Restaurant Ki
Korean restaurant · Historic Core
111 San Pedro St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Highlights
Upscale Korean tasting menu with innovative dishes and pairings
Upscale Korean tasting menu with innovative dishes and pairings
"Getting to Ki feels like an escape room challenge—you’ll walk through three doors, including one labeled “Employees Only.” But once seated at this stone-walled chef’s counter inside Bar Sawa, you’re in for an intimate, high-energy dinner, with cooks shuffling to and fro to a turned-up playlist of Flo Rida and Beyoncé. At $285 per person, the 12-course tasting menu is more laidback than the price suggests, even if the hypnotizing, genre-pushing Korean dishes make you perk up in your chair. The crudo-like take on mulhwe with shark fin flounder delivers a salty, acidic punch, but the best courses are more restrained, like crispy octopus with key lime, truffle-topped perilla noodles that arrive right as you crave carbs, and an otherworldly lettuce ice cream dabbed with caviar." - sylvio martins, brant cox, garrett snyder, cathy park
"Korean tasting-menu spot Restaurant Ki received its first Michelin star, and its chef Ki Kim was honored with the Young Chef Award. Kim captured the mixture of nerves and gratitude around the recognition: "Super, super nervous. I didn’t think I’d be this nervous, but my heart’s clutching right now. I don’t know what I’m getting. I’m very thankful and grateful. I’m here with my entire team. I’m fortunate to have a team that’s very easy to work with, and fortunate to have a space that is ideal and designed for us to be in. I would like to take more credit and say that I intentionally did all this, and coincidentally and gratefully, things are working out. In life, we always have plans, but life never goes as planned. When it actually goes as planned, it’s crazy — it’s amazing." - Matthew Kang
"One star. This Little Tokyo tasting menu from chef Ki Kim became Los Angeles’s first Korean-inflected Michelin-starred restaurant. Kim owned a Koreatown tasting menu restaurant before closing it in 2024, only to return with a namesake upscale counter weaving in flavors from his upbringing. Kim also received the 2025 Michelin Young Chef Award, another commendation for he and his team’s stellar cooking." - Eater Staff
"Earned a one-Michelin-star rating as a new one-star entrant in the 2025 California Guide." - Rebecca Roland
"Chef Ki Kim received the Michelin Young Chef Award and his restaurant became Los Angeles’s first Michelin-starred Korean restaurant." - Rebecca Roland
