You’ve most likely glanced over a menu in an American Japanese restaurant, and as you scanned the list, your eyes landed on the bento: a box that contains a few items, more or less the Japanese equivalent of a combo plate—your bento might include rice, teriyaki salmon, some nigiri, some edamame.
But in Japan, bento is both a culinary icon and a way of life: Busy commuters grab the pre-packaged meals from the refrigerated section of train stations on their way to work and mothers pack playful bento for their children’s school lunch. Bento can appear as simple as rice served with nothing but a single savory item and a few pickles, or as ornate as a multiple-compartment box with dozens of vegetables sculpted to resemble flowers.
Hayato is far from the only L.A. restaurant serving bento, but it’s quite possibly the only L.A. restaurant serving high-end bento like you’d find in Japan.
Inspired by the traditional New Year’s boxes of osechi cooking, Hayato chef-owner Brandon Go is creating ornate and painstakingly assembled bento in the kitchen of his cozy new restaurant in ROW DTLA. He makes only 16 boxes per day, each filled with 16 items and priced at at $46, and they’re only available for takeout—though delivery may very well be offered soon. Crab tofu, agedashi eggplant, dashimaki egg, seared duck breast, grilled scallop, shrimp meatballs, winter melon and just-caramelized miso black cod and more make their way into the bento, forming one of the most unique and thoughtful lunches you can find in the city.
“If you eat out a lot, you’ve seen versions of the same thing a lot, and I want to show people something new,” says Go. “If you go to every steakhouse, going to a little bit better of a steakhouse isn’t going to be that different. But with kaiseki [a multi-course meal] and bento, we really have the opportunity—because this is newer to people—to entertain them.”
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
In early June (with a soft launch in mid-May), Go plans on starting a seafood-focused kaiseki dinner service, somewhat of a Japanese tasting menu. Whereas there’s a progression of flavors and dishes in kaiseki, in bento the chef cannot control which items you may eat in which order. Accordingly, everything in bento must be seasoned to stand up to some of the more naturally rich and flavorful items—which is why that dashi-soaked eggplant can be eaten alongside the cod or the duck without seeming bland. Each of the 16 items receives its own marinade and preparation in order to maintain its own identity; everything must complement everything else in the box.
“You keep people interested by using different types of seasoning: There’ll be vinegar, then salt, then light soy sauce and dark soy sauce and sugar,” says Go. “So each time you put something in your mouth, it shocks your palate because it’s different.”
In Go’s bento, nothing is an afterthought. Even the rice is especially considered, seasoned and cooked with gourmet stock instead of water. In the kaiseki dinners it’ll most likely be mixed with fish, but in the bento, it’s vegetable-based, deriving much of its flavor from mitsuba (Japanese parsley) and burdock root, or gobo, a root vegetable that lends earthiness to the koshihikari grains.
Of course this precision and expertise didn’t just sprout overnight; Hayato is the culmination of roughly 20 years of Go’s experience and training in Japanese cuisine, which he began at 15 in his parents’ Seal Beach sushi restaurant. A college trip to Japan led to a fascination with izakaya cooking, and before he knew it, Go was working 11 months in America, saving for annual monthlong stints in Japanese restaurants that included osechi, bento and kaiseki training in Michelin-starred kitchens.
“I thought the time to do this could be now,” Go says. “Even 10 or 15 years ago, people were still feeling out uni. Now it’s become mainstream. We have all of these great French restaurants and Italian restaurants that are up to the level of the food in those countries, but true Japanese cooking here isn’t anywhere close to [what it is in] Japan.”
Thanks to Hayato, we’re one step closer.
Hayato is located at 1320 E 7th St in ROW DTLA. Orders for bento must be made at least 24 hours in advance, and can be made with up to one month’s notice. Pickup is available at noon and at 1:30pm, Tuesday to Friday.