Every aspect of the Somni has meaning, intention and purpose from the whimsical yellow giraffe at the front door of a red number engraved behind the menu presented at the end of the evening. The outdoor sculpture nods to the meaning of animals in some cultures, as a symbol of fortune, elegance and tranquility, according to chef owner Aitor Zabala. The small red numbers have catered to thousands of diners since their newly revived tasting menu restaurant (back after a four-year break) since its buzzing debut in West Hollywood last November.
There is a breathtaking hidden courtyard before you take a sip or sip. There, a dreamy white cloud sculpture hangs from a tree covered in wind. (The emotion is no coincidence. It means “dream” of the chef’s native Catalonian.) By the time you mutter your delicate cheese feathers and get into the almonds fried to the painstaking almonds that resemble Shell’s original, you can almost forget the fact that at least $840 is in there.
Photo: Patricia Kelly Yoh spends time in Somni’s courtyard, with guests enjoying early snacks and drinks.
Six months after the reopening, Somni is undoubtedly the most stunning, destination-worthy dining experience in LA. Playful, elegant and truly delicious, Spanish-inspired meals bring Manresa north of Los Gatos with the now-closed Michelin giants, like the Spanish famous El Bri, where Zabara worked for many years. It was a strong and promising start for the Catalan-born chef, helping to launch the original Somni with celebrity chef Jose Andres in 2018 as a 10-seat tasting counter within SLS Beverly Hills. It is also the most expensive restaurant in Los Angeles. And while I think the perfect artisans at all levels justify the sudden cost of entry, I don’t consider it to be an essential LA dining experience.
Let me explain. Starting from $645 per person, meals at the new Somni are almost twice the price of some of the top tasting menus in LA. Technically, the “only” priced at $495 on the tasting menu, but as of February, the restaurant had to opt-in for a non-alcoholic pairing of at least $150. Optling a standard wine pairing ($225) and after tax, I’m seeing a 20% tip from a lovely staff member. After visiting and revisiting Somni and looking back at other upscale dining experiences in LA, the average diner could leave Kato, Hayato, N/Naka and Providence while meals at Somni approach perfection. pocket.
Photo: Patricia Kelly Yo spends time with Dasi Meringue, who took Somni’s caviar
The irony of writing about the most expensive restaurants in LA is not lost to me when food costs get very high. No matter how good the Somni is, the prices are immeasurable, even for the average Angeleno, even the most special occasions, and exceed what you need for a flashy showtop of your meal. This restaurant appears to exist primarily for its very rich or more realistically descendants.
To reach this conclusion, I visited almost every tasting menu of Michelin stars at least once to LA tasting menus, most of which were at least twice. And while it doesn’t have the breadth of One Center knowledge that gourmet includes when it comes to the world’s largest restaurants, at least compared to all these super-fast local meals, Somni knows that they go for extra miles in every category. I don’t like anything else in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean that the heart-warming details and thoughtful services justify hundreds more dollars invested in everyone.
Photo: Somni, Chef Christina Gandolfobeyond’s counter, also has a private dining room (no photo) that costs a minimum of $995.
I have never tried the original Somni. Although this closed the door in 2020 amid a fierce lawsuit between the Hotel and Andres hospitality groups, past reviews of LA Times critic Bill Addison reveal a somewhat theatre chef counter experience similar to what you visited today. In the new Somni, the counter seats 14 seats, each with a pendant light that illuminates the area where each dish is sitting in front of you. Like all chef counters, the food is not intimate. If you’re at a party of two, you’re sitting next to your dining partner, but next to the person who booked a reservation that night. For a romantic dinner, I like Providence, N/Naka and Kato. These have separate tables.
Some may argue that trying to pit somni for a stunning Kaiseki meal at a Taiwan-inspired fine dining restaurant in N/Naka or Kato is like comparing apples to oranges. This is technically true for two reasons. The Somni is almost twice as expensive as other line fine dining options, and each restaurant offers a very different experience. But again, for most people, I am sure that this cost and caliber splurge may happen once or twice a year if it can happen at all.
Photo: Patricia Kelly Yeo includes fried almonds, beet meringue sandwiches, anchovie butter and monster leaf-shaped crackers with Parmesan feathers.
Once you leave the courtyard (where only a handful of fashionable amuse bouches are served), all courses begin with a monologue from one of the chefs, with the second staff adding finishing sauces and other trinkets to most dishes. Most tasting menus in LA have some storytelling for this type of dish, but Somni takes the cake when it comes to choreography of movement and bassline information depth. If you’re not used to listening to the story in every course, the experience can feel a bit elicited. For people like me who enjoy learning about the origins of materials and trying to get a closer look at the terroirs, this may be a bonus. For others, this may seem like an overkill. It also means that dinner here takes at least 3 hours, if not four.
Some Somni courses have changed seasonally, but so far much of the menu has remained much the same. Zabara and his team constantly tweak the details to further refine each dish. During two visits in January and April, about 25% of the menu was completely changed. The rest of the dishes are even better on my second visit. Spain has the option of a secretary, nodding in the form of a Jamon Iberico and, more recently, a lesser known Spanish pork shoulder cut.
Photo: Patricia Kellyyo in timeout for Shiso Tartare Tempura in Somni.
Zabara appears to enjoy serving crunchy things, such as soft, loud, chewing for a second or at once. The flavorful meringue appears in the form of a fish-shaped car for Chinese caviar. The highly integrated truffles are reimagined as a cream-filled mushroom-shaped cracker sandwich topped with Spanish black truffle. And I will never forget the beef tartare course, which uses fried tempura-fried wisteria leaves as a container of strip loin tartare showered with vibrant purple flowers. It’s a luxurious dish that tastes as great as it looks.
Counting each of the Amuse-Bouches served in the courtyard, meals at Somni usually consist of over 20 courses. This is an intimidating number, especially for those with mild appetite. On my first visit, I had to start leaving about a third of my meals on the plate. I devoured a huge portion of the blue corn masa sourdough with creamy dunginess crab dishes topped with Huitlacoche (corn bacteria) “Ravioli” and was filled with the process. The impressive purple bread comes from 61h100 bread, Santa Ana’s bakery, considered one of Southern California’s best sourdough operations.
Photo: Patricia Kellyyo from Somni’s Time-Out Cheese Course.
On my second visit, the kitchen was fine-tuning the amount of bread so I was able to get through all the delicious dishes and finish off most of the desserts. It’s not the only course that’s high in Somni carbohydrates. There is also an oxtail bao bread with spicy curry sauce and a black garlic smear. For some dishes, the staff also explains the story of the origins behind beautiful plating and cooking utensils. The penultimate, flavourful meat course is served with a steak knife made by a bandage knife from Florence, Barcelona.
A cheese course with adorable beef-shaped crackers rang out and I looked around the room between both meals and found that several other guests had left food on their plates. Obviously, I’m not the only one who found over 20 courses slightly surprising. Again, given the prices to visit Somni, I would like to leave the restaurant a little more packed than something a little far away. It’s happened before on other tasting menus, so I’d like to thank the restaurant for their attempts to pack as many individual flavors, flavors and textures as possible.
Photo: Patricia Kellyyo for Somni’s Minyadies timeout.
The place where Somni spins around is, oh, even a bit in the sweets department. Now, the dessert consists of dishes inspired by the flavor of a piña colada and an array of “sweet little things” or miniyards. I love the former and capture the tropical flavor of classic frozen cocktails with elegant, cloudy creations. However, the latter consisted of several visually impressive sweets, some of which didn’t taste as much as they looked. Your eyes could be painted on a sprinkle top chocolate “donut”, inspired by a classic pink box shop in Southern California. But take a sip on it, and the slightly wet chocolate shell (most sweets are not stable at room temperature) collapses into the liquid center with a creamy, obscure flavor. Other miniyards, like caviar-top “croissants” and seasonal berry-shaped fruit jelly, are served alongside the dehydrated original, and are more successful.
For all the use of local ingredients and nods, and for their use on local foodways, I was still impressed by how Somni appears to be estranged from the rest of the LA food scene. It feels like you can be at the flashy tasting counters of other cosmopolitan World City. The restaurant’s molecular gastronomic feat is truly impressive, but Somni’s dreamy transport quality means that the restaurant feels like it can exist everywhere. It just happens to be in Los Angeles.
Somni won five stars from us, “Amazing” -. For more information about Time Out curation methods and ethics policies, visit the global How We Review page.
Somni
9045 Nemo St, West Hollywood, CA 90069.
Wednesday at 7:30pm (1 seat per night)
Reservations are available from OpenTable
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