On June 25, Somni, a restaurant in West Hollywood tucked away on a small street behind Dan Tana’s, was awarded a prestigious third star at a Michelin Guide ceremony held in Sacramento, making it one of just 16 restaurants in the country to hold that distinction. (Providence, located four miles east in Hollywood, also received its third star that night.)
The achievement is made all the more impressive by Somni‘s near-death experience, having faced a pandemic closure in 2020 less than two years after its debut. But its chef and founder Aitor Zabala — who apprenticed under José Andrés in his native Barcelona — had faith in his tasting-menu concept, and in November 2024 Somni returned to even greater fanfare and acclaim.
Now it’s harder than ever to snag one of its 14 spots for one of Zabala’s playful culinary extravaganzas. Each seating features around 25 intricately constructed courses. Cost is about $500 a person — or $720 with wine pairing. An eye-watering amount, to be sure, but in today’s experiential economy, one that foodies are dying to get in on. (The restaurant insists the only way is to wait for its reservations page to open on the first weekday of the month.)
Zabala checked in with The Hollywood Reporter on his third-Michelin-star victory lap.
Congratulations on Somni earning its third Michelin star. Can you explain just how big achievement it is?
It’s a huge achievement because only 150 restaurants in the world have been given that honor. It takes years and years of hard work and passion and doing better every single day to receive such an achievement.
Did they explain their thinking in awarding you the third star?
They never explain it. The third star basically means it’s worth it to make an effort to get to that restaurant from anywhere in the world.
Well, that’s incredible and it brings much-needed pride to the city.
Thank you, thank you.
But you’re not from L.A., you’re from Barcelona. What made you want to plant your flag here?
The circumstances of life. In Spain there was an economic crisis, but I dreamed of having my own restaurant. I was working for José Andrés and he offered me the opportunity to come to the United States. This was back in 2010, and I ended up in Washington D.C. I was not really excited about it. But I traveled to L.A. and fell in love with the weather and the products in the farmer’s markets. Coming from D.C., I think it was an October and it was snowing. But L.A. was sunny. There was the beach. It has a lot of similarities to Barcelona, from the climate to the sea and the mountains nearby. So I thought, maybe here I can make it.
Dashi Caviar Dish
Courtesy of Christina Gandolfo
Where do you come up with the ideas for your intricate courses?
When I started in this business 30 years ago, what drew me in was the creativity — being able to create a vocabulary and emotions through creations with food. We were closed for four years and seven months, so we had a lot of time to think about what we wanted to do. We have a test kitchen at the office and we were playing around and preparing for this moment.
So how did you survive the pandemic? It killed so many restaurants in the industry.
The pandemic hit everyone hard. It took a lot of effort — personally, economically — to bring Somni back. Obviously, I had the support of my partners, and I’m really thankful they let me survive until we could reopen. We strongly felt that Somni deserves to continue. But coming back after five years is really complicated. Things changed a lot.
I’m sure ingredients have gotten a lot more expensive in those five years.
Everything is more expensive. We need to pay the staff more. The rent is increasing, the products are increasing now even more with the tariffs — you bring wine from Spain, it’s even more expensive. Opening a restaurant today is a massive act of faith, because profits are not high. It doesn’t matter if it’s fine dining or a taco stand or a casual restaurant — opening a restaurant in this environment is really, really hard.
I know you had to raise the price of a seating. But I also see that the reservations are completely booked.
The price is in direct proportion to the value. You have 20 people working for 14 guests a night. We offer over 25 courses per service. We give the best quality service we can. It is a high-ticket price, but I think the value is there.
As for the reservations, we have 14 seats; we don’t have that much margin to play around. Fourteen seats is a really small number. We don’t do single diners because if we put in a single person, we lose a second seat. You lose one person, you lose 7 percent of the profit. We’re only making 5 to 10 percent profit to begin with. So we need to say no to many people.
Pizza Meringue Dish
Courtesy of Christina Gandolfo
Are people pulling the old, “Do you know who I am?”
No. Everyone has to use the online system. It opens once a month and if you are lucky you get a reservation. I think it’s more fair to do that. But it doesn’t matter what system we use because it’s 14 seats and people will always feel it’s unfair. We try to do our best so people get the value and feel special when they come here. Most importantly we want to create emotions and memories.
So even if Jeff Bezos comes to the door with his new wife and says, “Please, can we sit down?”
Yeah, no — normally we have the door closed. The dinner starts at 7:30 p.m. and maybe we open 10 minutes before so the guests aren’t waiting outside. After all the guests arrive, we close the door. At that point, it doesn’t matter who you are. If you didn’t have a reservation, you are not coming in.
Spoken like a true culinary rock star.
I don’t know if I am rock star. But I think our industry is really feeling loss and yet getting hotter at the same time. I don’t want people to say, “Oh, you are the best.” There are many amazing people doing amazing things in the world. But when they say, “You made me feel like this,” that is pureness. That is really freaking cool. I don’t know another people how feel it about it, but to me, it’s really cool.
Cow and Her Milk Dish
Courtesy of Christina Gandolfo
