Jonathan Gold’s sudden passing rocked the food world last weekend. The venerable gourmand succumbed to pancreatic cancer within mere weeks of his diagnosis, shocking his family, friends, and fans. Tweets, obits, and condolences flowed in, honoring Pulitzer-Freaking-Prize winning food critic, who made a name for embracing the wonderous multi-culturalism of the L.A. food scene.
The sting of losing Gold is still reverberating as the community works through the grief of losing a true champion of all things food and the patron saint of people behind the grills, bars, trucks, and tables of Los Angeles. As an outgrowth of that pain, street artist Jonas Never decided to memorialize the great critic with a mural a la the one he created in the wake of Anthony Bourdain’s suicide last month.
Never painted the mural to Gold in Santa Monica, on the outer walls of Margo’s Restaurant & Bar on Montana Ave. The mural is of Gold proudly holding up his tour-de-force newspaper insert of restaurant culture, Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants.
The Santa Monica mural is just one of the ways Los Angeles is honoring Gold this weekend. On Saturday, L.A. will remember their fallen son by illuminating the city in a blanket of gold lights. Los Angeles Magazine reports, “on Saturday, July 28, which would have been Gold’s 58th birthday, several local landmarks will be illuminated in gold lights and several others with projected messages honoring Gold.” The El Segundo headquarters of the L.A. Times will be bathed in gold along with L.A. City Hall, Wilshire Grand Center, U.S. Bank Tower, the Natural History Museum, LAX, and several other points of interest across Los Angeles and Santa Monica.
In Chinatown, Gold’s 2015 documentary, City of Gold, will be screened publically during the Chinatown Summer Nights fest. Roy Choi and his Kogi Truck — a truck Gold championed — will be attendance to help celebrate the chef.
If you’re not in Los Angeles this weekend and still want to do something to remember Jonathan Gold, friends of his widow and children have set up a GoFundMe to help them transition into a life without their husband and father. The fund has raised over $75,000 in just 48 hours (3/4 of its intended goal). You can help his family out over at GoFundMe.
