Dialogue Restaurant

101 Best restaurants of Los Angeles

@latimes

"#6 Dave Beran’s 18-seat tasting-menu restaurant hides behind a locked door on the second floor of a food court along Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. It is the uncanniest location in America for a modernist dinner — or maybe, given the immersive narrative that keeps the focus almost solely on the plate, the most appropriate. Beran structures meals very loosely around the model of Japanese kaiseki: The restaurant’s menu changes four times a year, in communion with winter, spring, summer or fall, but in the progression of 20 courses the meal also references the previous and coming seasons. Beyond the setup, things turn cerebral quickly: This summer’s menu, for example, began with motifs of spring; the kickoff course, called “the first sprout,” resembled dirt and involved a puree of burnt bread, preserved cherry, braised celery root and Bing cherries pickled in sour beer. It sounds wild and weird like a science project, but the flavors make so much sense and, more important, are a plain joy to eat. This is the gift that makes Beran a world-class chef: His outré ideas manifest into deliciousness. With the help of staff such as chef de partie McKenna Lelah, who established close relationships with local farmers, Dialogue has rooted and evolved since opening in 2017. When Beran started off, he was cooking the California of the mind. Now he’s also more cogently expressing the California of the soil. Beer, wine and sake. Nearby city lot parking. Reservation only. Credit cards accepted."

Sean Glass

@sdotglass