How Michelin-Starred Kato Became the #1 Restaurant in LA — Mise En Place

Video Description

Chef Jon Yao, the 2025 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: California, is the visionary behind Kato in LA, a Michelin-starred restaurant also named "One to Watch" by the World's 50 Best Restaurants. The tasting menu showcases seasonal ingredients and modern takes on Chinese cuisine using complex cooking techniques. One of its signature dishes, yúdù gēng, uses the entirety of the Dungeness crab — incorporating the fat in the custard, crab meat as a topping, and shells in the fish maw. During preparation, the chefs carefully inspect the crab meat using tweezers and black light flashlights to ensure no tiny pieces of shell are left behind. Other standout dishes include aged lamb saddle in the Zī rán yáng, dry-aged quail in the anchún, and buttery sablefish in the suāncài yú. #chef #losangeles #restaurant 0:00 Intro 00:35 Making the Dry-Aged Cumin Lamb 01:52 Making Dashi 03:20 The Growth Kato Has Had in Five Years 03:41 Starting the Quail Process 06:12 Beginning of the Crab Dish 06:50 Black-Lighting Technique Used For the Crab 07:30 Roasting Crab Shells in Wood-Fired Oven 08:03 Making Glaze Out of Crab Shells 08:36 Breaking Down the Sable Fish 10:17 Pre-Service Plating & Taste Tests 12:20 Service Begins - Amuse Bouche Course 13:36 Cooking & Plating the Quail Course 14:25 Cooking & Plating the Halibut Course 15:05 Cooking & Plating the Crab Custard Course Credits: Producer/Director: Connor Reid Senior Video Director: Murilo Ferreira Camera: Murilo Ferreira, Tom Daly Production Sound Mixer: Noah Kovalick Editor: Jay Simms Executive Producer: Stephen Pelletteri Head of Production: Stefania Orrù Supervising Producer: Connor Reid Director of Production: Michelle Fox Post-Production Supervisor: Lucy Morales Carlisle Audience Engagement: Frances Dumlao Download the Eater app here: https://apple.co/401kzls ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more episodes of 'Mise En Place', click here: https://trib.al/yMbuEJg Eater is the go-to resource for food and restaurant obsessives with hundreds of episodes and new series, featuring exclusive access to dining around the world, rich culture, immersive experiences, and authoritative experts. Binge it, watch it, crave it. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel now! http://goo.gl/hGwtF0