LAReview
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Baroo
Included In
Once upon a time, tasting menus were relatively rare. Now they’re everywhere. That’s great news for people whose kinks include long-winded dish explanations and down payments to book a reservation, but for others, the whole fixed-menu thing can feel more stifling than playing beach volleyball in a wool turtleneck. If you fall into the latter category, a night at Baroo might quickly change your mind.
At this modern Korean restaurant in the Arts District, an eight-course, $110 tasting menu feels like a finely edited one-act play: a smooth, cohesive experience that satisfies and immediately leaves you thinking about the next visit. And that’s not a bad thing. Because with tightly choreographed service and a thought-out menu that delivers unique, deeply personal dishes, you’ll quickly realize you don’t actually dislike tasting menu restaurants, you’ve just been going to the wrong ones.
Baroo is not a new restaurant, at least in name. The first iteration originally opened in 2015 as a casual, order-at-the-counter cafe in East Hollywood known for experimental grain bowls dotted with lots of fermented things. A second, even scrappier location opened in 2019 inside a swap meet that was ultimately torn down. And like a phoenix rising from the ashes of the wrecking ball, we now have Baroo 3.0—a fully formed restaurant in a polished, comfortable space that looks like a cool friend’s industrial loft. There’s little visible holdover from its past here, frankly, and that’s fine by us. This is Baroo All Grown Up, a place that embraces the same lets-try-it ethos of the original, and puts it squarely in the world of fine dining.
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
There’s a common trope on tasting menus that involves obscure ingredients being tweezed into dishes meant to remind you of something familiar: Mushroom extract and roti, it’s a cheesy gordita crunch! Peppermint patty? That’s parsley and bovine collagen. That’s not the case here. While the food takes clear inspiration from traditional Korean cooking, every dish tastes like it could only exist at Baroo. There’s the small crispy rice cake colored with red makgeolli (the milky alcoholic beverage you might’ve ordered from the drink menu), which comes topped with spicy ‘nduja, savory gouda, and tart pichuberry—an unexpected combination that balances like a high-wire act. Even the more straightforward-sounding dishes, like an elegant soy-braised cod with buttermilk and lemongrass, or grilled pork collar “goulash” with kimchi, are delicious and interesting enough to dance around in your head long after you’ve left the building.
As memorable as the food is though, it’s the efficiency of the experience that brings it all together. Servers deliver dishes with fun, tightly constructed explanations that move the night along with ease. In between courses, you’ll find plenty of time to sip soju cocktails and talk about your love for the seaweed-battered fried skate ssam, but never once will you wonder when the next dish is coming. We’ve had meals at Baroo and been in and out in under an hour without ever feeling rushed. Other times, we’ve hung out for hours without ever feeling stifled. Even with a turtleneck on.
Food Rundown
Baroo’s menu changes frequently. Here are some highlights from our most recent meal.
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Red Yeast Makgeolli
No offense to the delicious pumpkin soup that precedes it, but this is the dish that sends a meal at Baroo into hyperdrive. It’s also when your table realizes how intricate the cooking is here. A small, spongy rice cake made with makgeolli yeast arrives topped with creamy nduja, shaved gouda, and sweet-sour pichuberry. That’s a bunch of ingredients that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to go together, but as you’ve probably already guessed, they do.
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Parae-Battered Skate
We’ve sampled this ssam dish both with fried skate and fried soft-shell crab, and both were equally fantastic. The protein arrives coated in a tangy gochujang sauce, and wrapped in a tender lettuce to be eaten like a taco. We would have ordered a second round if we could.
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Soy-Braised Black Cod
You can find braised cod on the menu at many Korean restaurants around town, but the one is among the best and most unique we’ve had. The cod is silky and soft, and the lemongrass-buttermilk sauce it’s swimming in brings out the fatty richness of the fish.
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Beef Short Rib
This dish is an extra $12, but worth the upcharge—especially considering this is the only supplement on the menu. The meat is perfectly tender, nicely marbled, and comes in a bath of decadent root vegetable jus. If you’re with one other person, you might as well get this and the also-great pork collar course that the beef supplements, so you can try both.
photo credit: Jessie Clapp
Wild Mountain Greens Rice
The best bowl of rice we’ve ever eaten? Quite possibly. If you went to old iterations of Baroo, you know that’s not a surprising statement. Since 2015, this place does grains and greens better than anybody, and the streak is alive and well.