Let Them Eat Cotton Candy! It's National Cotton Candy Day, Kids!

Me and cotton candy dessert at Barton G.

Today, all day, is National Cotton Candy Day. Yup, I know, everyday is some kind of food day, but this one is different—it's cotton candy!!! I love cotton candy, but not too much or else I get a little wacko. And, no, you're not seeing pink everywhere. It's just cotton candy all up in your face. Although, this fluffy, airy, sweet treat is fairly commonplace, the examples I've experienced are not. Here are a few:

At West Hollywood's Barton G., Marie Antoinette’s Head "Let Them Eat Cake" is served alongside "Raspberry & Strawberry Cream Cheese Petit Cakes with Fresh Berries and Schlag." Apparently A-listers like Salma Hayek and her daughter, Valentina, can't get enough of the stuff. While I was there dining, I spied my own Hollywood star, Taraji P. Henson who plays Cookie Lyon on Empire.


Cocktail garnished with cotton candy at Barton G.

An interesting sleight of hand item at Barton G. comes in the form of a chilled martini glass topped with cotton candy. The server then reveals a cocktail shaker, shakes it, and pours the contents over the cotton candy, thereby dissolving the confection as it blends into the supremely sweet concoction.
It's a fun trick, and the ladies love it.


EP & LP's cotton candy dessert named "Black Beauty."

Chef Louis Tikaram is the new chef on the block, but is fitting right in on La Cienega Blvd's flashy restaurant row with items like this. For dessert, Tikaram whips up the "Black Beauty" ($12) with "Black Sticky Rice – (two ways: Puffed & Ice Cream) with Cucumber Cream and Szechuan Cotton Candy." It's artful and fun at the same time.


Just like at the fair.

A while back at the Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival, I got this treat from the Joe's Stone Crab exec chef Andre Bienvenu.

Perhaps one of the most famous examples of fancy cotton candy is found at Jose Andres' The Bazaar. Here, cotton candy cocoons a chunk of foie gras like a bug caught by a spider but more delicious (to humans, at least). Unfortunately, when I dined there, we didn't get the foie gras cotton candy for dessert as a part of our tasting menu.

It's yet another example of this childhood goodie—that has exasperated parents everywhere with its hair-attaching tendencies—and how it has evolved and become elevated. Coincidently, each one of these local restaurant examples of elevated cotton candy can all be found on La Cienega Blvd. Is there some kind of cotton candy monopoly in this part of town? Or should the street be renamed Cotton Candy Corridor. There's a ring to it.

Barton G.
861 N La Cienega Blvd,
West Hollywood
310-388-1888

EP & LP
603 N La Cienega Blvd,
West Hollywood
310-855-9955

The Bazaar
465 S La Cienega Blvd,
Beverly Hills
310-246-5545