By Jay Benjamin · Visited twice, most recently May 2025 · Published August 2026 · Prices re-verified August 2026
Disclosure: I paid for both meals in full. No comped courses, no press invitation, no relationship with the restaurant.
A note on the photos: you won’t find course-by-course food photography here. I don’t shoot the plates. Every restaurant at this price produces the same images, and none of them tell you whether the evening was worth the money. What you’ll find instead is the room, and an account of what it was actually like to sit in it.
The Verdict, Upfront
Time Out called Somni the most expensive restaurant in Los Angeles in April 2025, and nothing I’ve found since contradicts it. It is also one of the very few places at this tier where I’d tell you the money buys something you can’t get cheaper somewhere else.
That is not a sentence I enjoy writing. The whole premise of this site is that these prices are absurd, and I keep paying them anyway, which disqualifies me from the moral high ground. But I’ve been twice — once at the original Beverly Hills room, once at the current one — and both were exceptional. The second was better.
What separates it from the other restaurants at this price is that it isn’t only a meal. It’s three-Michelin-star food and, simultaneously, a piece of high-end food entertainment. If that phrase makes you wince, the answer here is probably no.
Book it if you enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the format — where everything is sourced, how everything is made, the choreography of twenty-odd courses landing in front of fourteen people. Somni commits to it harder than anyone else in the city, and the commitment is the product.
Skip it if you just want a very good meal. You’d be paying a substantial premium for theater you don’t want to watch. There is better value in this city at half the price and I’d point you there without hesitation.
Quick Facts
| What | Twenty-plus course tasting menu at a chef’s counter — Somni, 9045 Nemo Street, West Hollywood |
| Chef | Aitor Zabala |
| Michelin | Three stars, awarded June 2025 |
| The room | Fourteen seats at the counter. One seating a night. A private cellar room is bookable separately. |
| Visits | Two — the original Beverly Hills location before it closed in 2020, and the current room in May 2025 |
| Beverage pairing | Not optional. The menu price includes one, and which one you pick moves the number substantially. |
| What you’ll pay | Roughly $965 per person all in at the mid-tier wine pairing, May 2025 |
| Booking | Prepaid, non-refundable, $500 per person deposit, seven-day cancellation cutoff |
| Dietary restrictions | None accommodated. This is not a soft policy. |
What It Actually Cost
Here is the number, from the reservation confirmation and the card statement, for a two-person dinner at the counter in May 2025.
The booked rate was $725 per person for the “Arrels” Experience, which bundles the tasting menu with the classic wine pairing. A $500 per person deposit was charged at booking and applied to the bill. The balance settled at the restaurant brought the evening to $963.80 per person, all in — tax and service included, no supplements, no extra bottles. That per-person figure is my arithmetic from a documented total.
Now the part worth your attention, because it is the single most useful thing I learned writing this.
Before I pulled the documents, I would have told you this meal cost about five hundred dollars a person. I was confident about it. It was nine hundred and sixty-four.
The reason is the deposit. Five hundred dollars a head gets charged weeks in advance, in a separate transaction, at a moment when you’re excited rather than paying attention. By the time the actual bill arrives you’ve already absorbed the sticker shock once, so the second number doesn’t land the same way. The prepayment doesn’t just secure the table. It launders the price.
I don’t think that’s deliberate on the restaurant’s part. I do think it’s worth knowing before you book, because whatever you tell yourself this dinner costs, it is meaningfully more than that.
On the Prepaid Reservation
The booking is prepaid and non-refundable. Cancellations have to be made seven days out; after that the menu price is forfeit. No-shows forfeit everything, and modifying the reservation can too.
I dislike prepaid reservations, and I want to be precise about why, because it isn’t the money. It’s that you commit months ahead to being a particular person on a particular Saturday — hungry, unhurried, in the mood to sit still for two and a half hours while someone explains a leaf to you. Life doesn’t respect that. Somebody gets sick, work explodes, and the restaurant keeps two thousand dollars.
I understand the reasoning. Fourteen seats, one seating, a kitchen that starts prep at seven in the morning — a no-show is genuinely ruinous at that scale in a way it isn’t at a hundred-cover restaurant. It’s a rational policy. It’s still a real risk you’re taking, and it belongs in the price you’re weighing.
What I Write About, and What I Don’t
I don’t do course-by-course. Food writing at this level is commoditized — everyone does it, and the photographs all look the same. What I can tell you about is the experience: the anticipation, the room, the sequencing, the moments that stayed with me a year later and the ones that didn’t survive the drive home.
The question I’m actually trying to answer is whether it’s worth it. These meals are stupidly expensive. That’s a subjective call, and the honest version of the answer is about what you’ll experience rather than what arrives on the plate.
The Original Location
The first visit was to the original Somni, inside the SLS hotel in Beverly Hills, with its own kitchen tucked behind another restaurant. It opened in 2018 as a venture with José Andrés, held two Michelin stars, and closed in 2020 during the pandemic.
It was a curved chef’s counter and it was special. What’s stayed with me: an arch on the wall by a well-known Spanish artist, the multicolored work. Eating off the hands — caviar, as I remember it. Small provocations that made the evening feel like it was happening to you rather than in front of you.
The Current Location, and Why It’s Better
The new room, which opened in West Hollywood in November 2024, is a complete dining experience rather than only a culinary one. You start outside, at your own table in a courtyard, with an opening course and a chance to settle in. You’re separated from the counter, and from the evening’s main event, for long enough that arriving at it feels like arriving somewhere.
I preferred the original counter slightly. But the new space is more intentional, and the sequencing is the upgrade. The chefs are out in front of you doing the final assembly — not an open kitchen exactly, since the main kitchen sits behind and out of view, but you watch the last act of every dish.
It also means you’re in close proximity to the other diners. It wasn’t a problem for me. But it’s a structurally different evening from one where you have your own table all night, and if you’re going for an occasion where you want to talk to the person across from you, know that in advance.
The Two Things I Still Think About
One course involves a tempura shiso leaf — the restaurant’s signature, and the thing most people leave talking about. I asked the chef working on it about it, and he explained that he comes in early to make them. Hours, on one component, of twenty-plus.
I’ve thought about that more than I’ve thought about how it tasted, which tells you something about what you’re really buying at this price. You are, in a fairly literal sense, purchasing somebody’s morning.
The other thing I think about is the laser-printed cookie, which I didn’t care for. It reads as cheesy in a meal that otherwise doesn’t contain a single cheap gesture. Small complaint. It didn’t damage the evening. But when everything else is that considered, the one novelty item stands out like a magician doing a card trick at the end of an opera.
Somni Versus Providence
This is the comparison worth making, and my wife and I don’t agree on it. I prefer Somni. Providence is her favorite restaurant, and we’ve been there four or five times to Somni’s two.
She’s right about what she’s right about. The food at Providence is consistently excellent, every single time. The cocktails are very good. It’s food-first and food-forward and it does not miss. It’s also, at roughly $710 a person, meaningfully less expensive than Somni for a comparable tier.
What doesn’t work for me is the room. Providence feels stuffy and old-school. I didn’t like the decor before the remodel and I don’t like it after. The service is very formal, suits and all, and I’d rather be somewhere that isn’t performing gravity at me.
So the split is this. Providence is a restaurant you can return to many times and have a slightly different excellent meal each visit. Somni I’d go to less often, even though I enjoyed it more — partly the price, mostly that the format is an event and events don’t bear repeating on a schedule.
For a version of this where the reputation and the plate don’t meet in the middle, there’s Pujol in Mexico City, which I went to for the same collector’s reasons and came away from unconvinced.
Why I Went Back
We had a fond memory of the first meal, and then it closed. When I heard it was reopening in a new space, I wanted to be there. That combination is rare — a restaurant you already know you like, in a room nobody has seen yet — and it’s most of why the second visit landed as hard as it did.
What’s Changed Since My Visit
The big one: Somni was awarded three Michelin stars in June 2025, about a month after my second visit, alongside Providence — the first three-star restaurants in Greater Los Angeles. It did not carry three stars on either occasion I ate there. The original held two.
Practically, that means the reservation is harder than what I describe. It was already the toughest table I’d booked; a third star does not make things easier.
On current pricing, I could not get a clean answer, and I’d rather say so than average two numbers into a false one. Published reporting puts the menu at $645 per person to start, including a non-alcoholic pairing, with wine pairings sold in tiers above that — which is consistent with the structure I paid under, where the all-in ranged from $645 to $910 a head depending on which pairing you chose. The restaurant’s own FAQ, meanwhile, still lists $495 per guest for the counter menu excluding beverages. Those two figures don’t reconcile, and I couldn’t determine which is current. Assume something in the range I paid and confirm at booking.
What I could confirm: the beverage pairing is still mandatory rather than optional, corkage runs $150 per bottle with a two-bottle limit, dress is business casual, and the no-dietary-restrictions policy is unchanged and comprehensive — no gluten, dairy, egg, nut, vegetarian, or vegan accommodations of any kind.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Somni cost per person?
About $965 per person, all in, for a counter dinner in May 2025 with the mid-tier wine pairing — that’s the documented total including tax and service, divided by two. The booked menu rate was $725 per person for the “Arrels” tier. As of August 2026 published pricing starts around $645 per person including a non-alcoholic pairing, with wine tiers above that. Budget close to a thousand a head and you won’t be surprised.
Is the Somni reservation prepaid?
Yes. A $500 per person deposit is charged at booking and applied to your bill. It’s non-refundable inside seven days, and no-shows forfeit the payment entirely. Modifying the booking can forfeit it too, so treat the date as fixed.
Is Somni worth it?
If you want the format — the counter, the sequencing, the final assembly happening in front of you — then yes, and it’s the rare restaurant at this price where I’d say so without hedging. If you want dinner, no. You’d be paying roughly a thousand dollars a head for a production you didn’t come to see.
How hard is it to get a reservation at Somni?
Hard, and harder now than when I went. There are fourteen seats and one seating a night, bookings are prepaid, and the restaurant took its third Michelin star in June 2025. Book well ahead for a specific date and expect to commit money to it.
Can Somni accommodate allergies or dietary restrictions?
No, and the policy is unusually absolute: no gluten, dairy, egg, gelatin, or nut accommodations, and no vegetarian, vegan, or no-meat menus. The restaurant actively discourages guests with severe allergies from dining there. If that applies to you, this is a straightforward no rather than something to negotiate at the table.
Is there an open kitchen at Somni?
Not exactly. The main kitchen sits behind the counter and out of view. What you see is the final assembly, done in front of you, including by the head chef. More visible than a closed kitchen, less than a true open one.
Somni or Providence?
Somni for me, Providence for my wife, and neither of us thinks the other is wrong. Providence has the more consistently excellent food, costs meaningfully less, and is the one you can put in rotation. Somni has the better evening and the room I’d rather sit in.
