Creativity and ambition plus $400 menus amid record restaurant closures
LA TimesL.A. is fully in the era of the $400 tasting menu. In September, I wrote about some of the many ambitious and personal restaurants opening in Southern California during 2024, including Jordan Kahn‘s reopening of Vespertine, which almost immediately gained two Michelin stars and a spot on Bill Addison and Jenn Harris’ 101 Best Restaurants in L.A. list; Ricardo Zarate‘s intimate and affordable Hummingbird Ceviche House and Rashida Holmes’ Caribbean American Bridgetown Roti, not to mention Charles Namba and Courtney Kaplan‘s French Japanese bistro Camélia in the Arts District. Since then, we’ve seen many more openings, including former Pearl River Deli owner Johnny Lee‘s Malaysian-inspired Rasarumah in Historic Filipinotown; the new live fire spot Bernee from All Time‘s Ashley and Tyler Wells; a permanent spot for Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta‘s Evil Cooks and their “kamikaze” taco tasting menu; Michael Mina‘s Egyptian heritage restaurant Orla; plus two hugely ambitious projects that are sure to attract Michelin and World’s 50 Best inspectors — Aitor Zabala‘s Somni and Dave Beran‘s Seline. As Addison wrote in his recent review of Vespertine, “In a time of deep economic uncertainty in Los Angeles, when scores of community-centered neighborhood restaurants have buckled in the last year, a surge of sky-high fine dining appears on the horizon.” It’s the ambition behind new and soon-to-open restaurants like Somni, Vespertine, Seline, Jaca and Ki plus all the creativity thriving at existing places — from Kato‘s Jon Yao working the Taiwanese flavors of his childhood into a tasting menu context, Brandon Hayato Go‘s seven-seat Hayato, Michael Cimarusti‘s sustainable seafood haven Providence and Kwang Uh‘s Korean inspiration for Baroo to Gilberto Cetina‘s extraordinary seafood counter Holbox in the unfussy Mercado la Paloma and Justin Pichetrungsi‘s side alley Thai Taco Tuesdays and more at Anajak Thai — that sets this moment apart from another troubled era in L.A. dining I witnessed years ago. You don’t have to dress up to get a good meal in this town, and you don’t have to suffer through stiff service either.” The democratization of L.A. dining can largely be attributed to the casual but chef-driven California cooking that Michael McCarty pioneered during the 1980s at Michael’s in Santa Monica and Wolfgang Puck‘s original Spago, where you could eat pizza alongside movie stars as well as grilled sweetbreads, whole snapper and veal liver.
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