Five years ago, if you said you were going to Los Angeles just for its dining options, you would have been greeted with a derisory snort or bewilderment. Or both.

These days, those going to LA aren’t only interested in Hollywood, Disneyland and Beverly Hills. The City of Angels has become a mecca for food lovers — on par with American culinary capitals such as New York, San Francisco or New Orleans. Over the past year, everyone from Putlizer Prize winner Jonathan Gold to basketballer Magic Johnson to actor Masi Oka have called LA one of the most exciting culinary cities.

What happened? LA’s “queen of breads”, chef Nancy Silverton, who started establishments La Brea Bakery, Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza (beloved by foodies worldwide), said food culture has become much less snobby and more accessible as travellers become more informed. “When people thought of celebrity chef restaurants, they thought New York. People stayed away from Los Angeles,” said the winner of this year’s James Beard Most Outstanding Chef. “But in the past two to three years, LA has become a destination to eat, because there has been a shift in the way people think about food. Magazines and international shows like those by Anthony Bourdain have changed (the perception) of what good food is all about.”

Big-name chefs including Wolfgang Puck and Nobu (Nobuyuki Matsuhisa), who have food empires around the world, started their careers in Los Angeles.

“Simply put, Los Angeles has been overlooked,” said Silverton. “There is now such a huge global trend in travelling to eat, and eating at good restaurants.”

Fellow Los Angeles-based chef David Myers, who together with Silverton, was recently in town for the Epicurean Market, agreed. “It’s been a long time coming for Los Angeles. What LA chefs have done is inspiring — it’s breaking conventions ... people are now interested in all sorts of cuisines, all sorts of innovations,” said the man who put institutions such as the now-shuttered Sona and Comme Ca on the American culinary map.

One game changer in the food scene came in the form of pop-up restaurant concepts, starting with Ludobites in 2007. This venture by chef Ludo Lefebvre was such a sensation (its reservation website Open Table crashed due to overwhelming response), it ran for six years before Lefebvre finally settled down to open a restaurant, Trois Mec, last year.

Another game changer is the gourmet food truck movement that happened when LA chef Roy Choi’s Kogi BBQ Truck, offering Korean-Mexican fusion tacos, took the scene by storm in 2008.

“The popularity of food trucks happened because people stopped being hoity-toity about food,” said Daniel Shemtob, owner and founder of LA’s The Lime Truck, which won season two of Food Network’s reality food show, The Great Food Truck Race.

Shemtob started his food truck in 2010 serving “Californian beach” food, including carnitas fries and crab ceviche, to great success. His customers have been known to drive eight hours just to sample his wares. Shemtob has even opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant, with another currently in the works.

“The food scene in LA isn’t like that in the cities on the east of the US, which tended to be more European-inspired. We could do more interesting, experimental and casual things with our food,” he added.

Food trucks, said Shemtob, are a great way to get your food out to the customers. “It’s hard for chefs to open restaurants as so much money is involved; and typically, the business people who are financing that business might want to alter what you want to serve,” he elaborated. “Food trucks allow chefs to be as creative as they want and customers get to eat five-star restaurant-standard food for under 10 bucks. Everyone wins.”

And everyone seems to be bringing something to the table too. Myers, who will open his new restaurant at Marina Bay Sands next year, said the city’s ethnic diversity contributed immensely to its food scene, with the large Mexican and Asian populations in ethnic enclaves such as K-Town and Little Tokyo offering authentic flavours in the menu.

“There is a vividness in the way we do food in Los Angeles, yet it’s one that comes with the freshness and lightness that Californian cuisine is known for,” Myers said. “Who wouldn’t like that in their food?”

Who, indeed?