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- Southern California restaurant owners who depend on imported Asian ingredients are “freaking out” over potential tariffs.
- The uncertainty around tariffs has led to some suppliers preemptively increasing prices.
“We are freaking out,” says Billie Sayavong. He and his wife, Nokmaniphone, operate Nok’s Kitchen, one of the few restaurants in Southern California devoted to cuisine from Laos. The Westminster restaurant has been featured repeatedly on this paper’s 101 Best Restaurants List.
In just the last week, shortly after President Trump announced new tariffs, Billie watched the restaurant’s meat and seafood invoice increase by 30%.
Nok’s Kitchen relies heavily on goods imported from all over Southeast Asia to make its signature grilled sausages, fiery larb and crispy rice salad. Even with the president’s 90-day pause on tariffs, the Sayavongs are no more confident in their ability to continue to operate the restaurant in an unsteady economic climate.
“There is a lot of back-and-forth and the president will make a decision and switch, and our vendors are not taking chances,” he says. “They are automatically increasing prices right away.”
It’s a reality faced by restaurant owners across the city, who continue to struggle with the aftermath of the writers’ strike and the recent fire disasters. Dozens of businesses have already closed since the start of the year, with more closures announced in recent weeks.
Tariffs are affecting restaurants serving cuisines that rely on goods from countries with the highest tariffs set, including South and Southeast Asia, where the proposed hikes range from 17% to 49%.
But the tariffs aren’t just putting these businesses in jeopardy. They’re threatening the diversity of the culinary landscape of Southern California, and the very heart of what makes Los Angeles one of the greatest dining cities in the world.
The taxes are part of President Trump’s America First trade policy, meant to “benefit American workers manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, and businesses.”
The greatest restaurants in America, and a large percentage of the most successful restaurants in Los Angeles, were built on the diversity of our immigrant communities. About one in 10 restaurants in the country serves Mexican food and 12% of all restaurants in America serve Asian food, with the majority being Chinese, Japanese or Thai.
Restaurant critic Bill Addison and columnist Jenn Harris rank the 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles.
So what does “America First” mean when applied to the restaurant industry? What cuisines are considered American and who gets to decide?
“I just want the trade war to be over so we can survive,” says Shaheen Ghazaly. The chef and owner of Kurrypinch in Los Feliz has been in a perpetual state of uncertainty since the new tariffs were announced. His restaurant relies heavily on ingredients from Sri Lanka, a country with a proposed 44% tariff.
Sri Lankan cinnamon sticks are used in at least 80% of the dishes on the menu. It’s what gives Ghazaly’s seeni sambol, the caramelized onion relish, a distinct, subtle, almost citrusy cinnamon flavor.
During the second week of April, shortly after the tariffs were announced, Ghazaly saw the cost of his weekly grocery order jump from $1,800 to $2,600.
The price for two pounds of Sri Lankan cinnamon rose from $37 to $49. Cardamon and clove, two other ingredients crucial to the spice mixes for his curries, were more expensive. The four cases of coconut milk he goes through each week from Thailand, a country with a proposed 36% tariff, rose from $28 a case to $42.
The tomatoes he buys from Mexico went from $15 to $29 per 25 pounds.
“This is really going to hurt us,” says Ghazaly. “In the restaurant world, the margins are already very thin. And I’m pretty sure people will be hesitant to come in if I have to increase $5 to $6 per dish.”
The thought of losing one of the city’s few Sri Lankan restaurants is unsettling, as is having to experience the food through a more Americanized lens.
Restaurant owners and chefs now are faced with a new dilemma: Pass the increased cost of goods onto diners with higher prices, or cut costs by reworking recipes and substituting with cheaper ingredients. For many of these restaurants, there isn’t a cheaper, local alternative.
Business owners across Los Angeles who rely on imported goods are bracing for higher prices as Trump imposes steep taxes on products from several countries.
“Making substitutions or making certain ingredients ourselves is not an option,” Billie says. “Our tamarind sauce we make using a certain fermented fish from Thailand. We don’t have the bandwidth to go fish and let it ferment for years. There might be alternatives, but it’s not the same. We have a consistent menu, and one little change can change the entire dish.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Southern California restaurants that rely on ingredients from the Asian countries set to face some of the highest tariffs. Changing ingredients threatens the integrity of the entirety of the restaurant and its signature dishes, many stemming from family recipes that have been developed over decades.
Thai Nakorn restaurant in Stanton relies on a specific coconut cream from Thailand to make its curries, as well as Thai Jasmine rice and a long list of herbs. There’s a unique Thai crab fat, fermented Thai crabs and Thai shrimp paste in the crab papaya salad.
“We have done this for over 40 years,” says Linda Sreewarom, whose aunt opened the original Thai Nakorn in Orange County in 1984. “To change the recipes completely and try to find different brands of all these things made in the U.S. is impossible.”
Facing a 125% tariff on goods from China, Bistro Na’s team in Temple City is having to reevaluate nearly every dish on its menu. The restaurant specializes in Beijing cuisine, with ingredients imported by local suppliers from all over China. There’s the hawthorn used to lacquer the signature crispy shrimp in a sweet glaze, the sea cucumber and abalone, Jinhua ham, 10-year-aged Xinhui tangerine peel, black fungus and a variety of spices.
“We are indeed exploring options to replace certain imported ingredients with those more readily available from suppliers. However, some ingredients are essential to preserving the authentic flavors of our dishes and cannot be substituted,” says Carol Lin, general manager at the restaurant. “Our costs have already gone up and it’s become more difficult to operate the business.”
The kitchen is in the process of developing dishes that use more locally grown, organic produce such as the new deep-fried eggplant with pine nuts, garlic and sesame. But the dish’s addictive, hot and sweet balance comes from a mixture of dried chili pepper from Mexico and hawthorn from China.
Uyên Lê, chef and owner of Bé Ù, a small, takeout-only Vietnamese restaurant in Echo Park, has spent the last week attempting to balance the cost of the perishable items she needs now with the nonperishable goods she might be able to stock up on before any anticipated price increase or shortage.
In mid-March, after four years in business, Lê made the difficult decision to increase menu prices due to a host of factors putting a strain on the financial health of the business, including rent, supplies, staffing, insurance and maintenance and replacement for equipment. The restaurant also provides 30 to 80 meals a day to unhoused neighbors in the community.
“I just raised my prices before these tariffs so I’m in a holding pattern to figure out how much of my products are going to go up,” she says. “For a lot of small businesses, we end up just eating a lot of the cost. I’m kind of a brand-specific person because there is a lot out there, and over time I’ve curated brands that I like and that I feel are consistent with my food.”
Lê’s inventory comes from a mix of online vendors and what she buys directly from Vietnamese markets in Los Angeles and Orange County. During the height of the pandemic, Lê put around 150 miles a day on her car, driving around to find the lowest price on goods for the restaurant.
Then there’s the issue of sustainability. Buying American, or even locally, may not always be the most sustainable option. Depending on the product, how something is produced can have more of an environmental impact than how far it travels. It’s a concept Lê’, who in a former life lobbied for support of green initiatives and green jobs for an electricians union, is keenly aware of.
“For our perishables it’s kind of weird, because to a certain extent you’re trying to be environmentally conscious,” she says. “I prefer to buy California avocados because of the shorter time it takes to get to me and I’m supporting local farmers. But they use so much more water to grow avocados in California than they do in Mexico, where it’s an avocado-growing region.”
Sourcing peppercorns exclusively from the Kampot region of Cambodia helps make Sophy’s Cambodia Town a culinary destination in Long Beach. Owner Sophy Khut marinates slabs of beef jerky in a garlicky sauce heavy with the peppercorns, prized for their singular strength and aroma. It’s a dish worth traveling for, and one that’s helped keep the restaurant in business for the past two decades.
Khut’s cost to purchase the peppercorns is $18 per pound, not including shipping or taxes.
“It’s really hitting me,” she says. “I’m worrying a lot and I feel like I’m having an anxiety attack.”
Like all the restaurateurs I spoke with, Khut says she’ll exhaust every available resource before raising prices, even by a fraction. But altering ingredients like her prized Kampot peppercorns, will never be an option.
I can think of hundreds of similar examples, dishes and entire immigrant cuisines dependent on ingredients not readily available in the United States or too costly to produce locally. With the threat of tariffs still looming, and restaurants and diners already feeling the squeeze, we should all be asking ourselves the same question. Without immigrant food culture, what is American food?
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