The Brief

The first bite at n/naka, the acclaimed Westside Japanese restaurant, asks you to slow down. The meal opens with an oyster dressed with asparagus, elderflower, dill and horseradish, served beside caviar on a puffed-rice crisp over a bed of juniper sprigs.

The oyster's briny, meaty texture meets earthy, herbal notes and a touch of sweetness from the produce. It's a bite with weight, enough to carry you somewhere else entirely: a forest at the edge of a rugged coastal range, waves crashing at your feet.

It’s the kind of moment that chefs Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama have been building for 15 years.

Understanding kaiseki

Kaiseki is a traditional multicourse Japanese meal built from a series of small, seasonal dishes. Its roots are often traced to both the quiet meals served before a tea ceremony and the more elaborate banquets paired with sake. Today, the style is defined less by a single origin than by its emphasis on seasonality, balance and presentation.

The zensai course arrives as a bamboo basket of small bites, including shrimp, chawanmushi and a beef taquito, a nod to Nakayama’s L.A. upbringing.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The tiny, unassuming Michelin-starred restaurant — which seats only 26 people at a time — is located on a quiet corner in the Palms neighborhood. n/naka was one of the first restaurants in America to serve modern kaiseki; Nakayama, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, helped introduce kaiseki to the city when n/naka opened in 2011. She describes the restaurant’s style of cuisine as “a modern California Japanese kaiseki," and her skills have been repeatedly recognized; she's been nominated as an outstanding chef by the James Beard Foundation twice, most recently in 2026.

In a city where restaurants regularly close after a few years, still being in existence — and thriving — after 15 years deserves its own acknowledgment.

Celebrating with friends

Instead of throwing a party for their 15th anniversary, the two chefs, who are partners both in business and in life, invited like-minded chefs from New York to Lima to cook with them in a series of one-night-only dinners.

n/naka chefs Carole Iida-Nakayama (left) and Niki Nakayama (right), with Micha Tsumura of Maido, one of the guest chefs in the restaurant’s anniversary dinner series.

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Zen Sekizawa Photography

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Courtesy n/naka

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“I really wanted to not just collab for the sake of doing collabs,” she said. She wanted the chefs “that had the same angle and story as ours, where they’re coming from somewhere else, and they’re recreating the food from their personal perspective.”

Each dinner has its own theme, Nakayama said. A collaboration with Emma Bengtsson of the two-Michelin-star restaurant Aquavit in New York honored women in the industry. A partnership with Micha Tsumura of Maido in Lima, Peru — named the World's Best Restaurant in 2025 by World's 50 Best — explored diaspora. There’s one dinner left — on December 15, with Shinichi Aoki of Hashiri Bettei Kaiseki in the Bay Area. Aoki’s will bring together traditional kaiseki and n/naka’s modern version.

The menu

If you're lucky enough to get a reservation for their regular menu, however, you can still expect a spectacular meal. (I grabbed the chance to attend a rare media tasting). 12 vibrant courses for $395 per person, with a wine pairing of $195.

The meal weaves together a range of influences, beginning with the oyster. From there, it moves to the zensai, a bamboo basket of delicately crafted bites that looks like a bejeweled version of Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet. It holds a tiny beef taquito, California blue shrimp, chawanmushi topped with a single slice of mushroom, and corn tempura.

California seems top of mind in every morsel, starting with the taquito. Nakayama says tacos appeared on past menus throughout the years. "Those are experiences that I've had growing up," she said. "They deserve to be celebrated within this context."

A steamed course of a crab-and-shrimp dumpling, floating in tomato dashi, finished with lemongrass and basil oil.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Another course crosses cultures: a steamed crab-and-shrimp dumpling in tomato dashi, finished with lemongrass and basil oil. Lemongrass is a staple of Southeast Asian cooking, and Nakayama said she has never seen it used in Japanese food. "I think we can put it all together and still make it work and ultimately still have it feel very Japanese," she said.

As the meal progresses, the dishes grow richer. One is spaghetti studded with fish roe and topped with abalone and shaved truffle. Another is A5 wagyu served alongside a hollowed-out squash packed with sweet corn, finished with a crisp, butterfly-shaped cracker. The beef's melt-in-your-mouth richness plays against the vegetables' delicacy, and the plate feels whole.

‘One time, one meeting’

The back of the menu carries an old Japanese proverb, ichi-go, ichi-e, which means "one time, one meeting." It embodies the idea that every encounter should be treasured because it will never happen again. Below it, the menu calls California n/naka's "living landscape" and kaiseki its "culinary medium," setting the tone for the evening.

Nakayama said the idea guides her kitchen. "You will never have this day, this hour, this minute back," she said. "So be in the moment."

Looking ahead, she hopes the restaurant can be a refuge. "I think there's so much stress in the world that if there's a place you can step into that's a reprieve from that, I would hope that a place like ours fills that space," she said.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts didn’t show up to The LA Local’s mayoral candidate forum Wednesday night, but the five candidates challenging his bid for reelection weren’t shy about criticizing his 15-year tenure at the city’s helm.

Mayoral candidates Raina Carrillo, Fre’Drisha Dixon, Gloria Gray, Arturo Martinez and Joseph Soto all joined the forum and laid out their ideas about everything from housing affordability to traffic. 

The five challengers agreed on the need for term limits for city officials, a forensic audit of city finances and a change from 2 p.m. City Council meetings to a more publicly accessible evening slot. They lashed out at the city’s handling of Inglewood’s video billboards, the flagging Market Street commercial corridor and Bryan Bostic’s death in police custody during Butts’ time in office.

The LA Local invited Butts to attend the forum and held a chair open for him on stage throughout the event. A full video of the forum will be available online on Thursday. 

Voting has already begun in Inglewood and will continue until Nov. 3. The stakes are high amid an ongoing dispute between the city and its major venues, and stadium and billboard interests have already poured millions into the election.

LA Local reporter LaMonica Peters and youth journalist Lakshmi Leon moderated the forum, asking questions gathered from The LA Local’s community survey and from the more than 100 community members in the audience. 

Lead moderator, LaMonica Peters, left, reporter with The LA Local, and Lakshmi Leon, 17, student reporter and a junior at Inglewood High School, ask questions to the mayoral candidates during the Inglewood Mayoral Candidates Forum held at Inglewood High School.

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Nicole Sims was part of the audience in the auditorium of the former Morningside High School —  temporarily the home of Inglewood High School. 

The lifelong Inglewood resident said she hoped to hear ideas from the fresher faces in Inglewood politics, especially candidates who have come from the community and haven’t held elected office before.

“Just because someone has been in the office doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the best candidate to push the city forward,” Sims said. 

Jessica Foard, a teacher, said she had hoped Butts would attend the forum so she and Bostic’s family could ask questions about how the mayor has handled Bostic’s case, but wasn’t surprised he didn’t attend.

“He doesn’t feel like he needs to answer to anybody,” Foard said. 

Inglewood’s election season has been contentious as candidates spar with each other online and at city meetings, trading barbs and allegations of misconduct. 

Wednesday’s forum remained largely cordial. Dixon called out Gray twice, asking why she hasn’t pushed harder as a council member for more transparency or information about Bostic’s death. Gray rebutted that she’s been active about both issues within the constraints of her job. 

Central to the election is the city’s relationship with its crown jewel stadiums and fleet of video billboards, which collectively bring millions in revenue to the city’s budget and have changed the rhythm of daily life for residents. 

Candidates critiqued the city’s current financial arrangement with video billboard company WOW Media. They pitched a variety of solutions for the traffic jams and parking snags that are a feature of major events in the city, from barricading side streets to building an Elon Musk-inspired traffic tunnel.

Some took aim at the city’s parking permit program, which charges residents in some neighborhoods for extra streetside permits.

With new development continuing around Inglewood, the candidates proposed a range of housing affordability fixes from property tax relief to affordable dwelling units, or ADUs.

Chibby Azingee-Welton, of Inglewood, snaps her fingers in agreement at the Inglewood Mayoral Candidates Forum held at Inglewood High School on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Inglewood.

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Anil Raj, one of the attendees, said he was impressed with Dixon’s proposals and with the passion from Martinez and Soto. Gray, he said, seemed to represent Inglewood’s past. 

Inglewood’s mayoral election is a primary, meaning the top two vote-getters will move on to a runoff in the spring unless one gets more than half of votes cast by Nov. 3. Butts first needed a runoff to win office in 2011, but wrapped up dominant November wins in 2014, 2018 and 2022. 

Carrillo, Dixon and Soto have all made runs for mayor before. Gray, who is on the board of the West Basin Municipal Water District in addition to being a council member, is the only candidate besides Butts currently holding elected office.

Inglewood resident Sandra Jones said she hopes people will go vote.

“We can complain as citizens of this community,” Jones said, “but we actually need to get out and vote and make a change.”

Check out our voter guides

Inglewood’s ballot is packed beyond the mayor’s race with voters set to weigh in on two City Council members, three school board members and three ballot initiatives.

Check out The LA Local’s voter guides below: 

• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood Mayor 
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood City Council 
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood Board of Education 
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Measure AT, the Ordinance to Amend the Admissions Tax for Large Venues
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Measure BB, the Ordinance to Eliminate Advertising on Public Right-of-Way
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood Unified School District Measure MM

The post Inglewood mayoral challengers weigh in on video billboards and transparency while Butts skips The LA Local’s candidate forum  appeared first on LA Local.