Kato offered only a tasting menu focused on seasonality and innovation in the main dining room and a collection of classic dishes in the Bar Tasting Menu.  Chef Jon Yao, who won Food and Wine’s Best New Chef in 2018, was at the helm.  His Taiwanese menu earned a one Michelin Star rating at the reopening of the place in Feb 2022.  It previously was at a strip mall.  The L-shaped place was in some converted warehouse buildings with a large open kitchen.  Blond wood tables were under an open ceiling with wood beams, metal supports and some acoustic tiles.  Windows made up 2 walls, the lights were lowered and music was in the background.  The tasting menu has optional wine pairings and as part of the Lunar New Year celebration they were offering a pairing of cocktails made by some bartenders from the area. They also had a supplemental course you could add that was Japanese A5 Waygu beef and then you could also add a supplemental wine to go with it.  We opted for a bottle of champagne to go with dinner and a half bottle of red for the meat course.  The food was good but the service pacing was way too slow.  It was 30 minutes before we got our bottle or food started being served.  As the meal progressed more time elapsed between courses until those that arrived an hour after us caught up to our course.  Other service issues were our wine glasses were constantly empty and servers had to be reminded to pour and they picked up the napkin when you went to the bathroom but failed to replace it, but this was later in the meal but still un-Michelin.   It’s a restaurant worth eating at because the food is good but go relaxed and prepared to spend 3-4 hours.

Set-Up

 

Food

Amberjack, cucumber and cilantro were the first course.  The chopped fish was below the slices of cucumber and a couple of rings of pepper. The seasonings were quite nice with a bit of ginger to go with the spicy heat and nuttiness.  Very good start.

 

Pig Ear, cauliflower and sesame made up a “tiger salad.”  A terrine with a 5-spice marinade was the thin sliced pig’s ear.  Lots of color and spice made this a tasty one with the little florettes of cauliflower being extra fun.  There was a good amount of pepper in this one that left my mouth tingling for some time after.

 

Custard, caviar, and fish maw also contained Dungeness crab.  The custard was made with crab fat and a crab shell vinegar was on the side. The vinegar nicely punctuated the sweet crab and caviar.  This was served warm and was lovely.

 

Squash and curry were pasta packages filled with squash in a mussel and lemongrass base topped with sunchoke chips in a coconut milk curry.  Spicy with lots of flavor, I also loved the crisp and creamy contrasts.  Add to that some divine curry and you’ve got a winner.

 

Atlantic lobster, sweet pepper and black pepper combined for another excellent dish.  The barely cooked lobster contrasted with the crispy threads on top.  It sat on a piece of bread that soaked up much of the flavor and was good but not as wowie-zowie as the previous course.

 

Milk bread and butter came just in time to soak up any remaining sauce.  The bread was good with nice softened, sculpted butter.

 

Lamb and cumin was made with a grass-fed lamb.  Some of the meat was made into a sausage and stuffed into the morell mushroom that was on top.  The outer skin had been heavily coated with cumin and it was in the soy jus too.  The rare lamb was very tender.  Some Szechuan pepper was in the spice mix cause you could feel it on the tongue.

 

Beef tendon and broadbean paste was the supplemental course.  In hindsight we should have split one or skipped it.  Japanese A5 Waygu is always wonderful but we almost liked the roasted tendon meat on the side better. The well-done chunks had a very reduced sauce that made them nicely rich too.

 

Tilefish, rice and dried scallops were in a claypot rice dish.  The tilefish had been scalded to turn the scales to crisp edible bits that were fun with the soft rice.  Some puffed rice added even more texture but the meal was starting to catch up with me at this point.

 

Boniato yam and cheese were with browned butter.  The sweet potatoes were in glutinous balls on the creamy cheese.  Good end result to the rich, sweet buttery dish.

 

Last sweets were roll cake with blood orange, a tart of sesame and mandarinquat, and a cream puff with salted egg.   The cake roll had a weird texture, like a foam gel. Give it an OK.  The tart was my favorite with a buttery thin crust but it was pretty ugly.  The puff was a lava bun and very filled with the creamy egg custard – almost too full.