Fine Dining Behind a Bar in Melrose Hill: Corridor 109

Corridor 109 is the Los Angeles fine dining counter you reach through a door at the back of a cocktail bar. Corridor 109, at 641 N Western Ave in Melrose Hill, sits behind Bar 109, where chef and owner Brian Baik cooks an 11-course, seafood-led tasting menu for 10 guests at a time. Dinner starts with a single 7 pm seating Thursday and Friday. The 2026 California Michelin Guide counted it among six Los Angeles restaurants that earned a star.

Baik grew up around Kobawoo House, the Koreatown restaurant his parents opened in 1983 and known for its bossam, but he learned to cook in New York, at Eleven Madison Park, Bouley, the Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare and Sushi Noz. In 2019 he began planning a move home to help his aging parents, and in 2021 he started hosting dinners at Kobawoo on Monday nights, when the restaurant was closed.

The name comes from those nights. Baik borrowed the idea from Passage 53, a tiny Paris restaurant tucked into a passageway, and used Kobawoo's suite number, 109. After Eater LA wrote about the pop-up, he told Resy, the restaurant had 400 reservation requests overnight. A test kitchen in Chinatown followed before he built the current space in a former furniture store, across Western Avenue from the edge of Koreatown.

The meal has around 11 courses and lasts about two hours. Seafood leads, much of it bought directly from vendors in Japan: fatty channel rockfish, striped jack, wild shima aji with uni and kinki in a fish-bone broth have all appeared. A typical opener is a tartlet of salmon mousse topped with cured salmon roe, a bright, salty bite to start the evening.

The dish regulars wait for is the aji toast, line-caught horse mackerel laid over aioli and pickled red peppers on toasted house-made milk bread. Baik calls it a mix of everywhere he has cooked, inspired by pintxos and cut with the knife skills he learned at Sushi Noz. Another course sets soy-marinated skipjack tuna on pesto spaghetti with a little grated ginger.

The savory run ends with seared full-blood Australian wagyu, served with an oxtail jus and a shiso sauce, before a light finish of Asian pear sorbet over Champagne jelly. The menu changes with the catch, so treat these dishes as a picture of the style rather than a fixed list.

The whole restaurant, kitchen and dining room together, fits into about 800 square feet designed with Montalba Architects, the firm behind Nobu Malibu. Guests sit at a stained walnut counter a few feet from the stoves and the charcoal grill. Behind the cooks is a charcoal-colored plaster wall textured with brushstrokes, and a glowing light box hangs over the prep station.

Baik built the room as an open kitchen so each plate reaches the guest at the right temperature, the moment it is finished. The mood is livelier than the minimal design suggests: Baik picks the music himself, moving from LCD Soundsystem to underground hip hop over the course of the night, and he walks the counter to introduce himself and the food.

The wine list was put together with consulting Master Sommelier Michael Engelmann, and it favors small, family-owned estates, mostly in France, with a few Japanese sakes. It holds around 100 bottles and is shared with Bar 109. When Resy visited, the restaurant did not yet offer a set wine pairing, so the servers suggest bottles that match the courses.

Because many of the wines come from tiny producers, the restaurant only holds a few bottles of each, and a wine you loved last month may be sold out on your night. Bar 109 politely declines corkage, so plan to drink from the list rather than bring your own.

Dinner at Corridor 109 runs Thursday to Saturday. Thursday and Friday have one 7 pm seating, and Saturday has two, at 5 pm and 8:30 pm. Book only through Tock. The restaurant does not publish a fixed release schedule; it announces release dates and times on Instagram and through its mailing list, so sign up for both before your target month.

If every seat is gone, join the Tock waitlist to be told about openings and cancellations, though the restaurant says it cannot guarantee seats from the waitlist. Arrive on time, because late guests miss courses. Bar 109, the cocktail bar out front, opens Tuesday to Saturday from 6 pm to midnight, with first-come seating and light snacks, so it is the natural place to wait.

Street parking around the restaurant is limited. The restaurant points drivers to the Bank of America lot across the street on Melrose Avenue, which offers affordable pay parking after 6 pm. If you use Uber, Lyft or Waymo, enter the Western Avenue address rather than the restaurant's name, because the apps may still send you to the old test kitchen address in Chinatown.

Melrose Hill is a small residential pocket of early 20th-century homes just north of Melrose Avenue, and a short loop through its quiet streets is a good way to fill time before a 7 pm seating. Walk west along Melrose Avenue toward the Bronson Gate of Paramount Pictures, the studio's arched entrance and one of Hollywood's most photographed landmarks, then return for a martini at Bar 109.

Address: Corridor 109, 641 N Western Ave, Suite A, Los Angeles, CA 90004, in Melrose Hill, entered through Bar 109. Email: info@corridor109.com. Hours: Thursday and Friday, one seating at 7 pm; Saturday, seatings at 5 pm and 8:30 pm. Bar 109: Tuesday to Saturday, 6 pm to midnight, walk-in only.

Booking: Tock only, with release dates posted on Instagram and the mailing list, plus a Tock waitlist. Format: about 11 courses at a 10-seat counter, roughly two hours. Drinks: wine and sake list curated with Master Sommelier Michael Engelmann. Parking: pay lot across the street after 6 pm; limited street parking. Rideshare: use the Western Avenue address.