This week on The LA Food Podcast, Luca sits down with Ben Leventhal — the founder of Eater and Resy — to talk about his most ambitious project yet: Blackbird, a next-gen restaurant loyalty and payments app that might reshape how we dine out and how restaurants survive. Recorded at Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica, the conversation breaks down how Blackbird rewards you for actually showing up and paying at your favorite restaurants, why Ben thinks this model could transform the industry’s financial future, and how LA’s rollout fits into his vision for the app. We also get into Ben’s background in food media and reservations, and as a die-hard New Yorker, what he really thinks about Los Angeles as a tier 1 dining city.

Before that, Luca and Father Sal kick things off with recent eats — from Atelier Manna to the San Diego Food + Wine Festival — before diving into a rare silver lining for food media. We react to a week of big news:

• The New York Times naming two new associate food critics, including friend of the pod Ryan Sutton
  

• Elazar Sontag taking over as restaurant critic at The Washington Post
  

• Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me launching the podcast Expense Account
  

• And rumors of a brand-new food media startup from former Puck staffers
  

In Chef’s Kiss / Big Miss, we tackle:

• Robot woks and automation at LA spots Tigawok and Robowok
  

• The Infatuation’s Best New Restaurants in LA list for 2025
  

• Big three-star demotions in the Michelin Guide (Alinea, Masa, The Inn at Little Washington)
  

• AI-driven restaurant marketing and fully AI-generated ad campaigns
  

• And looming tariffs on Italian imports and what that could mean for pasta night
  

We close with a Mailbag question on whether it’s finally time for us to launch a LA Food Awards of our own.

If you care about LA restaurants, restaurant tech, loyalty apps, Blackbird, food media, Michelin stars, and the future of dining, this episode is for you.

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