Photos: Jonathan Gold’s best restaurant dishes of 2014

Chef Zach Pollock’s crostone is smooth, creamy chicken liver pâté spread out into a half-moon, flanked by hunks of grilled bread and a pungent, mustardy splash of plum jam.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

The tacos are made by pushing the chicken skin up the shaft of the neck and then frying, giving the effect of a tanned, meaty cylinder surmounted by an Elizabethan collar of pure crunch.  (Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times)

Hiroyuki Naruke’s austere edomae-style sushi at Q Sushi might be plain-looking, but it accentuates the flavor of the fish rather than of the rice or condiments, a virtuoso performance of pickling and curing and aging.  (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The vast portions of lamb barbacoa at Aqui es Texcoco are pit-roasted with agave leaves, chewy and gelatinous and touched with crunchy bits of char. You eat the lamb with stacks of hot tortillas, puddles of beans and freshly made guacamole.  (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Though the ingredients in Perfecto Rocher’s paella might strike people as rather austere, Rocher values chewiness over dreamy softness, mountain herbs over the raw smack of saffron, the communal experience over the desires of an individual diner and almost anything over soupiness.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The warm, red puddle of luu suk, pig blood soup with MSG sauce, is strewn with crunchy pork rinds and feathery Southeast Asian herbs. It is both delicious and excellent as a statement of purpose.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

The chilled concoction at Awu Delicious Food is made of jellied pigskin molded into the shape of a swimming fish, presented with rings of sliced pepper emerging from its mouth where a cartoonist would draw air bubbles and moistened with a salty, spicy sauce.  (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

The Beep Beep is a mayonnaisey sushi-bar classic dynamite, spiked with chile and amplified with lots of fresh sea urchin, spackled over hot rice.  (Cheryl A. Guerrero / Los Angeles Times)

Though the menu at Taco María changes daily, you will almost always find crocks of vegetarian chorizo, made with spiced shiitake mushrooms instead of meat, topped with a crunchy new potato, a soft-poached egg and a drizzle of tart tomatillo sauce.   (Patrick T. Fallon / For the Los Angeles Times)