Six Great Los Angeles Tasting Menus to Try Right Now

There are few restaurant success stories as “Los Angeles” as Baroo. First winning over the hearts and minds with their bowls of ferments and grains in a tiny East Hollywood strip mall, Baroo closed in 2018 — at the height of its acclaim — for chef Kwang Uh and partner Mina Park to return to Korea and spend time in a Buddhist monastery. Luckily for us all, Baroo’s return to the city in 2023 brought with it an elevated take on what we’d come to love from the team, including the city’s best modern Korean tasting menu. While the poetic menu changes with the seasons, highlights include lobster tuigim (deep-fried in parae seaweed batter) and wild mountain greens rice, are best enjoyed alongside the couple’s thoughtful collection of Korean sool as a drinks pairing.

As far as institutions go, OG celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck’s Spago is as good as it gets. While other stalwarts that have stood a similar test of time may be relegated to the “go for the mood, not the food” category, Spago is as fantastic today as it was when Puck first turned Californian cuisine on its head in the 1980s. While a la carte options are available, the move here is the “Innovation Tasting Menu,” which showcases Puck’s adept blending of flavors that represent the people and produce of California. Think honey-glazed sweetbreads glazed in ajo blanco, crispy sea bass with huitlacoche, and scallop with limequat. All these years later, Puck’s fingers are still very much on the pulse of Los Angeles.

Chef Nan Yimcharoen’s unique cross-cultural blend of Thai and Japanese cuisines makes for a global exploration of big, bright flavors unlike anywhere else in the city. On her heavily seafood-focused menu, you can expect the use of ingredients like live Norwegian king crab, giant abalone, and firefly squid, making this one of the best tasting menus for those who love everything under the sea. While the dinner tasting menu runs at $195 per person, a five-course kaiseki-style menu is available during lunch on select days for $75, making it one of the most affordable high-end tasting-menu options in the city.

If a pizza tasting menu sounds wrong, we don’t ever want to be right. Inarguably one of the best pizzaiolos in the state, chef William Joo is a master of Tokyo Neapolitan-style pies with an incredible dough. While his regular offering is a la carte, those in the know are all about his pizza omakase, taking place once a month-ish (be sure to check on Instagram). Guests sit around the bar as Joo doles out slices from his inventive creations, ranging from pies laden with raw bigeye tuna and wasabi to tingly mala-spiced lamb sausage with sprouted coriander flowers. It’s a menu where Joo gets to play with out-there flavor combinations and different styles of dough, making for a number of pizzas you definitely won’t find anywhere else.

When luxury fashion and luxurious dining come together from the likes of Gucci and Massimo Bottura, it’s no wonder that the results are impeccable. In typical Bottura fashion, the menu, overseen by chef Mattia Agazzi, is incredibly fun and playful. Dishes like “Breakfast at Gucci” (a caviar-studded play on a bagel) and “Risotto Camouflaged as Pizza” (exactly as it sounds) bring you happily out of the box. With lavish touches like hand-painted Gucci china and linens made specifically for the restaurant, there’s no part of the experience that hasn’t been meticulously crafted by two of Italy’s biggest names.

To get to this Michelin starred omakase experience from chef Yoshiyuki Inoue, you’ll have to find your way through a deserted car park in Little Tokyo and head down to the basement of a nondescript office building. If that doesn’t immediately transport you to the hidden-away gems that host some of the best omakase meals in Japan, the beautiful pine bar and shrine to minimalism that seats up to 12 guests at a time will. Inoue boasts a true sushi master’s pedigree, including a stint at the two-Michelin star Sushi Ginza Onodera, meaning Kaneyoshi has quickly become the place that die-hard edomae sushi fans flock to for slivers of bright pink kinmedai (golden eye snapper) and briny pops of Hokkaido uni.

Call 213-277-2388 for reservations; more info here.