LAReview
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When Kato opened in 2016, we called it the "tasting menu spot for people who don't like tasting menus." The Taiwanese food at this intimate restaurant tucked in a West LA strip mall was both upscale and unfussy, and felt lightyears away from other fancy schmancy prix-fixes in town. However, at their new Arts District outpost, that's no longer the case.
After relocating to the Row DTLA in 2022, Kato has been reborn—not as the scrappy underdog, but as a bonafide Fine Dining establishment, where the main offering is a $225 per head tasting menu beefed up to feature more wagyu, caviar, and showy cocktails. Those familiar with the original restaurant might see it as a total 180. But that's the point. Kato, in its latest iteration, is completely reworked. And while certainly ambitious, as with anyone dipping their toes into new territory—Michael Jordan and professional baseball in '94, our neighbors who are definitely overwatering their sprouting herb garden—the new Kato has yet to find its footing.
photo credit: Jakob Layman
The airy, concrete dining room, with its curved wooden furniture and marble countertops, is undeniably pleasing to look at. Natural light floods in through floor-to-ceiling windows, SZA plays softly in the background, and the bathrooms are stocked with herbaceous hand soaps and mini mints. And yet, the place feels a little cold. There's only so much one can do with a building shellacked in cement that looks out onto a nine-story parking structure.
The dishes at the beginning and end of the three-hour meal nail it—tasty bites of sweet shrimp, hibiscus macarons smeared with chicken liver, jellied nodoguro, or seaperch, and an exquisite tapioca ball dessert served with brown butter and shortbread shavings are among our favorites. But near the middle of the meal, the execution becomes inconsistent. A scallop dish is nicely cooked, but gets lost beneath a cloying fish sauce. Tender duck with a crackling skin arrives overseasoned. And crispy rice, a riff on Taiwanese lu rou fan, is suffused with herbs and fried onions and looks gorgeous on the plate, but tastes like literally nothing.
photo credit: Jakob Layman
To be clear, we're rooting for Kato. They are doing something singular and unique with Taiwanese food in LA, and that's to be applauded. The service is warm and earnest, in a way that makes the outdoor shopping mall/iron fortress you're dining in fade away, ever so slightly. But any time a meal nearly doubles in price, every dish becomes burdened with added expectation. Missteps are more difficult to ignore. And when your name gets tossed around with the likes of N/Naka and Providence, simply being unique isn't enough.
As poet Andrea Gibson once wrote, it hurts to become. And we get the feeling Kato has yet to reach its final form. But they're close. Things seem to improve with each visit: the service is smoother, luxury ingredients are used in ways that feel more natural, and, gradually, the giant space starts to feel more lived in. Slowly but surely, we're starting to see elements of what endeared us to Kato in the first place peek through.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Tasting Menu
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Bar Menu
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Drink Menu
LA Guide