Corridor 109

If we were handing out Oscars this year, we’d give a nod to Corridor 109 in several categories, like Best Sardine Toast and Most Unique Fine Dining Experience. This tiny eight-seat restaurant in Chinatown is one of the toughest reservations in LA right now, but a meal here stands out from other tasting spots in the way it coaxes deep flavors from utterly gorgeous seafood using Japanese and Korean ingredients. It's run by a chef who cooked in a bunch of award-winning kitchens before starting his own pop-up inside Kobawoo House, an iconic Koreatown restaurant run by his parents. Now he's on the second floor of Far East Plaza in a bare-bones space serving nine courses of inventive dishes like a spot prawn and caviar tartlet, seared skipjack tuna with some very good pesto spaghetti, and a Hokkaido scallop in a herbaceous clam broth that will be memorialized in our hearts and minds for years to come. Dinner is a BYOB affair that costs $250 per person—if you want to book a seat, wait until tickets drop on Tock at the start of each month, then cross your fingers.