A sudden influx of omakase menus in Los Angeles has whipped the city into something of a sushi frenzy. There’s the new 17-course tasting menu at the compact, eight-seat bar Udatsu, the restaurant-within-a-restaurant experience at Tokyo transplant Rokusho — both concepts are from Michelin-starred chef Udatsu Hisashi — that just opened on Sunset Blvd. There’s a brand new location of Sushi By Scratch’s beloved omakase menu popping up at the SLS Beverly Hills for the next three months (but rumor has it the pop-up will likely become permanent). And then there’s Oheya, part of the Uchi empire from chef Tyson Cole, which will open in West Hollywood sometime in the next few months. The list goes on.
Though I’m all for consuming gorgeous nigiri, fluffy sushi rice and carefully prepared fish on a weekly (if not daily) basis, in some ways, these omakase menus tend to be quite similar. Clearly, there’s a demand for refined, elegant tasting menus in the city right now, but what would something unique actually look like? To answer that, I set out to find a high-end tasting menu that felt special in the same way, challenged the American palate but brought a totally different tone and set of flavors to the table.
What I landed on was Kato, a Michelin-starred gem that’s tucked into a corner at The Row in Downtown LA. After dining there earlier this month, I can confirm it’s like nothing I’ve ever had before in this city. As the second iteration of chef Jon Yao’s Taiwanese-inspired tasting menu, this experience is more polished than the tiny strip mall space in West LA where the concept was originally born. Yao — who almost immediately earned a Michelin star at both spots — opened the restaurant with partners Nikki Reginaldo, who runs the front of house, and Ryan Bailey, the wine director and sommelier with experience at The NoMad in both New York and LA.
While Kato is not technically an omakase (there is no nigiri or sushi), the tasting menu-only service unfolds in a very similar way. Influences from American, Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese cuisine are all present in the meticulously-prepared dishes. The 11-course Taiwanese-influenced menu is not cheap — it will run you $325 before add-ons, which include offerings like a savory doughnut with caviar, ham and sea urchin ($45) and a decadent slice of Wagyu with black garlic ($55) that might’ve been my favorite bite of the night. In other words, you’re going to want to add them.
You’ll also want to budget for the outstanding wine pairings offered with the lengthy 11 to 13 courses, and there’s a separate pour for every single dish. There are three options for pairings: the traditional wine flight for $145, a vintage wine flight for $185 that emphasizes rare and aged wines, and an alcohol-free pairing that offers a mix of de-alcoholized wines and non-alcoholic beverages crafted in-house at Kato’s bar. By the time I finished a meal that included both the vintage and alcohol-free selections, it became clear that Bailey’s wine pairings are the best in the city.
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And in large part, the overall success of Kato as a singular experience — that feels so much more intentional and intimate than some of the other offerings in Los Angeles right now — is because of the work Bailey has put into the beverage program. Working with a cuisine that’s less familiar to the average American palate means he has to choose his pairings carefully and really keep the characteristics of the food in mind.
“Taiwanese dishes quite often have a lot of umami flavors, so I try to match that pairing profile in the wine as well,” he says. “To do so, I seek out wines with 10 or more years of age to them. It’s at this point when the primary fruit characteristics and youthfulness of a wine will step aside to secondary aromatics and flavors that are usually more along the lines of savory, earthy and herbaceous. Floral and fruit flavors become less fresh or vibrant and more dried oxidative.”
Of course, as much as Bailey deserves credit for the incredible selection of wines he sources, it’s the quality of the food itself that demands and inspires these pairings. The Taiwanese-ish dishes that Yao prepares at Kato are fine dining fusion of the highest order. One of the earliest items in the most recent tasting menu, the Jī Juàn, is traditionally made with ground meat wrapped in tofu skin. Yao’s version is scallop, ginger and baby leek, both a nod to the past and a decidedly contemporary rendering. The vintage wine pairing is an 11-year-old blanc de blanc Champagne, R. Renaudin from 2013.
Later on, Sōngshǔ Yú, a traditional preparation of a Mandarin fish that’s deboned and deep fried, is replaced by a vermilion rock cod with impossibly crispy skin but very soft flesh; it’s served alongside eggplant and dòubànjiàng, or spicy bean paste. For the vintage option, Bailey pairs this with a 2019 Montée de Tonnerre cru Chablis from Guy Robin and his daughter Marie-Ange Robin (who shows up as the “et fils” in the winery’s name). In the same way that Yao is injecting a sense of modernity into these classics, Bailey wants the pairings to do the same.
“For both our wine pairing options, I really want to instill a sense of value and uniqueness,” he says. “Ordering a flight is committing to the experience of both food and beverage, which often leads to a really interactive and enjoyable night. At Kato, I want to make sure the guests aren’t just getting a handful of the wines offered by the glass that night but rather something special. So these wines are often sourced from auctions, private cellars and library releases, making them hard to come by at local shops or the restaurants in town.”
Kato is located at 777 S Alameda St. Building 1, Suite 114 in Los Angeles.
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