Hayato

101 Best restaurants of Los Angeles

@latimes

"#8 The latest world-class dining experience in Los Angeles is a signless, seven-seat restaurant, all but anonymous among the concrete gorges of the Row DTLA complex. For three hours, aided by a few chefs who dash in and out of sight, Brandon Hayato Go stands at the restaurant’s central counter, wielding chopsticks and knives to compose dishes of profound beauty. He pulls inspiration from the canonical structure of kaiseki, emphasizing a blur of different cooking techniques (fried, simmered, grilled and so on); he also takes exhilarating liberties with the form. A dinner of 10 to 12 courses will segue through sushi and sashimi; pairings of seafood and vegetables in weightless tempura; and nabe, or hot pot, filled perhaps with crab, nappa cabbage and shiitake mushrooms. By the last savory course — rice and fish donabe served in a copper pot, made with second or third helpings in mind — diners are often peppering Go with questions, nearly silly from the elation of an astounding meal. Reservations for Hayato become available at 10 a.m. on the first of the month for the following month’s seatings. They are the stuff of smartphone alarms and hoped-for cancellations. Would-be solo diners may have the easiest time snagging the odd seventh seat. On Fridays and Saturdays, Go also assembles a small number of $50 lunchtime bento boxes that require an online reservation. They’re nearly as difficult to score as a dinner booking, but persevere. They contain over a dozen meticulous morsels: shrimp dumplings, slices of rolled omelet, miso-infused cod, blocks of snow crab tofu, pickled vegetables, seared duck breast. In small bites, as with long meals, Go achieves glory. Beer, wine and sake. Lot parking. Credit cards accepted."

In the Loup - a foodie's world map

@victoire_loup

Rémi Ferrante Hartman

@blastmagazine