{"id":425612,"date":"2026-08-06T17:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/425612\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T17:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:58:07","slug":"3-new-affordable-tasting-menus-to-try-in-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/425612\/","title":{"rendered":"3 New Affordable Tasting Menus to Try in Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my wilted salad days of food blogging in the pre-recession late aughts, I got the chance to try two-Michelin-starred M\u00e9lisse in Santa Monica for the first time, paying $65 for a special four-course tasting menu<\/a> of tea-smoked ahi tuna and Cornish game hen jambonette. (That menu is now $399). It was fine dining at a price I could reach on an entry-level salary. At the time, I don\u2019t think we realized how severe the Great Recession would be, but just a few months later my career and personal life were upended because of it. Los Angeles fine dining restaurants were scrambling to get diners through the door<\/a>: Saam at the Bazaar (the predecessor to Somni, a meal that\u2019s now $1,000 a person<\/a>) was charging $95 for 22 courses, and even Providence (now with three Michelin stars) had a sub-$100 prix fixe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If affordable tasting menus presage a coming recession, maybe the one economists have been warning us about is imminent<\/a>. In Los Angeles and beyond, I\u2019m seeing tasting menus at prices that recall 2009-2010.<\/p>\n

Baroo co-owner Mina Park, whose celebrated tasting menu<\/a> costs $140 a person, told me it\u2019s so much easier to control costs when you can plan out exactly how much to order. I keep hearing that restaurants are struggling, and I appreciate the balance some of them are striking between quality cooking and attainability. The three newer, notably more affordable tasting menus I tried offered mostly solid value<\/p>\n

At this three-month-old Arts District izakaya, a $98 six-courser comes with an alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverage pairing, making it one of the best deals in town right now. Chefs Tyler Burges and Phil Mireles put out a tightly wound modern Japanese menu, sourcing fish from Tokyo\u2019s Toyosu market. Curled snapper sashimi comes over cold dashi gelee. Thick pork belly slices nestled in a thin wrapper conjure something like Beijing duck. Agedashi tomato, cooked in its juices and then flash-fried, bursts with the freshness of summer. You will likely fight over the last bites of blackened, miso-topped eggplant and a juicy, blistered half-chicken. The savory section ends with citrus-topped soba skillfully made by hand. Those with larger appetites might still need a slice of pizza (maybe from Lynx<\/a>, just a short walk away), but Bengara offers an attractive entry price and polished cooking.<\/p>\n

Aussie chef Craig Hopson\u2019s Electric Bleu brings California-inflected French bistro fare to a residential section of Mar Vista. The high energy and tightly packed tables make it feel like a real neighborhood gem, though the standard menu feels like a fairly pricey date night. The $79 tasting helps the cause. Chicken liver mousse piped into an onion wafer taco leads the way, then two slices of yellowfin tuna crudo come draped over tangy watermelon chunks. A slender slab of miso Parmesan tart has grilled figs on top. A very rare seared duck breast serves as the main course, sided with Champagne grapes and purslane, and there\u2019s a slice of roll cake topped with mango cubes for dessert. It\u2019s all well-sourced and tasty and, if you have a smaller appetite, probably enough. Since I don\u2019t lean that way, I recommend fortifying the meal with the textbook pate en croute and a warm baguette loaf with butter.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the portion spectrum, you get Majordomo\u2019s midweek special \u201cDomokase,\u201d which chef James Bailey puts together at the counter. I\u2019m still a huge fan of this sprawling David Chang-founded Chinatown restaurant with its focused menu of mostly Korean-influenced dishes. Most of the Domokase\u2019s 10 courses are variations on ssam, typically meat topped with kimchi and spicy sauce (ssamjang), then wrapped with lettuce or another leafy green.<\/p>\n

Like any proper meal, this one includes banchan, like a kimchi made with heirloom tomato, and light-as-air micro rice ball bugak<\/a>. A stunner of dry-aged tuna, salmon, and yellowtail, marinated ganjang shrimp, and smoked trout roe comes with crisp lettuce and perilla leaves. The build-a-bite process would\u2019ve put a smile on my grandfather\u2019s face. Caviar-topped cold fried chicken wrapped in iceberg lettuce recalls one of Chang\u2019s most beloved dishes at Momofuku Ko<\/a>. There\u2019s a carby interlude with Majordomo\u2019s bing bread, topped with a knob of tender lamb rib. The somewhat comical \u201chand salad\u201d is just a highly dressed meatless ssam that leaves your fingers sticky. The meal culminates with grilled steak, braised brisket, and seemingly endless slices of Majordomo\u2019s famed smoked short rib \u2014 with all the ssam accoutrements \u2014 after which you will be ridiculously, tremendously full. At $175, it\u2019s at the higher end of \u201caffordable\u201d and actually an impressive deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In my wilted salad days of food blogging in the pre-recession late aughts, I got the chance to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9662,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-425612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-dining-out-in-la","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}