Kevin Meehan Replaces Kali’s Tasting Menu With a Midcentury Steakhouse

The operational shift was formally executed in July 2025. The chef walked away from the California-inspired tasting menu that had anchored his Melrose Avenue restaurant for nearly a decade of continuous, produce-oriented service. Kevin Meehan chose the midcentury steakhouse concept.

He anticipated the tasting format had finally grown tired for his regular patrons after nearly ten years. He replaced it with wood-grilled chops and a broad martini menu, modeling the room after the established, reliable timelessness of Musso & Frank. The Michelin inspectors retained the star.

The dining room now gathers meat-seeking Angelenos under intentionally dim light. A bustling bar projects every Dodger game onto the wall while serving classic martinis with a side car and a balanced Martinez cocktail of gin and vermouth. The neighborhood contrast is deliberate.

The culinary architecture reflects this precise, calculated pivot in the kitchen. A beef tartare seasoned with the sweet-salty profile of yukhoe sits beside a traditional steakhouse tomato salad, while a deep-fried scallop cake adds vegetal dill to the tartare sauce. The black garlic and barley tasting dish survives only as a thirty-five dollar mushroom risotto garnished with fried basil and herb oil.

The center of the plate remains unapologetically conventional and heavy. A pre-sliced, well-seared rib-eye commands ninety-nine dollars, accompanied by an eighty-five dollar New York strip and a baked potato loaded with cheddar, bacon, sour cream, and finely chopped chives. They arrive with roasted garlic and black garlic sauce.

This represents a slow tectonic shift in the room. The pressure of maintaining a Michelin star while courting a casual crowd accumulates unseen beneath the floorboards, much like a fault line waiting for release. In a year, this friction will cost him his innovator status entirely, leaving only the operator.