3rd Time Around for a Katsu Restaurant

What do you call your third restaurant when it happens to be on 3rd Street? If you’re Katsu, you call it Katsu Third, 8636 W. 3rd St., West Hollywood, (213) 273-3605. And if you’re Katsu, you also make it look more like a gallery than a restaurant, filling up the white space with interesting angles, recessed light and very good art. If you’re Katsu, you also make the menu totally different than the one offered at the original Katsu (mainly sushi), or that served at Cafe Katsu (French inspired). This time you put out chopsticks, balancing them artfully atop green chiles, and you offer appetizers such as a terrine made of scallops, halibut and eel (not, it should be noted, the easiest item to eat with chopsticks), or a cream cheese terrine (even harder to eat with chopsticks) or shrimp salad. You offer entrees that range from chicken tempura to wiener schnitzel and beef tenderloin at prices that are mostly in the mid-teens. You add a few desserts, a nice little wine list and very pleasant service.

And then you might take the time to congratulate yourself for putting your third restaurant on a stretch of 3rd Street that is turning into quite a little restaurant row.