Meet the 29-Year-Old Wunderkind GM That Helped Make LA’s Kato the Buzziest Restaurant in Town

The story of LA restaurant Kato, the Michelin-starred tasting menu destination that recently relocated to a 4,500-square-foot downtown space, is the story of two wunderkinds.There’s chef Jon Yao, of course, who opened Kato in June 2016 when he was just 25. Yao’s new-school Taiwanese-American cooking uses fine-dining ingredients and beautiful plating to move his culture forward. So three-cup chicken turns into three-cup abalone, and riffs on steamed fish, hot-and-sour fish and raw fish are elaborate but delicate umami bombs that burst with contrasting textures and flavors. An A5 wagyu dish has a sauce with beef tendon that tastes like the essence of beef noodle soup.