Seafood makes a big splash on Melrose Hill
Little Fish is a seafood-centric restaurant where sustainably sourced fish and farm-fresh produce sing with unexpected delights. Every dish on the menu has layers of flavor, each bite opens a whole world.
When Little Fish chef/owners and romantic partners Anna Sonenshein and Niki Vahle were laid off from the restaurant Son of a Gun, they followed a path increasingly familiar to young, talented chefs who lived through a pandemic and the heartbreak of restaurant closures—they started a pop-up. They served fried fish sandwiches in their Echo Park backyard, then hosted pop-ups around town, eventually starting Little Fish in Echo Park as a take-out window (now closed it will soon morph into a larger space.)
Last December the duo opened on Melrose Hill, and three months later Little Fish Melrose was added to the prestigious Michelin guide as a Bib Gourmand restaurant, an award for exceptionally high-quality, affordable food. Michelin also awarded Sonenshein and Vahle the 2026 California Most Promising Young Chef Award. Additionally, the pair made the James Beard Foundation’s 2026-2027 TasteTwenty list of emerging culinary leaders. The duo is a culinary flavor force.
MASA CAKE, topped with sour cream ice cream, lime zest, and honey.
The restaurant itself feels fresh and airy. Pale wood, white walls, large windows, and globe pendant lamps create a welcoming space, as does the friendly and warm service. Behind the bar (which serves beer and wine) there’s a large glass-facing fish locker, where silvery whole fish hang for dry aging.
For curious palates, the well-curated menu is loaded with enticing offerings. My husband and I started with tuna-stuffed olives with citrus and fennel and the daily crudo. The delicious fruit-bathed yellowfish carpaccio and briny green olives loaded with lemony tuna were perfect to nibble while deciding on the rest of our order.
Rockfish karaage came as a bowl of golden, crackling fish nuggets. Karaage is a Japanese frying technique where the protein is marinated then fried in a potato starch-based batter. The fish was light and loaded with flavor. Dipped in the accompanying makrut lime aioli, it was possibly the best fried fish dish I’ve eaten. One of our favorite dishes was seemingly the simplest: wedges of chilled melon with tajin. Here, the melon was perfectly ripe Rocky Sweet, a green-fleshed hybrid of cantaloupe and honeydew, and its honey-finished taste outshined them both.
It was dusted with house made tajin, a Mexican chili-lime condiment, and enlivened with ground roasted shrimp shells, which added a unique depth of flavor. The salty citrus spice of the tajin combined with the juicy, cold, sweet melon was revelatory.
CHILLED ROCKY SWEET MELON with housemade tajin (left) and crunchy rockfish karaage with lime aioli.
Now that eateries have steered away from the one-plate model of protein, starch, and veg, it’s too easy to order a whole meal and realize that the vegetable category was skipped entirely. Wanting balance, we ordered broccolini. I’m honestly getting a little tired of broccolini; it seems to have replaced Brussels sprouts as the veg-du-jour on every menu. I needn’t have worried. Doused in fish sauce and grilled in brown butter, the perfectly cooked broccolini was then hidden under a mountain of fluffy grated mimolette (a bright orange aged French cheese). The disparate elements combined to awaken a new, welcome side of the common cruciferous vegetable.
The crunchy broccolini perfectly complemented the soft, sweet corn dumplings we ordered. A filled pasta rather than a traditional dumpling, the large, elongated al dente pockets were arranged in undulating waves in the shallow bowl, with small sheets of wakame, a type of seaweed, tucked between the pieces, lending a slight oceanic taste to the dish. Stuffed with a perfectly smooth, slightly sweet, corn puree and swimming in butter infused with koji (a Japanese fermenting agent that adds a savory note) it was comforting and delectable.
Word on the street was that the dessert to order was Little Fish’s masa cake, so we did. Served warm in a cast iron skillet, the salted sweet cornmeal cake has a crispy top and moist interior. Topped with a generous scoop of tangy sour cream ice cream, lime zest, and drizzled honey, it was a delicious and satisfying way to end a lovely meal.
Little Fish; 5035 Melrose Ave.; littlefishla.com; 323-376-6728.
Category: Entertainment
