LAReview
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Perilla
Included In
A long, leisurely lunch in the sunshine is sometimes crucial for maintaining your sanity. When it’s one of those days, our destination of choice is Perilla, an inventive banchan shop in an idyllic courtyard cluster on the border of Chinatown and Echo Park. A lot of that has to do with their convenient grab-and-go cold case, stocked with a rotating selection of Korean sides like sweet pepper muchim and marinated okra. But beyond that, Perilla is an excellent spot to spend a few hours picking at a spread of kimbap and dosirak on their huge (and leafy) garden patio.
This casual daytime cafe takes inspiration from owner-chef Jihee Kim’s hometown of Busan—where little banchan shops are a takeout staple. After cooking at Rustic Canyon, she began turning local produce into funky-fresh fermented dishes for her own banchan pop-up. Now Perilla lives in a 200-square-foot space that doubles as a neatly stocked mini-mart. But don’t let the color-coordinated yakju bottles and sauces on shelves fool you—what Perilla’s unassuming kitchen puts out is on par with the best Korean restaurants in LA. And the fact that you can eat it in a beautiful communal courtyard next to a banana tree is icing on the cake.
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
The banchan at Perilla is what Graceland is to Elvis fans—worthy of a special pilgrimage. The vegetable-dominated dishes aren't formally listed on the menu as they tend to vary from day to day, but a selection of a half-dozen or so containers is the first thing you’ll see when you step inside. And for good reason. The banchan here are executed with the obsessive perfectionism of a breakup text. So whether you’re granted collard green kimchi drizzled with sweet plum syrup, sprouting cauliflower tossed in sesame oil, or the creamy potato salad tinted with apples and fermented cucumber, it’ll probably be the highlight of your day.
Beyond banchan, Perilla dabbles in lunchboxes, rice combos, and noodle plates that you should order with the confidence of Taylor Swift watching the charts on New Music Friday. Their cod dosirak is the unmistakable headliner of this section, served perfectly charred and honey-glazed like a holiday dinner centerpiece. Though the gimbap is pretty special, too—each roll of dried seaweed is inch-perfect and skillfully packed with a balanced mix of creamy avocado chunks, crunchy pickled radishes, and marinated mushrooms.
Perilla might have the ease and efficiency of a takeout window, but a sit-down meal in the adjacent mini meadow transforms an otherwise quick lunch here into a substantial event (in other words, you’ll want to pull a Cranberries and linger in the garden). The fun, freewheeling menu would be stunning on its own, but the food becomes even more impressive in the context of the impromptu picnic happening daily on Perilla’s lush patio.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Banchan Rice Combo
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Gimbap
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Rolled Omelet
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Spicy Beef Dupbap
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Cod Dosirak
photo credit: Jessie Clapp