Bar Sawa

"Look for the Kajima’s Building's set of exterior stairs in the center of the block; walk up to the second-floor lobby, enter through the glass door and take the middle elevator down to the B level. It may sound like the plot of a spy movie, but it's not. It's how you arrive at this sleek, edomae-style omakase. Fish is largely sourced from Japan and the cocktail pairing is a nice complement. Nigiri is left to shine with a stroke of nikiri and simple toppings of yuzu kosho or ginger, but items like the shredded sous vide scallop roll prove they're playful too. Shrimp cake with panko-battered, deep-fried lotus root is spot on, while minced spearhead squid topped with Hokkaido bafun uni tucked in nori hits all the right notes. Soy sauce cheesecake is a smooth and rich ending." - Michelin Inspector

The 18 Best Restaurants & Bars In Little Tokyo - Los Angeles - The Infatuation

"Sawa is a slightly less formal omakase experience from the chefs of Sushi Kaneyoshi (located in the same building), but reservations are just as competitive. The hushed room feels like a ten-seat sushi vault, and the chefs make you feel like a pampered poodle eating an 18-piece omakase. While the mostly traditional Edomae-style nigiri is very good, the real highlights are the cocktails, or rather, the cocktail pairing option. For $45 you can pick any three from the menu and let the masters course out toki highballs and dashi martinis alongside the omakase. Just know that, with drinks, you’ll drop close to $500 on dinner for two." - cathy park, brant cox

Korean Tasting Menu Restaurant Ki Is LA’s Most Exciting New Restaurant | Eater LA

"Opened January 16 in the basement of a Little Tokyo office building (check in at the host stand for Kaneyoshi and Bar Sawa), this modern Korean counter serves a multi-course tasting priced at $285 per person (wine pairing $190) and seats along a long, wide counter for up to 12 diners though most nights accommodate eight, with a single 6:30 p.m. seating Wednesday–Sunday; reservations are available on Tock. The menu "weaves through a deeply personal narrative while exploring various facets of Korean ingredients, cooking techniques, and flavors," and the prevailing themes, as the chef often uses, are "comfort and elegance." The service is intimate and theatrical: during dinner the chefs zig-zag around the counter, dusting plates of grilled lobster slices over doenjang butter sauce with raspberry powder or slicing a rosemary-roasted Colorado lamb saddle into bite-sized pieces, while co-chefs Ryan Brown and Shingo Kato bring their own culinary firepower to the experience. Dishes shown include steamed sea perch with scarlet prawn, dry-aged dairy cow with roasted sesame, creamy perilla noodles topped with shaved winter truffles, and charcoal-grilled lobster tail with doenjang sauce and raspberry powder, with savory courses culminating in a lamb saddle carved tableside and served with smoked tomato-stuffed morels. The snack sequence preserves highly specific technical and textural touches: an "alien-like orb of cod milt (also called shirako) tinted with a pale red-orange kimchi sauce atop a tiny ball of rice and a cylinder of crispy bugak seaweed" — inspired by the chef's love of gimbap: "While cod milt is typical in haemul-tang [seafood stew], I wanted to capture the harmonious flavors of rice and banchan, where you make your own combination with every bite," he says — with the milt available only in winter and switched out in spring; delicate horse mackerel slices wrapped around aged baek-kimchi (kimchi without any gochugaru) and perilla leaf; and the chef's now-signature crispy octopus with a rich octopus head sauce. The grilled lettuce (sangchu) ice cream was conceived by charring, dehydrating, and then infusing an ice cream base; the chungju cream, which uses the unfiltered rice beverage, adds a slightly sweet contrast to the earthy quenelle of lettuce ice cream, and the dish is finished with a dollop of Astrea caviar (preferred because it’s sourced from older sturgeons and "has less 'pop' in the texture but a richer umami finish"). On caviar the chef is forthright: "It took me several years to realize that caviar is actually good," said Kim. "When I had a caviar dish served with asparagus ice cream at Aska in New York, it was a shocking thing, and caviar with ice cream got stuck in my head," he says. The program leans seasonally and kaiseki-adjacent: "Morels are typically served in spring, and the 'next season' approach is like Japanese kaiseki 'hashiri,' which means embracing what's coming," says the chef. He has also been candid about his mental-health journey after the closure of his prior restaurant and says therapy helped; serving lamb here represents a kind of triumph and an acknowledgement of progress. The chef's résumé (chef de cuisine at Meteora while it earned its first Michelin star; founder of the previous tasting menu Kinn, which drew praise from Los Angeles Times critic Bill Addison) helps explain the maturity on display and the ambition to sit alongside renowned counters such as Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, Atomix, and Catbird Seat while contributing its own distinctive chapter to Los Angeles's fine-dining Korean scene." - Matthew Kang

Korean American Chef Ki Kim Is Opening a New Restaurant in Little Tokyo | Eater LA

"Described as Kaneyoshi’s sister sushi-and-cocktail concept, Bar Sawa shares a hallway with Kaneyoshi in the same subterranean complex; it occupies an adjacent but separate venue operated alongside Kaneyoshi by partner Yuichi Ito." - Matthew Kang

New Additions to MICHELIN Guide California March 2024

"It's tucked in the basement of an office building in Downtown LA and isn't easy to find (they even send a video with directions) but this sleek, edomae-style omakase with a sprinkling of seats at the counter is worthy of a visit. Fish is sourced from Japan, with bluefin tuna hailing from Mexico and Spain, and the cocktail pairing is a nice complement. Nigiri is left to shine with a stroke of nikiri and simple toppings of yuzu kosho or ginger, but items like the shredded sous vide scallop roll prove that they're willing to be playful, too. Shrimp cake with panko-battered, deep-fried lotus root is spot on, while minced spearhead squid topped with Hokkaido bafun uni tucked in nori hits all the right notes. Soy sauce cheesecake is a smooth and rich ending." - MICHELIN Guide