Glinting rays of autumn sunlight peek through trees above a hidden courtyard in West Hollywood. Water gurgles from a stone fountain near a cluster of circular lounge tables. At the center of it all is Aitor Zabala, the chef of Somni, wearing a crisp white shirt and rimmed glasses, speaking in a rapid Spanish lilt: “We finally have a home. What we have here is beautiful...amazing — better than what we had before.”
A First Look Inside Somni, LA’s Ambitious Spanish Modernist Tasting Menu Restaurant
The former two-Michelin-starred restaurant from Aitor Zabala has resurrected in a stunning West Hollywood space
Matthew Kang is a correspondent for Eater. Previously, he was the lead editor of Eater Southern California/Southwest. He has covered dining, restaurants, food culture, and nightlife in Los Angeles since 2008.
The latest iteration of Somni opens tonight, November 26, 2024, four years after the original location inside the SLS Beverly Hills closed in August 2020. The exclusive tasting menu restaurant serves 14 diners across two curved counters that face a bustling open kitchen. Shades of cream, ecru, and maple run throughout the interior punctuated by the restaurant’s unofficial mascot, a geometrical rainbow-colored bull’s head mounted to the wall.
Zabala’s resume reads like a who’s who of Spanish modernist legends: Alkimia, Abac, El Bullí, Akelarre, and numerous José Andrés restaurants. In 2018, Eater LA named him Chef of the Year. When Zabala was running Saam, a little-known tasting menu off-shoot tucked into chef José Andrés’s the Bazaar in 2008, he dreamt of executing something even more ambitious. At the time, Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold hailed Saam’s “exquisitely constructed dishes” as “no less than a museum of modernist art.”
In 2019, Zabala inched closer to his dream with the first iteration of Somni, which means “dream” in Catalan. The more refined, counter-service version of Saam earned two Michelin stars before closing during the pandemic due to a failed deal to extend leases for the Bazaar and Somni at the SLS. The closure provided Zabala with the opportunity to strike out on his own and make Somni into his complete vision.
“This is my one chance,” he says, now seated in the courtyard, which is encircled by Somni’s high-ceiling dining room and kitchen; both are much smaller than other international fine dining destinations like the French Laundry in Yountville, Mexico City’s Pujol, and Asador Extebarri in Spain’s Basque Country. Somni hides on West Hollywood’s tiny Nemo Street in the shadows of Italian red sauce spot Dan Tana’s and the Troubadour music venue. Busy Santa Monica Boulevard piles up with traffic each afternoon, thousands of cars whisking by the tucked-away location. The restaurant entrance sits behind a white steel gate — it’s a short walk up to the large stone host stand where general manager Daniel Gorlas welcomes diners. The private dining room and glass wine cellar are to the left of the walkway; veering to the right reveals a serene outdoor lounge.
Once in the main dining room, the tactile details of the space come into focus. Everything is custom-made, including seats, countertops, cabinets, and plateware. A stunning design by architect Juli Capella feels destined to be in glossy print magazines. The curved counters are split into six and eight seats each, with a walkway in between to facilitate service.
At the front counter, chef de cuisine Ismael Parra and other cooks assemble intricate dishes, like the crispy and light Parmesan feather resembling an ancient Roman artifact. A dashi meringue shaped like a palm-sized fish comes topped to the gills with Astrea caviar pearls encircled by purple flowers. Meringue is served atop a crisp linen napkin the hovers over a scalloped wooden plate, the same texture lining the dining counters. Mejillones (mussels) arrive in a cloud of escabeche emulsion decorated with borage flowers. A half-orb of beet hides under more edible flowers, its bed a pile of rose petals. Zabala’s vision for delicious, whimsical, and delightful dishes hasn’t changed. The menu winds through 20 courses of conversation-starting bites, grounded by the chef’s knowledge of Spanish cuisine but spoken through the language of seasonal Los Angeles ingredients.
Zabala’s vision for delicious, whimsical, and delightful dishes hasn’t changed.
As with many restaurants of this caliber, the wine service, curated by wine director Caroline Costarella, will become an equal draw for many diners. A $225 Arrels pairing, named after the Catalan word for “roots,” weaves in Californian and Spanish wines while the $415 Calafia pairing (named for the mythical Spanish queen Calafia) incorporates a wider international set of top-flight wines. A non-alcoholic option, which Somni offered back in 2019 well before zero-proof wines and cocktails were ubiquitous, is also available.
In a year in which Vespertine reopened and regained its two Michelin stars; Pasjoli chef Dave Beran is preparing to debut Seline, his follow-up to Michelin-starred Dialogue; and N/Naka completes an interior renovation, Somni’s comeback signals a rising tide of upscale dining in Los Angeles. The city does not have a three-Michelin-starred restaurant or recent World’s 50 Best recipient, and arguably it doesn’t need them, but Somni’s return could boost the reputation of Los Angeles’s dining scene.
As Zabala told Eater back in 2019, more restaurants like Somni, Vespertine, and Dialogue, which bring well-heeled travelers from around the world, will help continue to make Los Angeles one of the best dining destinations globally. As if the weather, culture, and people weren’t enough, Los Angeles’s fine dining scene has its mojo back.
Dinner at Somni costs $495 per person before tax and service fees, distributed to hourly employees. The private dining room, which accommodates up to six, has a $5,000 minimum spend. Valet parking is complimentary. Reservations are accepted up to a month in advance on OpenTable. The restaurant’s suggested dress code is business casual.
Somni is located at 9045 Nemo Street, West Hollywood, California, 90069, and is open from Wednesday to Sunday, with seatings at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
See More:
