West Hollywood’s Gozen Reinvents Itself With Transporting Kaiseki Menus

Gozen, a West Hollywood restaurant that bills itself as a Japanese sake bistro, is a drinking destination with serious culinary ambitions.

Chef Takashi Ohta serves three menus at this kaiseki-only spot on La Cienega Boulevard. And even the entry-level $100 Hikari mini kaiseki is a bountiful feast with a Japanese Caesar salad, six small appetizers, a steamed dish, a choice of a meat or fish entree, wagyu sushi (with dashi) and dessert.

Many little details, in a Los Angeles restaurant that is deeply Japanese but also has French and other European influences, are carefully considered. A bite-size portion of grilled duck with wasabi mashed potatoes and a carrot chip is a symphony of flavors and textures. The little piece of bamboo shoot that accompanies a morsel of stewed octopus is perfect.

Level up to the genre-blending $160 Hana menu and you’ll get a array of dishes that include carpaccio, a crab cream croquette, A5 wagyu (sukiyaki or shabu shabu) and a fragrant and meaty portion of unaju (grilled eel over rice) along with the Japanese Caesar salad, the small appetizers and dessert.

Or splurge on the $240 Yume menu for a procession of different Japanese cooking techniques. After the appetizers, there’s seasonal sashimi, a steamed dish, a tempura dish, A5 wagyu (also available as sukiyaki or shabu shabu), a generous assortment of sushi, soup and dessert. The sushi course is loaded with premium items. Lobster with caviar. Toro with boiled quail egg. More A5 wagyu.

Whatever Gozen menu you choose, and whether you’re drinking a sake flight or indulging in a small-batch ultra-high-end bottle of junmai daiginjo, it’s a transporting journey. It’s also a story of renewal and reinvention at a restaurant that recently offered a la carte dining. Hana means festive. Yume means dream. The aspirations here are self-evident, at a space that Japanese food lovers in Los Angeles might remember from a previous incarnation.

Gozen, which has its sister Sushi Gozen restaurant in Santa Monica, is located in a space that was home to the Los Angeles outpost of Aburiya Raku.

Raku, which has long been known as one of the country’s best izakayas, is still going strong at its Las Vegas flagship. That late-night destination, where we devoured housemade tofu, hotate sashimi, grilled fish and skewers of eringi mushrooms, okra, pork cheek and beef tendon after midnight last week, hasn’t lost a step on Spring Mountain Road in the bustling Las Vegas Chinatown.

But Raku chef Mitsuo Endo is a creative spirit who’s always thinking about what’s next. Renewal and reinvention are important, especially in a strip mall where his Sweets Raku dessert bar is closing soon. (Big Wong, a delightful casual Chinese spot inspired by New York’s Chinatown, closed this month at the same complex.) So he’s got plans to open a small tasting-menu restaurant in the same strip mall later this year. Given that this is Endo, you can expect pristine, resolutely Japanese food. You can expect seriousness and playfulness. You can expect to enjoy the ride.