessing touch to elegant dishes that would make Le Cordon Bleu proud. He is the dean at Ecole de Cuisine Los Angeles, where he’s been teaching students—in a thick French accent—how to prepare “good, clean food,” for the past 10 years. You’ll find a few of his pupils at the likes of Bouchon, The Bazaar by José Andrés and Mozza.

“The chef’s tagine (chicken, vegetable, beef or lamb) with couscous is tremendous … He makes his own mahogany-red harissa sauce too—so good I was tempted to put the squirt bottle in my bag.” (LA Times)