RESTAURANTS • First Person
Yess in the Arts District — the modern Japanese restaurant with a seasonal, seafood-driven menu of creative and beautifully presented dishes — is easily one of LA’s most distinct, rewarding dining experiences. And in a long-awaited move (and a roundabout way back to its original food truck roots), Yess recently added lunch service.
The lunch menu is more sushi-focused than dinner, with a broad selection of impeccable temaki. Options include tender unagi with crunchy local cucumber, smoked trout with wasabi sour cream, seared yellowtail with a gochujang sauce, spicy tuna with a soy-pickled fresno, and the astounding vegan temaki with plum, pickled eggplant, and ume plum miso. You can order each individually, or do three for $35, or five for $55. The portions are generous, but order as much as you can. The temaki come out as they’re ready, wave after spectacular wave.
Certain dishes carry over from the lunch menu, like the silken tofu, topped with a tower of salsa macha, and the Monk’s Chirashi bowl, with its unreal selection of seasonal vegetables. But the lunch menu also has new dishes like a sashimi salad and new chirashi bowls that would work for a more expeditious lunch. Lunch mains come with pickles and a sublime miso soup (which, in and of itself, is probably worth dropping in).
Housed in a landmark former bank building from the 1920s, the cathedral-like dining room at Yess has this minimalist, brutalist, and almost monastic feel, but during the day, the space absolutely glows from the huge walls of glass block windows. The relaxed, chill vibe, alongside the at-times sluggish service, almost encourages you to linger and order at least one of the kakigoris for dessert, stretching what might’ve been a quick lunch all the way into the early afternoon. –Raphael Brion
→ Yess (Arts District) • 2001 E 7th St • Wed-Sun 12-230p & 6-9p • Reserve.