Lightning strikes twice at a star chef's Venice izakaya

IF YOU WERE dining out in Venice late last decade, you knew this place — in the thick of Abbot Kinney Boulevard’s luxury-cool retail density.

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MTN (pronounced “Mountain”) closed five years ago and, with a few pivotal modifications, has now returned as RVR (yes, pronounced “River”). Being at RVR doesn’t feel like experiencing déjà vu so much as streaming the surprise new season of a show we all thought had been canceled forever.

Its second life turns out to be shockingly good, thanks especially to the kitchen’s brilliance with vegetables.

We knew MTN as an experimental izakaya that opened in 2017, dripping in hipness. It was the passion project of Travis Lett, the culinary architect behind Gjelina and hybrid food-hall Gjusta whose obsessions with relentless seasonality, global flavor combinations and a brand of casual, photogenic perfection gave millennials an up-to-date definition of California cuisine.

MTN's interpretation of Japanese cuisine closed a circle for Lett, a blond with surfer-model good looks who grew up in New Jersey. His father had spent time in Japan during his military career, and his parents had embraced the macrobiotic diet philosophy that surged through the United States in the 1970s. Scene-wise, MTN was apace with that top-of-the-world L.A. era: a magnet for the setters and chasers of trends, servers who threw attitude in the melee and could get away with it, the music from a turntable often inaudible in the deafening clamor.

The cooking could pierce the noise. I remember teetering on a window seat, absorbed in Japanese sweet potatoes glossed with miso butter and covered with snipped scallions and bonito flakes swaying in the heat. Clam broth for one ramen variation arrived so sea-sweet it could fool you into thinking ocean water was quaffable.

Two years into the restaurant’s run, Lett separated from his Gjelina Group business partners, and MTN closed early into the pandemic. Gjelina and Gjusta carry on of course, still beacons your friends just off a plane want to race to first for their California vibe check.