Tsubaki

Partners in both business and life, Charles Namba and Courtney Kaplan opened Tsubaki in 2017 with the modest ambition of creating a small, neighbourhood restaurant based on their shared vision of a modern izakaya. Each brought their own sensibilities to the table. Charles was born in LA to Japanese-American parents and, though he grew up eating his mother’s traditional Japanese cooking, his culinary path veered in a decidedly European direction, with several formative years spent in resolutely French kitchens with chefs like David Waltuck (at Chanterelle) and and Thomas Keller (at Bouchon). Courtney went in a different direction, honing her beverage and management chops at the edgy, pioneering East Village sake bar Decibel and, later, at Downtown LA’s wildly popular neo-Italian Bestia.

Needless to say, this dynamic duo has achieved the initial goal and then some. Tsubaki is an intimate jewel box of a restaurant, both sweetly personal and assuringly professional, serving refined interpretations of izakaya classics. The tempura-fried vegetables change constantly – whole Dragon Tongue beans in the midsummer, fat spears of asparagus in the spring – and are always a study in airy, crunchy perfection. Steamed clams are redolent of the sea, their brininess rounded out by a liberal spoonful of Bordier butter. Virtually everything grilled over the binchotan-fired konro grill is delicious, most especially the chicken (ask for the special special hearts if they’re on the menu!).

Kaplan won the 2023 James Beard award for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program at Tsubaki's sister restaurant, Ototo, and it wasn’t by accident. Her beverage programs, among the most engaging in the city, are tightly curated, exceedingly complementary to the food, and distinctive in their point of view without being tiresome or dogmatic. At Tsubaki, you’ll find a list of nearly 40 wines, mostly French and largely in colours other than red. Nervy, mineral-driven whites find the most purchase, with some well-known grower Champagne at one end and a smattering of light, crunchy reds at the other. Good choices abound, with some welcome surprises – a recent printing listed Olivier Jullien’s criminally-underrated 2019 Pays d’Hérault Blanc, which is a pretty inspired pick to accompany a plate of sashimi.

If you’re smart, though, you’ll partake instead of Kaplan’s terrific sake list, which makes an artful concession to the fact that Americans still know very little about sake by providing just enough information on each bottle to make a selection without needing to rely (too much) on the restaurant’s very well-trained staff. From insider favourites like Jikon and Shichida to stalwarts Isojiman and Kodama to the resurgent wave of anti-modernist brewers, you’ll find a little bit of everything, all of it chosen with an eye towards exploration and pleasure.