MICHELIN Guide’s Point Of View

The entrance can be a bit tricky to locate within the newly transformed ROW DTLA, so look for the fluttering noren on the first-floor of building M2. Inside, a white cedar counter dominates the softly toned room and ensures that dining here is an intimate and engaging experience with Chef Brandon Hayato Go. This is the kind of place where celebrants and gourmands come to enjoy a culinary show. Many courses begin with ingredients artfully arranged in the back kitchen and handed to the chef on trays, then finished before your eyes and presented with detailed explanations. The chef's nightly omakase presents an impressive parade of sashimi along with grilled, fried, steamed and simmered items. Seafood is sparkling beyond compare, especially the intense and focused presentation of a hollowed-out snow crab shell filled with seasoned rice, roe and tomalley. Morsels of tender abalone with small but mighty cubes of abalone gelée and a dab of liver sauce deliver flavors that are simultaneously pure and restrained. Everything seems to shine in a rice pot of grilled wild yellowtail and daikon, showered with slivered chives and served with pickles.