The quintessential Sichuan flavors of numbing and spicy are just right at Mala Class, a tiny, brightly colored red-and-green Highland Park eatery that opened at the end of June. Five years in the making, the fast-casual York Boulevard restaurant is led by front-of-house partner Kevin Liang and chef Michael Yang. The pair first met while working at Han Dynasty, a tri-state Sichuan specialist that my NYC counterpart named one of the city’s best Chinese restaurants. Similar to their former employer, Mala Class aims to tap into the popularity of the southwestern Chinese province’s fiery cuisine and make it accessible to a wider audience. Unlike more traditional Sichuan restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley serving dishes like cumin lamb, pepper fish and la zi ji (a.k.a. mala chicken), the vegan-friendly menu offers a reasonably priced, contemporary take that hits all the right notes, even for someone well-acquainted with the region’s cuisine.
Sichuan-born Yang—who’s also worked at Bistro Na’s in Temple City—takes obvious care in the kitchen. Finer details like noodle texture and the crispiness of deep-fried items like tofu and chicken wings elevate the fast-casual menu from good to great. I particularly enjoyed Mala Class’s phenomenal take on dan dan mian. The subtle sesame sauce, optional ground pork and spicy chili oil are tossed tableside with chewy, slightly springy noodles. The vegan-friendly dish is ubiquitous in L.A.’s Chinese restaurants and most renditions tend to feel rote and wholly unremarkable, but the first-rate version at Mala Class offers a more complex, nuanced blend of flavors. Other dishes like spicy beef noodle soup and mala chicken wings elicit only mild twinges of numbing, but if you’d like even more buzz on your tongue the restaurant is happy to accommodate flavor modifications in either direction.
A selection of mostly fried appetizers includes craveworthy mushroom fries, pepper-rubbed tofu, and cucumber and bean curd salad. Those in search of milder, more familiar fare will enjoy the cold sesame noodles and garlic sauce shrimp; while I consider them the weakest items on the menu, both in terms of spice level and overall quality, they’re both still tasty enough to order when you’re not looking for a full-blown party in your mouth. In the future, Liang and Yang plan to debut rotating menu specials, but for now they’ve focused on basics, including a standout mapo tofu made with leeks. It’s easily my favorite version in Los Angeles—and I’ve tried almost everywhere else in town you could possibly imagine.
Since my first visit to Alhambra’s Chengdu Taste, the culinary pioneer that opened over a decade ago, I’ve yet to find a modern Sichuan-style restaurant that has captivated my interest more than Mala Class. Up until now, the closest thing the city has had is Mian, a noodle concept from the team behind Chengdu Taste with locations in West Adams, San Gabriel, Rowland Heights and Artesia. A recent visit to Mian West Adams, while still satisfying, tasted formulaic and by-the-book in comparison to my meal at Mala Class. There’s also Suá Superette, a disappointing grab-and-go concept in Larchmont cofounded by Fly by Jing’s Jing Gao with Erewhon-level prices and fairly muted Sichuan flavors. Neither eatery approaches the sweet spot between culinary precision and affordability as Mala Class.
For now, you’ll need to venture to Northeast L.A. to try this fast-casual Chinese restaurant, but Liang and Yang have aspirations to turn Mala Class into a thriving multi-location chain. If the pair can thread the needle on continued quality and consistency, I can easily imagine Mala Class becoming as beloved a local chain as, say, Dino’s Famous Chicken or Sugarfish. It’s worth planning a visit to Highland Park for some of the most delicious, interesting and reasonably priced Sichuan cuisine L.A. has seen in a long, long time.
The vibe: Bright and modern, with a mixed crowd of neighborhood locals and citywide heat-seekers.
The food: A tightly curated menu of modern Sichuan cuisine. Highlights include the dan dan noodles, mapo tofu and cumin-dusted mushroom fries.
The drink: Non-alcoholic canned options only—Coke, Sprite, Apple Sidra and Wan Lao Ji, a sweetened Chinese herbal tea.
Time Out tip: If you want to trim down on the wait for a table, arrive earlier in the evening or try coming midday—it’s one of the rare few new restaurants that’s open for lunch. The restaurant also accepts takeout orders over the phone when possible.