n/naka marks 15 years celebrating its own version of kaiseki cuisine

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.