Inside Kato's Beautiful, Understated New Downtown LA Home

The Friday evening before Kato’s new Downtown Los Angeles location is the most relaxed this room will be, at least for the foreseeable future. Occupying the former M.Georgina space the restaurant from San Francisco chef Melissa Perello that only operated for a few months before being forced to close due to the pandemic the corner build-out on the ground floor of a towering industrial building in Downtown LA’s eastern edge seems like a fitting home for Jon Yao’s Michelin-starred establishment. Yao and partners Nikki Reginaldo and Ryan Bailey have been spending the last few months preparing their larger digs, though everyone’s a bit drained mentally from three days of hosting dinners with the Restaurant at the Meadowood, a $500 per person affair that went smoothly despite being the Kato team’s first actual nights of service.