Courtney Kaplan: Introducing Small Craft Brewers to L.A. Diners

On my recent trip to Los Angeles, I hoped to visit the Echo Park  restaurant Tsubaki and its little brother, sake bar Ototo. I wanted to sample from co-owner Courtney Kaplan’s interesting sake program and talk to her about how she and her partner, chef Charles Namba, came to be serving elevated izakaya fare and great sake in their corner of Echo Park.

Tsubaki was open and preparations were underway to bring Ototo out of lockdown in a matter of days. In that flurry of activity, our schedules did not align, but I did manage to connect with Courtney on Zoom after I returned to Toronto. Our conversation made me more eager than before to make a reservation at Ototo the next time I’m town.

One reason is that Kaplan, who manages the front of house as well as the sake and wine lists for both restaurants, favors small craft sake producers that skew domaine-style and organic, and in wine, organic and biodynamic.

 “I look for producers that do estate-grown rice,” she told me, such as Nagayama Honke Brewery’s Taka, which she called “accessible and crowd-pleasing.” She’s  also partial to breweries like Yucho in Nara (the maker of the Kaze no Mori line), for its “fascinating blend of ancient and modern techniques,” and Senkin in Tochigi, for its single-minded embrace of locally grown rice and its sakes’ trademark elevated acidity. She likes Mutemuka Brewery in Kochi Prefecture, a pioneer in organic rice growing, and Akishika Brewery in Osaka. In addition to using all-organic rice, most of it is estate grown, and the brewery offers a selection of aged sake as well.

But there are other things to look for at Ototo besides sake. I’m eager to try Kumamoto-made Oka Kura Bermutto, or vermouth. Its junmai sake base is fortified with rice shochu and perfumed with Japanese botanicals including yuzu, yomogi, and sancho peppercorns. A cross of two beverages I love!

Kaplan began making yearly batches of ume shu, or plum wine, even before opening Tsubaki in 2017 (Ototo opened in 2019); this year she snagged 45 pounds of green plums from the farmer’s market and made enough to put on the drinks menu, along with close to a dozen other plum wines. The plum wine is also available in Kaplan and Namba’s pantry shop, which sells things I wish I could get my hands on in Canada, like Hyogo Prefecture-brewed usukuchi soy sauce from Suehiro Shoyu,  or a line of Iio Jozo vinegars from Kyoto.

As it did for many of us, Kaplan’s route to sake involved a fair bit of serendipity.

In 1999, she decided to do her junior year abroad in Tokyo, drawn there mostly because she liked Japanese fashion. To make it a truly immersive experience she looked for a job, landing one as a server at a Hawaiian-style barbecue restaurant in the Ebisu district. Management figured an American, even a college student from Long Island, was on-theme enough for them.

 When she returned to New York she wanted to retain her language skills, and lucked into a job at the East Village sake bar Decibel. “It served fifty or sixty sakes by the glass and was an institution,” she says. “After closing we could try anything we wanted, so it was a tremendous tasting opportunity.” A few veteran staffers took her under their collective wing and guided her through a craft sake world that was still a mystery to even the most worldly New Yorkers.

Next, Kaplan tried working as a translator for a Japanese newspaper, but quickly realized that she was not cut out for the 9-to-5 life. An opportunity opened up with En Japanese Brasserie, which was just opening its first U.S. location on Hudson Street close to where the West Village becomes the South Village. In addition offering further sake education, En turned out to be where she met her partner Namba, who was a cook there. They talked about launching a restaurant of their own but realized that financially, opening in New York was out of their reach. Since Namba, whose parents are Japanese born, had grown up in LA, they relocated there in 2010 to pursue the dream.

It took seven years to realize, but in the interim both Kaplan and Namba accumulated valuable experience. Kaplan worked as the general manager for celebrated chef Neil Fraser’s now closed restaurant BLD, where the chef’s wife, Amy Knoll Fraser, became a mentor to her. She also did a stint at the natural wine store Domaine LA and as a somm at the groundbreaking downtown LA Italian restaurant Bestia. 

At BLD, the Frasers believed in “open-book hospitality,” meaning that they shared financials, including profit-and-loss statements, with the staff. It’s a practice Kaplan carries on today at Tsubaki and Ototo. A deeper understanding of the restaurants’ financials, she has found, “helps our staff feel more invested, and to manage better.” Seeing monthly food costs, for example, and how they affect the business as a whole,  helps a sous chef be more conscious of waste. “Staff starts to see the connection between our day-today activities and the overall health of the business,” adds Kaplan.

Namba, who in addition to En, had cooked at Chanterelle and the Macao Trading Company in New York, opened Bouchon LA for Thomas Keller. At first, their idea was to open a French place. Then they began to see that while Los Angeles diners could get a lot of great sake, “the depth I saw in New York of Japan wasn’t represented here,” Kaplans says. “It wasn’t as front and center.” They began imagining an izakaya concept that reflected the local products of their southern California location, one that  wouldn’t be strictly bound to tradition. Kaplan also wanted a deep sake menu showcasing lesser-known breweries.

Tsubaki opened in 2017 to strong reviews. Kaplan found it surprisingly easy to source the smaller brewery products she wanted; they were being imported, but the demand for them was not high. That’s changing very quickly, she says, as more restaurants and bars broaden their selections. Well-known restaurants (Republique, Bestia) have called her asking for recommended sake pairings for their menus, and Majordomo (chef David Chang’s internationally influenced take on LA Korean food) has sake on its list.

 But Tsubaki’s sake menu perplexed some customers. “We didn’t have a lot of the big brands, no Dassai, Hakkaisan, Kikusui or Kubota,” Kaplan recalls. One thing guests have embraced wholeheartedly,  Kaplan says, is fresh and lively unpasteurized sake. “There’s a huge interest in nama now … it’s having a moment,” she says.

In many ways serving sake to Angelenos was easier than it was at En in the mid-2000s, she notes, when guests would declare, “I only drink junmai daiginjo,” or “I only drink cold sake,” and look askance at any other recommendations. “What I really love about working with sake in L.A. is that the majority of our guests are really excited about sake and want to learn,” she explains. “They’re not coming to us with any hang-ups.” Yet L.A. diners do share the attitude toward elevated izakaya fare that she encountered during the early days of En: many equate the word “izakaya” with cheap eats, and aren’t used to paying what it costs to serve more creative and specialized fare that goes beyond standard sushi and ramen offerings.

Our conversation was a tantalizing appetizer to the main course--my eventual visit to Echo Park. I can’t wait! One word of warning about visiting Tsubaki and/or Ototo: both are small; 33 seats at Tsubaki and 38 at Ototo, with an expected 10 more outdoor seats each once they are both at full capacity.

So plan ahead, and when you’re there, raise a glass to the growing sister (and brother-)hood of sake!

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