City of Gold is an affectionate portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold and is also a love letter to the kaleidoscopic culinary and cultural wonders of Los Angeles. Gold is known for his eclectic embrace of mom-and-pop restaurants along with more rarified fare, and the documentary offers a savory tour from noodle joint to taco truck, revealing the writer’s insightful inquiry into the culture behind cuisines. Leading director Laura Gabbert on his daily rounds, the writer and his faithful truck take her from the tonier precincts of Beverly Hills to the sprawl and strip malls of the outer suburbs in his search for not the hottest or the hippest but for the authentic, the unusual and the flavorful. With boundless curiosity, Gold is an urban explorer exposing Los Angeles’s diversity and culinary history one restaurant review at a time. He is as gifted a raconteur as he is a writer, and he describes not just his career, restaurants visited and meals eaten, but also the path that led a classically trained cellist to food writing. Filling in the picture are observations from Gold’s family, editors, colleagues—and most tellingly—the food-truck purveyors, chefs and restaurateurs who underscore just how resonant and important his work is as they explain the effect of his perceptive reviews on their businesses. Gold’s joie de vivre and passion for his delicious beat animate every frame of this piquant documentary that revolutionizes how we consider and appreciate the culinary bounty on our table.

A project done for director Laura Gabbert.