New Japanese restaurant Yess displays "the most quietly ambitious cooking to emerge in Los Angeles this year," says Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Bill Addison. The spacious restaurant, located in the Arts District, is housed in a 1924 building that once served as a Bank of America. Exposed rafters, concrete, and craggy red brick offset grainy wood tables and a 42-person bar that stretches the length of the room.
Owner Kino Kaetsu designed the space and brought in chef Junya Yamasaki, who has a following in London, where he made his name at an udon bar called Koya. Giles Clark followed Yamasaki to open the restaurant. The two chefs operated seafood truck Yess Aquatic. Addison calls the restaurant's theme of progressive Japanese, "maddingly vague," but concedes that Yamasaki's food is difficult to classify. Yamasaki is a devoted diver and fisher so the menu has a seafood focus with dishes like a steamed fish in fig leaves and grilled, locally-caught fish.
Yamasaki's time studying shojin ryori, Japanese Buddhist or temple cuisine, is reflected in the restaurant's signature dish, monk's chirashi-sushi, which changes daily.
At Yess, chef Junya Yamasaki grills locally-caught fish and uses fresh produce for what he dubs "progressive Japanese." Photo by Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times © 2023.