If you were dining out in Venice late last decade, you knew this place — in the thick of Abbot Kinney Boulevard’s luxury-cool retail density. MTN (pronounced “Mountain”) closed five years ago and, with a few pivotal modifications, has now returned as RVR (yes, pronounced “River”). Being at RVR doesn’t feel like experiencing déjà vu so much as streaming the surprise new season of a show we all thought had been canceled forever.
Its second life turns out to be shockingly good, thanks especially to the kitchen’s brilliance with vegetables.
We knew MTN as an experimental izakaya that opened in 2017, dripping in hipness. It was the passion project of Travis Lett, the culinary architect behind Gjelina and hybrid food-hall Gjusta whose obsessions with relentless seasonality, global flavor combinations and a brand of casual, photogenic perfection gave Millennials an up-to-date definition of California cuisine.
MTN’s interpretation of Japanese cuisine closed a circle for Lett, a blond with surfer-model good looks who grew up in New Jersey. His father had spent time in Japan during his military career, and his parents had embraced the macrobiotic diet philosophy that surged through the United States in the 1970s. Scene-wise, MTN was apace with that top-of-the-world L.A. era: a magnet for the setters and chasers of trends, servers who threw attitude in the melee and could get away with it, the music from a turntable often inaudible in the deafening clamor.
The cooking could pierce the noise. I remember teetering on a window seat, absorbed in Japanese sweet potatoes glossed with miso butter and covered with snipped scallions and bonito flakes swaying in the heat. Clam broth for one ramen variation arrived so sea-sweet it could fool you into thinking ocean water was quaffable.
Two years into the restaurant’s run, Lett separated from his Gjelina Group business partners, and MTN closed early into the pandemic. Gjelina and Gjusta carry on of course, still beacons your friends just off a plane want to race first for their California vibe check.
But then last spring, the big announcement: Lett, with different investors, had reclaimed the MTN space for a second coming of his izakaya.
RVR opened in October, recalibrated for a new decade. From across the street the building looks the same: Asymmetric, modernist exterior walls with a finish that resembles grainy wood. In another incarnation it could house a niche textile museum.
Inside, the restaurant’s walls have been lightened. A retractable roof has been replaced with panels that let in soft, filtered sunshine; the dining room fades to candlelight-dim when night falls. The tone of the hospitality is notably warmer. Overall, the whole operation comes off as more grounded, and ultimately more appealing. MTN walked so RVR could run.
To eat in Los Angeles is to know the ways both classicists and individualists claim the word “izakaya.” Show up to RVR itching to parse the traditionalism of its dishes and you’re probably not going to have a great time. It’s Venice. It’s Lett. Small plates of chicken thigh karaage drizzled with chile honey, shrimp dumplings beautifully rounded in the gold-ingot wonton fold, roasted black cod and grilled kanpachi collar start at $15 to $20 and go from there. A meal adds up quickly.
The value is in how the ingredients sing. This is where centering the region’s finest produce comes into play.
Lett brought in Ian Robinson as RVR’s partner and executive chef. Robinson previously ran a Toronto restaurant called Skippa that specialized in regional dishes of Kyushu island in southern Japan. They’re joined by chefs who previously worked with Lett for years, including Cean Hayashi Geronimo and, as of June, chef de cuisine Pedro Aquino, who co-led the Gjelina Group’s short-lived Oaxacan restaurant Valle in the same space after MTN closed.
The team’s cohesion is important: There’s some ur-Gjelina alchemy at work here in the plant realms. Even early in RVR’s run the crew was teasing the Technicolor out of winter: They’d layer, for example, ripe, honeyed Fuyu persimmons in pinwheel patterns under rounds of lilac-purple daikon, their earthy-sweet differences further contrasted by crunchy furikake and torn shreds of dark-green shiso.
Now, in the holy season of summer? Floral apricots step in for the usual cucumber in a take on sunomono, stung with tosazu (vinegar-based dressing smoky with katsuobushi) and aromatic accents of pickled Fresno chiles, ginger and crushed Marcona almonds. Tiny tomatoes rupture on the tongue, sharpened with myoga and blood-red sweet potato vinegar from the Kyoto prefecture and needing nothing else than salt and peppery olive oil. Costata Romanesco zucchini lands on the grill, its signature ribbing still visible under char and hacked on the diagonal; rubbed with a blend of spices that nod to Japanese curry; smeared with playful, mysteriously citrusy curry leaf aioli; and covered in a punchy furikake made with of crushed pine nuts, shallots and nori.
For all the Southern California mythologizing around seasonality, few menus in Los Angeles cast produce in feature roles year-round. With technical command and on-their-feet imagination, the RVR chefs are pulling off the city’s most inspired plant-centered cooking.
Vegetables comprise the menu’s largest and most compelling section, but there’s plenty more that entices.
Hand rolls like kanpachi wrapped with avocado, slivered cucumber, spicy-green yuzu kosho and shiso, or rock cod in tempura slicked with tartar sauce and piqued with daikon radish sprouts, delight with their very Californian cleverness.
I keep coming back for duck meatball tsukune, at once fluffy and dense and served with head-clearing hot mustard; smoky-sweet Monterey bay squid, matched with a revolving mix of herbs and acidic punctuations that always coalesce; and pan-fried pork and cabbage gyoza crowned with a crackling, lacy dumpling “skirt.” Among several ramen options, right now I’m favoring the springy noodles with Dungeness crab and corn. The viscous broth gently builds flavors, prominently echoing the two lead elements.
However the idea of an izakaya may be translated, the drinking component is crucial. Among cocktails: fresh-fruit shochu highballs, plum-accented negronis and freezer martinis. Suntory premium malt runs on draught. Six styles of sake number among options by the glass, as do plenty of hot or iced Japanese teas and a fun, smooth cherry-vanilla soda made by the bar staff.
More than not, though, I’m drinking off-dry Rieslings or rich, slightly oxidized whites from more obscure corners of France because wine director Maggie Glasheen is in the house. She’s one of those enthusiasts who, if you show interest, gathers several bottles of wine in her arms and brings them tableside to discuss. Each sound like a mini-adventure, and Glasheen always swings back around to make sure you’re happy with the one you chose.
Nearly 10 months in for RVR, prime-time dinner reservations remain maddeningly competitive. A few months ago, the restaurant began serving weekend brunch as well. Before word spread, one could stroll in at 12:30 p.m. on a Sunday and savor a silky rolled omelet and one large, chewy-crisp black sesame pancake alongside the moment’s sugar snap peas glossed with sour-sweet ume.
Now brunch too is catching on, so it’s safer to book a week or so out, particularly if you want to request a place on the breezy rooftop patio that launched when the weather warmed.
It could — no, it should — be the new first-stop meal your vibe-seeking friends demand as soon as they’re out of LAX.
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