Ototo

It took a couple of years for LA to get hip to the delectable wonders of Courney Kaplan and Charles Namba’s groundbreaking LA neo-izakaya, Tsubaki (another Red Star venue), but as soon as the word got out, reservations became a scarce and highly-prized commodity.

Thankfully, a solution was right around the corner, both literally and figuratively. When a small space became available just adjacent to Tsubaki, Kaplan and Namba leapt into action, and two years later, in 2019, Ototo was born. Conceived as the hipper, more casual sibling to their grown-up restaurant next door, it staked an immediate claim as LA’s first true sake bar focused on top-tier, artisanal breweries. The playful, irreverent influence of Decibel, the groundbreaking East Village sake bar at which Kaplan cut her teeth in the early part of her career, is palpable... though there’s (a lot) less punk rock on the sound system and virtually no stickers or graffiti (yet). NB: Ototo doesn’t take reservations; you just show up and write your name on a list posted on the wall by the door.

The menu veers mostly towards the type of food you want to eat when drinking copious amounts of small-production sake and cold beer: namely, small pieces of meat, fish and vegetables, liberally seasoned and fried or quickly griddled. There are always one or two sashimi selections and a couple of lighter vegetable dishes – the seasonally-rotating goma-ae is reliably delicious – but this is a place where tempura, chicken wings and LA’s best Osaka-style okonomiyaki rule the roost.

Unlike Tsubaki, which offers a small but impeccably-chosen wine list to accompany its sake offerings, the program at Ototo isn’t making (m)any concessions: wine is technically available, though there’s only one option per colour. In lieu of other grape-based choices, though, Ototo offers what is undoubtedly one of the most engaging, informative beverage menus of any kind anywhere in the city.

Over the course of 25-ish pages nestled in a subtly explanatory and ingeniously designed cover, Kaplan provides a crash course through the wonderful world of artisanal sake, highlighting its regional typicity, its stylistic diversity and the fiercely individualistic approaches of its best producers. Sakes are grouped by production styles, which are helpfully explained by introductory blurbs, and the focused tasting notes manage to communicate important context about the brewers while unpretentiously describing each sake’s taste and texture. Indeed, this is the type of document that can provide an evening’s worth of companionship and instruction should you find yourself alone and bookless at Ototo’s bar on a random weekday evening.

And for those who are hungry for further exploration of the world of Japanese fermentation and distillation, Kaplan also offers a compelling offering of shōchū, umeshu and a solid lineup of delicious Japanese beers.