One of the city’s most celebrated California soul food restaurants just reopened with an even more creative global menu and its co-founder now fully at the helm.
When chefs Keith Corbin and Daniel Patterson debuted Alta in 2018, the restaurant amassed a legion of followers who flocked to West Adams for Watts-raised Corbin’s version of soul food cooked through an L.A. and California-produce lens. In a glowing 2019 review, Los Angeles Times food critic Bill Addison called it “a synergist for conversation around the evolving definition and direction of soul food in America,” and Corbin went on to receive two nods from the James Beard Award Foundation.
But a series of hardships, including the pandemic and severe drops in business after the Palisades and Eaton fires, changed the restaurant to a point that Corbin felt it had “lost its identity.” In 2025, Corbin and Patterson amicably split their partnership, allowing Corbin to fully focus on Alta and Patterson to launch Jacaranda, his own return to fine dining; the duo still operate Locol and their nonprofit, Alta Community, together…