Yum Cha Chats: Gryffin reveals his sources of creative nutrition in Los Angeles

Sunday’s are hard but can be made easier with unexpected delights — so here’s some fluff to get you through it. Inspired by a recent jaunt for dim sum with Miss Yellow in Hong Kong, allow us to deliver a new edition of Yum Cha Chats — which means let’s go eat dim sum and drink tea in Cantonese. The series will dig into the obscure and tasty 'fillings' you never knew about your favourite DJs and have nothing to do with music — every Sunday. Best enjoyed from bed…

Gryffin is one of those artists that takes one bite of success at a time, and at a steady pace that is deserving of his long hours spent in the studio. He’s been fortunate to have had a lot of bites out of a big pie over the last couple of years, starting with getting noticed during his college days — Daniel Griffith was just uploading bedroom productions online till he started amassing a following after publications and labels (Darkroom/Interscope Recordings) caught on to his 2014 remixes of Ellie Goulding and Maroon 5’s ‘Animals’.

Fast forward to 2020 and Gryffin is a top choice for a-list festivals around the world, from Coachella to Lollapalooza, and he’s also 1.7 billion Spotify streams and played to over 300,000 people in 2019. But the young producer needs a good dose of energy to fuel his creative output, so for this week’s Yum Cha Chats, Gryffin sits down with Mixmag Asia to share his indulgent sources of creative nutrition. Scroll on and try not to drool.

"I’m a huge coffee fan. I have to have a coffee first thing when I wake up. Philz is my favourite coffee shop in LA, and my go-to is the Iced Silken Splendor. It’s a balanced medium roast that has chocolate and nutty flavoured aromas. I get it with medium cream and sugar so it’s a little sweet, but not too much (can’t be having a dessert for coffee). This coffee is perfect for when the weather is hot, and I order it at least 3 times a week."

"This is my go-to dish when I come home from a long week or run of touring/shows. I’m a sucker for a good pasta dish, and vodka sauce is my absolute favourite. Jon & Vinny’s Spicy Fusilli gives me that delicious vodka sauce, but with an extra, spicy kick that sends it over the edge. They make their own pasta in-house and have perfected this recipe. It's the only pasta I constantly crave when I’m away from home."

"Whenever it’s cold in LA, I love heading to this place to get a bowl of ramen. Santouka is a ramen shop inside a food court (inside a Japanese grocery store), and you’d never expect the ramen to be this good... but it is. It’s more traditional, but it’s so authentic and tastes just like the ramen I get whenever I visit Tokyo. I get the Shio Ramen with a hard-boiled egg and slice of pork. It’s the best ramen in LA."

"Whenever I’m rehearsing for an upcoming show or tour, I’m in North Hollywood at a studio. This is the only food I order when I’m rehearsing. My favourite burrito ever is the Surf and Turf Burrito from Cilantro. Carne Asada meat with shrimp, rice, beans, guacamole, and homemade salsa. It is so good. Also, they give you free chips with their homemade paprika seasoning baked into the chips. It’s delicious."

"My favourite dessert of all time is ice cream, and Salt and Straw is right around the corner from my house. I’m obsessed. They have a ton of different flavours, and their trademark is that they make their ice cream slightly salty, which gives you that savoury and sweet balance. They do monthly flavours, but my favourite is the month of March when they do Pots of Gold and Rainbows (Lucky Charms ice cream). Lucky Charms was my favourite cereal as a kid, and they use the actual marshmallows from the cereal to create this ice cream. It’s the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten in my life."