Nobu Los Angeles

• Cuisine(s): Japanese
  Hours: Sun-Thu 6pm-11:15pm, Fri-Sat 6pm-0am
  Price: $$$$
• Payment Types: MasterCard, Visa, American Express
  Features: Takeout
  Serving: Dinner, Late Night
• Alcohol: Full bar
  Reservations: Accepted, Highly Recommended
  Parking: Street, Valet

Description

Nobu Matsuhisa is the most influential Japanese chef in the United States, the father of a strange, original cuisine equally rooted in the sushi kitchen, the informal izakaya, and the seafood preparations of cosmopolitan Lima. Without him, half the new restaurants in Los Angeles and New York might still be selling California rolls and salmon-skin salad. But there is a steep learning curve to the restaurant Matsuhisa, with hundreds of dishes on the menu, and waiters who are perfectly happy to serve nonregulars the same omakase meal that the kitchen has been pumping out for almost 20 years.. The West Hollywood Nobu changes all of that. The old l'Orangerie space is throbbing once again, with electronica bouncing off the walls and black BMWs clogging La Cienega. Where the dining room of l'Orangerie resembled a grand bank lobby, Nobu, designed by David Rockwell - whose imprint on the Tribeca Nobu pretty much launched a four-continent career - looks carved out of a vault. The streamlined menu resembles that of Nobu Next Door in New York, including things like steamed Chilean sea bass and even the occasional steak. If you are hungry for the now-classic hamachi with jalapeño or toro tartare with caviar, you can be assured of finding them here. And there's roasted banana with soy caramel for dessert.