12
Type of Business: Restaurant
Cuisine:
American, Seafood, Other
Price: price2
Rating Criteria
1. From Scratch: Serves mostly (i.e., more than half of the menu) fresh food, prepared from scratch. Does NOT rely primarily on kits or prepared/partially prepared foods from commercial food services.
Yes
Comments: Culture Club makes 100% of their food from scratch (though their baked goods are made off-premises by cottage bakers), using mostly ingredients that Elaina buys from local farms or the farmer’s market. Any spices or dry goods are purchased from an organic foods distributor. When I asked her if any of the ingredients she uses are canned or frozen, she had to think hard and finally came up with three—jackfruit for the vegan plates, tomato paste (packed in glass) and coconut milk. For a restaurant to pay this much attention to sourcing is remarkable—it’s very easy for an owner to use a restaurant supplier for every single thing they need, from proteins to dinner mints to paper towels for the bathroom. The fact that Elaina has sought out the best local sources for her ingredients speaks to her passion for real food.
2. Local/Organic: Offers at least some locally sourced and/or organically produced food and/or wild-caught seafood.
Yes
Comments: Elaina has cultivated relationships with California ranchers to supply her with her proteins. She makes bone broth with bones from Diamond Mountain Ranch in Northern California. Diamond also supplies her beef , bison, lamb, chicken and beef livers. She also purchases from a small chicken farmer near LA called Harvest Gathering Farm, who supplies all of the chickens, pork bacon, eggs and sausages.
Her fruits and vegetables come from local farmers’ markets. If necessary, she supplements with orders from a certified organic distributor. Elaina uses this produce to make a variety of fermented items—krauts, beverages and condiments.
Culture Club uses organic raw cheese from Organic Pastures and an organic mozzarella from Lifeline. Cashew cheeze is made in-house. Raw butter and cream are also available.
Culture Club doesn’t serve seafood (with the exception of fish bone broth), but ceviche is an occasional summer special and is made from wild-caught seafood purchased locally.
Her fruits and vegetables come from local farmers’ markets. If necessary, she supplements with orders from a certified organic distributor. Elaina uses this produce to make a variety of fermented items—krauts, beverages and condiments.
Culture Club uses organic raw cheese from Organic Pastures and an organic mozzarella from Lifeline. Cashew cheeze is made in-house. Raw butter and cream are also available.
Culture Club doesn’t serve seafood (with the exception of fish bone broth), but ceviche is an occasional summer special and is made from wild-caught seafood purchased locally.
3. Pastured: Offers at least some pastured animal foods.
Yes
Comments: All eggs, chicken, lamb, bison and beef are pastured. All broths are made with bones from pastured animals and wild-caught fish.
4. Organs: Offers some dishes made with organ meats (liver/paté, sweetbreads, heart, kidney, brains, etc.).
Yes
Comments: Organ meats are not offered on the menu, but Culture Club does make chicken liver paté that you can buy to take home and also sells prepared liverwurst and braunschweiger from US Wellness Meats.
5. Cooking Fats: Cooks (sautés) in natural fats such as butter, lard, tallow, duck fat, coconut oil, or olive oil; uses lard, duck fat, or tallow for frying.
Yes
Comments: All cooking is done in chicken fat, coconut oil, tallow, butter or ghee.
6. Bone Broth: Makes own bone broths/stocks for use in soups, stews, gravies, and sauces (does NOT use canned broth or powdered soup bases).
Yes
Comments: All bone broths are made with pastured animal bones. Beef and chicken bone broth are always available, as is a vegan shiitake mushroom broth.
Cooking times are as follows:
Chicken: 24 hrs
Fish: 24 hours
Beef and bison: 48-72 hrs
Cooking times are as follows:
Chicken: 24 hrs
Fish: 24 hours
Beef and bison: 48-72 hrs
7. Seasonings: Makes most of its own seasoning mixes (does NOT use flavoring packets or MSG).
Yes
Comments: With the exception of an organic adobe seasoning by Frontier, Culture Club makes their own spice blends and do not use any pre-packaged seasonings.
8. Salad oils: Makes most of its own salad dressings using olive oil or cold-pressed sesame oil.
Yes
Comments: Culture Club offers three dressings: a balsamic vinaigrette, ginger sesame and citrus bliss. The oils used are extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil and sesame oil.
9. Breads: Offers genuine sourdough bread.
Yes
Comments: A cottage baker makes genuine sourdough bread for Culture Club. Two varieties are offered: heirloom einkorn (an ancient variety of wheat) and gluten-free buckwheat.
Breakfast burritos are served on cassava chia wraps, which are made by Sieté, a purveyor of grain-free tortillas.
Breakfast burritos are served on cassava chia wraps, which are made by Sieté, a purveyor of grain-free tortillas.
10. Beverages: Offers lacto-fermented beverages (such as kombucha or kvass).
Yes
Comments: Elaina is a dedicated fermenter and produces three types of fermented beverages in addition to her astounding array of fermented condiments: kombucha, jun and water kefir. All of these beverages are available in a variety of flavors and can be purchased to eat with a meal or from the cold case to take home. You can also purchase “shots” of beet kvass or kraut brine.
11. Condiments: Offers lacto-fermented condiments.
Yes
Comments: Culture Club offers a huge variety of fermented condiments: a rotating selection of krauts, including ones made with less usual ingredients like carrots and radishes, ketchup, hot sauce, salsa verde, a hot pepper relish, kefir crème fraiche and coconut cream yogurt.
12. Desserts: Offers desserts made with natural sweeteners (such as raw honey, maple syrup, maple sugar, molasses, date sugar, palm sugar, coconut sugar, sorghum syrup, or malt syrup).
Yes
Comments: Culture Club sells a variety of baked goods made by neighborhood cottage bakers. They offer a rotating section of muffins, cookies, little cakes and scones, as well as loaves of einkorn bread plain or in flavors like cinnamon raisin, kalamata and rosemary. All baked goods use natural sweeteners.
Rating Created by:
eringilmore
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Location & Contact
1392 E Washington Blvd
Pasadena, CA
Culture Club 101 is a special place and unique in the Los Angeles area. It’s a café, sure, but people go there for much more than breakfast stratas, krauts and the rotisserie chicken plate—it’s also a bookstore, a supplier of responsibly sourced raw ingredients, a maker of house-fermented condiments and beverages, a community gathering place, a teaching space. Elaina Luther, the owner, was interrupted several times during the course of our conversation by regulars who wanted to say hi and give her a hug. The staff is warm, welcoming and knowledgeable about the menu and the philosophy of this space—that food should be nourishing to your body, spirit and microbiome.
Other items of note:
• Everything is organically certified/produced and non-GMO
• Smithsonian-certified bird-friendly coffee
• Water used for beverages, drinking and cooking is filtered with a Radiant Life 4-stage water filtration system
• Dishwasher uses steam to sanitize rather than chemicals