There is a particular kind of Los Angeles restaurant that exists in the shadow of a more famous sibling, and the relationship is usually more interesting than it first appears. N/Soto on Washington Boulevard in Mid-City is run by Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama, the married chefs behind n/naka — a thirteen-course kaiseki restaurant on Overland Avenue where dinner runs to three hundred and ninety-five dollars a head before tax and service, and where getting a table is its own project.
The gap between a restaurant's weekday menu and its weekend one is often where the whole value sits, and it never appears in a review. Tell Karpo which nights you can go out and get the Los Angeles menus that only exist on those days.
N/Soto is not a cheaper version of that restaurant. It is a different idea entirely: a California-inspired izakaya, mostly à la carte, built for turning up rather than for planning around. But there is one way to eat there that sits much closer to the other building, and it runs only on weekdays.
The weekday tasting, and what it is not
Ninety-five dollars, on weekdays. The rest of the week, and the rest of the menu, is strictly à la carte. That structure is worth understanding before booking, because it means the experience you get depends entirely on which night you choose — the same room, the same kitchen, two genuinely different formats.
Ninety-five dollars is also, precisely, the point at which a tasting menu stops being a special occasion and becomes a thing you might do on a Wednesday. That threshold matters more than the specific number. Below a hundred dollars a head, a tasting menu is dinner; above about a hundred and fifty it becomes an event, with all the planning and anticipation and pressure that attaches to one. This one sits deliberately on the useful side of the line.
Izakaya, in the real sense
The word izakaya gets applied loosely in this country, usually to mean a Japanese restaurant with small plates and beer. In its proper sense it describes somewhere you drink and eat at the same time, where the food arrives in a rolling sequence rather than in courses, and where the evening has no fixed shape. That is the register N/Soto is working in, filtered through Californian ingredients and through two chefs whose training is in the most structured cuisine Japan has.
The tension between those two things — kaiseki discipline applied to izakaya informality — is the actual reason to eat here, and it is why the à la carte is not a lesser option. Ordering four or five things across an evening and letting them arrive as they are ready is the native mode of this kind of restaurant. The tasting menu is the version for people who would rather not choose. Neither is the correct answer in the abstract; they are answers to different questions. The mistake is booking the tasting because it sounds like the serious option and then discovering that what you actually wanted was three dishes, a beer and two hours of conversation.
Which to book
Take the tasting if you are two people, it is a weeknight, and you want the kitchen to make the decisions. Take the à la carte if you are three or more, if anybody at the table has restrictions, or if the plan is a long evening with drinks rather than a structured dinner. Both are available on weekdays; only one is available at the weekend.
- $95 tasting menu, weekdays only — the rest of the time the menu is strictly à la carte
- Same chefs as n/naka, where dinner is $395 before tax and service
- California-inspired izakaya rather than a scaled-down kaiseki restaurant
- Book the tasting for two on a weeknight; go à la carte for a group
Mid-City is the other part of the story
Washington Boulevard through this part of Mid-City is not a restaurant district in the way that Melrose or Sawtelle are, and the address is the better for it. This is a genuine neighbourhood — West Adams and Arlington Heights on either side, a stretch of the city that has seen a substantial amount of new opening over the last few years without turning into a destination strip. The practical consequences are ordinary and welcome: parking is findable, the block is quiet, and dinner does not come with a queue outside.
It is also genuinely central by Los Angeles standards. Culver City is ten minutes west, downtown fifteen minutes east, and the Expo Line runs a few blocks south, which makes this one of the more reachable good restaurants in the city from more than one direction.
Booking it
Reservations go through the usual online systems and the room is not large. A restaurant with this lineage and a double-figure price gap to its sibling books further ahead than its neighbourhood suggests, and the weekday tasting in particular is a limited proposition. Aim two or three weeks out for a specific night, or take whatever midweek slot is available and be pleased about it — Tuesday and Wednesday here are better nights to eat than Friday anyway, for the same reason they are everywhere: the kitchen is less pressed, the room is quieter, and the people working are not on their fourth consecutive service.
Practical notes
N/Soto, 4566 West Washington Boulevard, Mid-City, Los Angeles. A California-inspired izakaya from Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama, the chefs behind n/naka on Overland Avenue, where the thirteen-course kaiseki dinner is three hundred and ninety-five dollars per person before tax and gratuity. N/Soto's main menu is strictly à la carte, with a tasting menu at ninety-five dollars available on weekdays only. Reservations are made online and the room is small, so book ahead for a specific night. Street parking is realistic and the Expo Line runs a few blocks south.
Tags: #LosAngeles #MidCity #TastingMenu #Izakaya #JapaneseFood #WashingtonBlvd #LAEats #LARestaurants #DateNight #Omakase #WeeknightDinner #ChefsCounter #ThingsToDoLA #ValueDining
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Want to know which Los Angeles tasting menus run only on weekdays, what they cost against the same kitchen's à la carte, and how far ahead they book? Ask Karpo for the options near you and which night to aim for.
