Hinoki & the Bird

Marie Kang-Scott

We ordered the brussel sprouts, fried chicken, sashimi and the kale salad for appetizer. They were so delicious, especially the sashimi. For the large plates, we ordered the black cod and the hanger steak. The cod was so good, but found the steak not flavorful. Their cocktails and wine lists are pretty extensive. We truly enjoyed our dinner. Today, we went to try the menu for our daughter's wedding. Each dish was unique and incredibly delicious.

Ji Kang

Our dining experience at Hinoki & bird was delightful! The staff were very friendly and welcoming, every dish that we ordered were absolutely exquisite and the atmosphere was great too. We’d definitely plan to visit again on our next trip to LA.

Viviana Shanks

A delicious culinary experience, everything was perfection, especially the fried chicken and their homemade bread. The grilled avocado was a hit and so were the desserts. A must try spot, with an amazing atmosphere. However, We were a big table and our waiter couldn’t care less about us (since the tip was included) we had to ask multiple times for water and other items, which became a tad annoying at the end.

Kevin Mojaradi (Kevin Likes to Talk)

The food is absolutely amazing! The ambience is very nice specially if you’re seated outside. It’s like your own private and nicely decorated garden. We expected the shared food to be small but it was a very good portion. Fried chicken was perfectly cooked. Lobster roll was superb! But the beef tenderloin took the prize! One down side, the parking was a s-show. Took us 20 min to get out since they had one attendant and a million cars. That may need to be resolved or just don’t park there. I saw many coming in frustrated and left. Highly recommend minus the parking!

Geoffrey Lyn

Hidden Gem We came for lunch and the service and restaurant is a really good atmosphere and the servers are very friendly and attentive. Food, loved the fried chicken for appetizer, the fries and the clt sandwich. Will be coming back to try more.

Jiahui Zhou

The design of the entire space was very aesthetically pleasing. Quite busy even on Friday noon. Foods were all fantastic. The lobster roll deserved its reputation - the meat was firm and had a sashimi-like texture, I quite liked the vinegary flavor as well. It was not exaggerated to say that the okonomiyaki burger was “probably the most tasty burger ever..” The honey potato bun was quite unique and the artful balance of cheese, picked peppers, tomatoes, and some unknown sauces created a flavor which was so enticing that you just want to have more (only available at lunch though). The famous roasted yam impressed me with its delicate and smooth texture - well, one never brought home and baked a yam like this. Finally came the desserts - surprise - the matcha ice cream was like those Turkish ones with very hard and thick texture and the cherry sorbet had a very rich flavor. My little grumble would be about the service: too few staff and it took some effort to get proper attention.

Mena G

The restaurant is beautiful, great for a date night or hang with friends. The food and drinks were fantastic, I will definitely be eating here again. Pictured is the fried rice and the lamb with tzasiki sauce, all the dishes were great, we also got a lobster roll as an app and that was delicious (not pictured).

JohnB 00007

Beautiful setting. Excellent food and great service. I had the Avocado salad with chicken. All very fresh. I also tasted several of the appetizers or side dishes such as the mushrooms and the chicken bites. All very good. This place is pricey and I would have liked to see a larger selection of entrees for lunch. However overall it was a great lunch in a great setting.

Wonderful atmosphere & ambiance! The food was delicious. The service was good not great. The servers were nice but not very attentive. We had wanted a couple more cocktails - they we really good - but the waiter never checked back in on us. We needed to flag him down a few times for drinks & desert. Not to miss dishes: the Boar ribs, the Salmon, the Fire cocktail & the Pana cotta

Impressive lunch venue filled with celebrities who I don't know, nor care to take pictures with. They have valet parking for $7 too which makes life easier. Their juice drinks are surprisingly good. I tried a few of them so view my pictures! The appetizers are delicious. Definitely try the toast with pumpkin. So warm and tasty. Surprisingly the noodle soup was good. At first it looked small, but the taste packed a punch and was filling. My colleagues had steak and salmon salad, which they thought were delicious. Would return here for a date or business dinner!

Finding Hinoki & the Bird was not quite straightforward as I hoped. Nestled by a condominium and so close to the currently underway large construction in Century City it took a bit to get to the well hidden entrance. The staff were polite and professional although our waitress listed 90% of the items on the (short) menu as being great which instead of making me feel like those items were good, made me feel like the rest of the items weren't the best. Once everything was ordered, and we had a pretty large party so this took a bit, things went smoothly. The chef merges some classic Japanese and a few Korean dishes with more contemporary Western tastes and this is largely pretty successful. There were a couple of times where the dish came across as fusion-confusion but not very often. I will probably be back but not very soon.

20% automatic service charge regardless of the party size is what most people have opinion on. Sadly it has gradually becoming a norm in this geopolitical climate, where restuants charges, workers health care %, water fees and the sort. I've also been intimidated by counter service workers at other places where they passive aggressively asked for tip by simply flipping their iPad. Some restuarants checks give you the tip options of 20%, 22%, and 25%. I suppose we should be happy that they only do automatic 20%. Perhaps our Hanoki and the Bird waitstaff wanted addition 5%? Because as we were leaving, they were not as friendly as when we arrived. I maybe too self conscious, too sensitive. But that's what the city do to you. It's the LA experience. Overall, food were not bad. Service was cordial. Location is a bit out of way, where valet parking is cheaper than parking lot parking rates. The best dish for the night for us was the fried chicken.

Leah Dilbeck

Wonderful atmosphere & ambiance! The food was delicious. The service was good not great. The servers were nice but not very attentive. We had wanted a couple more cocktails - they we really good - but the waiter never checked back in on us. We needed to flag him down a few times for drinks & desert. Not to miss dishes: the Boar ribs, the Salmon, the Fire cocktail & the Pana cotta

Albert K

Impressive lunch venue filled with celebrities who I don't know, nor care to take pictures with. They have valet parking for $7 too which makes life easier. Their juice drinks are surprisingly good. I tried a few of them so view my pictures! The appetizers are delicious. Definitely try the toast with pumpkin. So warm and tasty. Surprisingly the noodle soup was good. At first it looked small, but the taste packed a punch and was filling. My colleagues had steak and salmon salad, which they thought were delicious. Would return here for a date or business dinner!

Nick Wolf

This is a very beautiful place but food was very disappointing. On top of the fact that they could not serve us any dishes with lobster, the dishes we ordered lacked proper seasoning and didn’t taste yummy. Drinks were way better. Service is good but obviously not when they are packed. I really wish I could give them 5 stars but that’s not fair comparing my other reviews

Ulaş Bardak

Finding Hinoki & the Bird was not quite straightforward as I hoped. Nestled by a condominium and so close to the currently underway large construction in Century City it took a bit to get to the well hidden entrance. The staff were polite and professional although our waitress listed 90% of the items on the (short) menu as being great which instead of making me feel like those items were good, made me feel like the rest of the items weren't the best. Once everything was ordered, and we had a pretty large party so this took a bit, things went smoothly. The chef merges some classic Japanese and a few Korean dishes with more contemporary Western tastes and this is largely pretty successful. There were a couple of times where the dish came across as fusion-confusion but not very often. I will probably be back but not very soon.

walo walalo

20% automatic service charge regardless of the party size is what most people have opinion on. Sadly it has gradually becoming a norm in this geopolitical climate, where restuants charges, workers health care %, water fees and the sort. I've also been intimidated by counter service workers at other places where they passive aggressively asked for tip by simply flipping their iPad. Some restuarants checks give you the tip options of 20%, 22%, and 25%. I suppose we should be happy that they only do automatic 20%. Perhaps our Hanoki and the Bird waitstaff wanted addition 5%? Because as we were leaving, they were not as friendly as when we arrived. I maybe too self conscious, too sensitive. But that's what the city do to you. It's the LA experience. Overall, food were not bad. Service was cordial. Location is a bit out of way, where valet parking is cheaper than parking lot parking rates. The best dish for the night for us was the fried chicken.

Christine Pothier

Food was excellent and I loved the open kitchen to watch them preparing the food. The sweet potato and mushroom fried rice were delicious.

The atmosphere is wonderful but then it goes down hill. The service was subpar and when 20% tip is added automatically, that’s a problem. The food was the biggest disappointment and not because of the cost. It was good but nothing memorable and the portion sizes were so small I left hungry. That’s the problem with the high prices, not the price. The lobster roll was basic and the charcoal bun was stale so I didn’t eat the bun. The charcoal added nothing. The hamachi was swimming in too much soy making it salty. Brussels sprouts need to be crispy and these were not, just fried. The hanger steak was a very small portion for a main dish but the mushroom sauce was delicious. This is an expensive restaurant and if you wanna charge high end prices your food needs to match.

My husband surprised me for valentine day dinner here. Our reservation was at 9pm and didn’t get seated until about 25 minutes later. Given the day it was, I could understand the challenges the restaurant was facing. The food was honestly the best part of the experience but everything else was coming apart at the seams. The staff seemed very overwhelmed. It took about 30 minutes in between each course, the first course was about 45mins to get. I could tell things were behind, even with the start of Valet. I commend everyone’s hard work tonight but I think management could have been better with controlling the flow of the busy night. I’m not saying this place wasn’t worth going too. It was. I just think tensions were really high for the evening and I could tell.

1 hour and 10 minute wait for taro chips to arrive at the table, poor table management. For the price, better service is expected. They are a "no tip restaurant" aka they charge 20% service fee tip automatically no matter what. Food was otherwise good.

Just OK. This place wins points for being very vibey - it's secluded and the decor is a top notch combination of natural fabrics/materials and upscale touches, and the people dining there seemed way more chill than your typical trendy LA restaurant crowd. But, the food was so lackluster that I was shocked. Honestly, it has probably been the most flavorless I have had at a sit down meal in LA. The person I was with said they didn't even have a favorite dish because it was all so blah. There weren't a ton of options in general, so gluten free and/or vegetarian/pescetarian options were also pretty limited, but there were definitely enough to piece together a meal we shared. I thought the best thing was the local sashimi, which seemed fresh and had a nice finish. The octopus was pretty weird. It was fried, which was super cool as I've never seen that presentation, but that ended up poorly as it was really oily and the larger pieces didn't cook properly. The potatoes with it also tasted like they literally had no seasoning. I've never left a carb, especially not a potato, on a plate before and I could only eat a bite of one. We also got the fried rice, mushrooms, and carrots. I thought the carrots were the best of them, surprisingly, but my dining companion thought everything was way too salty. They also tried the lobster roll, which I couldn't have but had thought looked really good, and said it was also not seasoned and pretty bland compared to the presentation. We ended up leaving the vast majority of it untouched. A couple redeeming qualities (in addition to the spectacular ambiance) were our server, who was super friendly and just attentive enough to make sure we had what we needed but not interrupt too often, and the drinks. I would absolutely go back here for drinks alone. Their specialty cocktails were super fun, and our server knew the menu well enough to recommend some items we loved based on our mood/taste. We tried the jalisco dragon, cafe racer, and fire + smoke that we liked a lot. Update: went back for just drinks and loved it! It's the perfect place for that.

Ambience: very dark and too noisy, not a good place to have conversations Food: lobster roll and yam are my favorite! I never have a yam as tasteful as this one. The bread before meal is too hard to cut... Truffle dumplings are just okay, but not as good as yam and lobster roll. Service: when our waiter was introducing the menu to us, he was distracted by people who sat next to our table and were talking to their waitress. Then our waiter started to answer their question. Not feel good about this experience. Parking: valet parking with flat rate $10

Scott Eriksson

The atmosphere is wonderful but then it goes down hill. The service was subpar and when 20% tip is added automatically, that’s a problem. The food was the biggest disappointment and not because of the cost. It was good but nothing memorable and the portion sizes were so small I left hungry. That’s the problem with the high prices, not the price. The lobster roll was basic and the charcoal bun was stale so I didn’t eat the bun. The charcoal added nothing. The hamachi was swimming in too much soy making it salty. Brussels sprouts need to be crispy and these were not, just fried. The hanger steak was a very small portion for a main dish but the mushroom sauce was delicious. This is an expensive restaurant and if you wanna charge high end prices your food needs to match.

Nicole Robert

My husband surprised me for valentine day dinner here. Our reservation was at 9pm and didn’t get seated until about 25 minutes later. Given the day it was, I could understand the challenges the restaurant was facing. The food was honestly the best part of the experience but everything else was coming apart at the seams. The staff seemed very overwhelmed. It took about 30 minutes in between each course, the first course was about 45mins to get. I could tell things were behind, even with the start of Valet. I commend everyone’s hard work tonight but I think management could have been better with controlling the flow of the busy night. I’m not saying this place wasn’t worth going too. It was. I just think tensions were really high for the evening and I could tell.

Shant Rising

1 hour and 10 minute wait for taro chips to arrive at the table, poor table management. For the price, better service is expected. They are a "no tip restaurant" aka they charge 20% service fee tip automatically no matter what. Food was otherwise good.

Katherine W.

Just OK. This place wins points for being very vibey - it's secluded and the decor is a top notch combination of natural fabrics/materials and upscale touches, and the people dining there seemed way more chill than your typical trendy LA restaurant crowd. But, the food was so lackluster that I was shocked. Honestly, it has probably been the most flavorless I have had at a sit down meal in LA. The person I was with said they didn't even have a favorite dish because it was all so blah. There weren't a ton of options in general, so gluten free and/or vegetarian/pescetarian options were also pretty limited, but there were definitely enough to piece together a meal we shared. I thought the best thing was the local sashimi, which seemed fresh and had a nice finish. The octopus was pretty weird. It was fried, which was super cool as I've never seen that presentation, but that ended up poorly as it was really oily and the larger pieces didn't cook properly. The potatoes with it also tasted like they literally had no seasoning. I've never left a carb, especially not a potato, on a plate before and I could only eat a bite of one. We also got the fried rice, mushrooms, and carrots. I thought the carrots were the best of them, surprisingly, but my dining companion thought everything was way too salty. They also tried the lobster roll, which I couldn't have but had thought looked really good, and said it was also not seasoned and pretty bland compared to the presentation. We ended up leaving the vast majority of it untouched. A couple redeeming qualities (in addition to the spectacular ambiance) were our server, who was super friendly and just attentive enough to make sure we had what we needed but not interrupt too often, and the drinks. I would absolutely go back here for drinks alone. Their specialty cocktails were super fun, and our server knew the menu well enough to recommend some items we loved based on our mood/taste. We tried the jalisco dragon, cafe racer, and fire + smoke that we liked a lot. Update: went back for just drinks and loved it! It's the perfect place for that.

Leila Gui

Ambience: very dark and too noisy, not a good place to have conversations Food: lobster roll and yam are my favorite! I never have a yam as tasteful as this one. The bread before meal is too hard to cut... Truffle dumplings are just okay, but not as good as yam and lobster roll. Service: when our waiter was introducing the menu to us, he was distracted by people who sat next to our table and were talking to their waitress. Then our waiter started to answer their question. Not feel good about this experience. Parking: valet parking with flat rate $10

In the past this restaurant was always good. But the valentines day dinner set menu was awful. The seafood was meager and poorly cooked (scallops were pale and rubbery). I saw 3 different tables walk in, sit down, and then leave. For the price the food was outrageous. The service was good as usual.

My husband and I went for the Valentine's Day dinner and it was just a disappointment and severely overpriced for what it was. Took 25 min to order. Food was just mid. Under seasoned. I also got the scallops and got 2 bay scallops that had one half seared side. Mind you, this meal was $150 a person. Also the chocolate covered strawberries barely were covered and again nothing special. Best thing we probably ate were the rolls and butter...Save your money and go somewhere where you will actually get what you are paying for. On top of it- got charged $42 to park. Won't be back.