Kato

Kato began in a Sawtelle strip mall in 2016 and moved to Row DTLA in February 2022, into a 4,000-square-foot room. Chef and co-owner Jonathan Yao won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: California in 2025, and in June 2026 the Michelin Guide promoted the restaurant from one star to two — a correction worth noting, since most write-ups still call it one-starred. The cooking is Taiwanese-American and highly personal; the main dining room runs a tasting menu at $325, with an abbreviated bar tasting at $185, and an 18% fair-wage and operational fee applied in place of tipping. It is a strict room in some respects: no children in the dining room, no substitutions for a long list of dietary requests, and the bar is 21-and-over.

The reason Kato matters to a non-drinker is that it may run the most serious alcohol-free programme in an American restaurant. There is a dedicated Alcohol-Free Flight at $120, described on the menu as a progression of alcohol-free beverages created by the bar team — and the number to hold it against is the traditional wine flight at $145. That gap is small enough to say something: the non-alcoholic pairing is priced as a peer, not a consolation, which is almost unheard of. It is the work of bar director Austin Hennelly, who came from Majordomo, Booker and Dax, Amor y Amargo and Maison Premiere, and who believes his is the largest alcohol-free wine, beer and ready-to-drink cocktail list of any bar in the country. The drinks justify it. The Garden Tonic — a constant on the menu — takes bitter melon and Korean cucumber from a San Diego County farm, clarifies the juice, steeps it with bai mu dan white tea, sweetens it with cane syrup and force-carbonates it. The amazake swizzle builds fermented rice against masala chai, Thai coconut milk, almond and lime over crushed ice. Derek Brown, who has written a book on the subject, called it flatly the best non-alcoholic cocktail programme he had ever seen. One correction to our earlier entry: we described a "near-100-option" list; we could not source that figure anywhere and have replaced it with Hennelly's own claim, which is checkable.