While Laguna Beach isn’t lacking for visitors, one of its destination restaurants will soon attract even more — gleaming, as it is, from a new Michelin star.
Rebel Omakase in Laguna Beach, chef-owner Jordan Nakasone’s intimate sushi spot tucked away inside a Forest Avenue shopping plaza, took home the coveted accolade on Monday, Aug. 5. The Michelin Guide crowned Nakasone’s three-year old eatery with one star, giving both the noted chef and the coastal enclave its first celestial honor.
Hana re and Knife Pleat, both in Costa Mesa, retained their one-star rankings; Taco María lost its star this year (it earned one-star status in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023) because it is temporarily closed while chef-owner Carlos Salgado finds a new space.
Located inside the space that once housed Central, Rebel Omakase’s soothing minimalist decor (think blond wood and clean lines) allows Nakasone’s sushi tasting menu to take center stage.
For the uninitiated, omakase-style sushi is the Japanese tradition of putting yourself in the hands of the chef. Typically, a fistful of guests sit at a bar while watching the chef perform their culinary prowess. A flick of the knife, a roar of a blowtorch, the plop of roe or whatever the chef has in mind, meals can last anywhere from 10 to 20-plus servings. (At Rebel Omakase, 21 pieces can fill an entire seating.)
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Nakasone, who hails from Peru, got his start in his home country in front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house roles. He later worked in Japan, New York City and Los Angeles, toiling away inside the kitchen of Terranea Resort and, later, opening up the short-lived Lomo Saltado by Nakasone at 626 Night Market. Most notably, he worked for years under the eye of Kimiyasu Enya at Sushi Enya in downtown L.A.’s Little Tokyo.
Scallop with salmon roe at Rebel Omakase in Laguna Beach. (Photo by Brad A. Johnson, Orange County Register/SCNG)
He opened Rebel Omakase with his wife, Debrah Cha, in 2021. Then-Orange County Register food critic Brad A. Johnson soon took note of Nakasone’s talent. In his September 2021 review of the then-nascent space, Johnson foreshadowed, “While Rebel Omakase has been open for only a couple of months, it is already on track to become one of the more important sushi concepts in Orange County.”
He also noted that “[t]he menu borrows ideas from kaiseki — showcasing a range of techniques, presentations and seasonalities — without getting bogged down in the strict rigors of kaiseki’s precise order of procession,” giving high marks to a platter of bluefin tuna and sea bass sashimi (“cold and glistening”), the kohada, or gizzard shad (“one of the creamiest kohada I have ever tasted”) and nigiri (“the opposite of dreadful”).
Johnson made a point of highlighting the service, a required mission for achieving Michelin’s galactical status, calling it “highly poised and polished, bordering on reverential.”
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After being crowned with a star on Monday night, an anonymous Michelin inspector said of Rebel Omakase, in a written statement, “In addition to standout sushi such as Japanese white salmon and shima aji, there are a surprising number of kitchen dishes, including gindara, a rectangle of cod set in a memorable cauliflower dashi and garnished with tonburi and a delicious, comforting chawanmushi topped with firefly squid and shaved bottarga.”
Rebel Omakase has two two-hour seatings per night at 5:30 and 7 p.m. from Tuesday through Saturday for $260-$300. It also offers a one-hour lunch omakase experience for $160 per person Wednesday through Saturday. On Sunday, it offers a one-and-a-half-hour seating at 12:30 p.m. for $300. Reservation only.
While some gastronomes have speculated that Broadway by Amar Santana or Oliver’s Osteria would end up winning a star at some point, Rebel Omakase’s win has proven a pleasant surprise for the city and its food scene.
Nakasone’s Laguna Beach eatery joins Hana re as Orange County’s second omakase spot to earn a Michelin star.
Find it: 361 Forest Ave., Laguna Beach
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