Ammatoli and Gusto have yet again been shortlisted for potential James Beard awards after the organization released its semifinalist list.
While Gusto yet again scores for potentially Outstanding Bakery for the third year running, Ammatoli has shifted its category. Initially, joining Chefs Stefano and Michael Procaccini for Best Chef in California back in 2024, this year it has been recognized in Outstanding Hospitality—something that feels both warranted and hard-earned.
The space has lushly expanded its wine menu over the past two years, with servers expressing deep knowledge in both the wines and the menu. Front-of-House Manager Ryan Paulsen has continued to lead the restaurant’s tight ship while Chef Masah Habibeh, through her extensive pastry program, has shifted the way the space does desserts.
Ammatoli has continued to be Long Beach’s most lauded space—and rightfully so.
Ammatolí opened quietly in 2018, nestled between an architectural firm and a fast-casual burger chain, the latter of which has disappeared and become an extension of Chef Dima’s space. The restaurant had a guiding principle from the start: to serve Levantine food that refused to be limited to one particular country. Rather, Ammatolí speaks to its owner’s diasporic background and to the richness of the Levant and the wider region, with menu nods to Jordan, Palestine, Syria…
Her ascent into what Los Angeles Times food critic Bill Addison calls “the consummate classical Levantine cooking of Southern California”—something which has scored her a coveted spot on the critic’s 101 best restaurants list year after year after year—has proven beautiful to watch.
Ammatolí is ultimately Chef Dima’s love letter from Jordan to Long Beach by way of the mighty Levantine cuisine, where she has taken gastronomical cues from the heart of the Levant—Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon…—and put them on beautiful display since 2018. Expanding her footprint in 2022 and then again in 2024, Ammatolí has evolved into one of our finest, where traditional, beautiful plates of Palestinian musakhan and sayadyieh are next to Chef Dima’s ever growing variety of in-house baked goods.
Ammatoli is located at 285 E. 3rd St.
What is Gusto?
Led by carb master Arturo Enciso and Ana Belén Salatino, the pair began offering baked goods out of their home and a clay oven that was in their backyard. Once they scored their brick and mortar on 4th Street, their game and reputation inherently changed: They not only began appearing rightfully at some of Long Beach’s best restaurants, they garnered national attention for everything from kouign ammans layered with nixtamalized corn—a dish that was on our Essential Dishes of 2023 list—and polverones with California walnuts to spelt flour biscuits and fruit galettes.
Shortly after opening. Food & Wine, the long-running cuisine magazine, had not only written about Gusto but deemed it one of the nation’s best bakeries.
Perhaps most notable, Gusto Bread is part of a growing tradition happening throughout Latin America—Panadería Rosetta in Mexico City immediately comes to mind—that decentralizes Europe’s (faulty at best) claim on baked goods, taking on fermentation and proofing techniques from their heritage’s own history and melding them with indigenous grains and ingredients.
In November of 2023, Gusto’s brick and mortar expanded: Joining its beautiful parklet, the bakery officially pushed east into the neighboring part of the building, to offer proprietary Rose Park-roasted coffee and a bit more space. Americanos are replaced with “Xicanos,” fused with pilloncillo syrup and matcha lattes are layered with hoja santa.
Gusto is located at 2710 E. 4th St.
