Super Peach by Momofuku – LA

In the early days of Super Peach by Momofuku – the latest attempt to bring some of chef David Chang’s early 2000’s magic to Los Angeles – too much has been made of its location at a mall, notably the same Westfield Century City that’s home to LA’s Eataly, one of its Din Tai Fungs, and numerous luxury retailers. Initially, it’s obvious that this couldn’t be a sharper contrast with Majordōmo, Chang’s more upscale 2018 restaurant, which is improbably (by local standards) located in a gritty warehouse district on the edge of Chinatown; Super Peach is, like Momofuku Las Vegas, located in a place full of people with money to spend on luxe dining. Yet from their menus to their service styles, plating, and trappings, the experiences one will have at these places have practically nothing in common.

Decked out in orange and green tones in an ode to the Momofuku peach logo, Super Peach is a contemporary space with no rustic touches – clean, uncluttered, and in no obvious way attempting to look either reclaimed or avant garde. Uncharacteristically of prior Momofuku locations, the service here is simultaneously attentive and actively friendly rather than cool and sharp; tables are served and bussed by teams, with a manager stopping by for personal check-ins. To our knowledge, guests don’t receive this quantity or quality of attention at any other Momofuku, and unlike some of the brand’s restaurants, there are ample spaces to accommodate the strollers, kids, and bags adults may well be accompanied by at malls.

The trade-off, of sorts, is that you’ll have to squint to see David Chang’s fingerprints on Super Peach’s menu and plating – name and arguably attitude aside, the connections aren’t obvious. Whereas Momofuku locations commonly and deliberately offered guests small and terse paper menu cards with intriguing, ever-changing offerings, Super Peach uses more conventional hardbound book-style menus that look more permanent. And rather than the daring Korean-American-slash-Japanese recipes that defined Momofuku across its earliest noodle, ssäm, and tasting menu (ko) spaces, Super Peach apparently was designed to focus on upscaled American classics.

The result is an oversized single page of food choices featuring “mains” such as grilled bass, seared salmon, slow roasted pork ribs, fried chicken, and mushroom noodles, plus three steaks, four salads, and sides such as broccolini, sweet potatoes, and cole slaw. Only starters such as Korean-fried chicken wings, glazed pork belly, and four types of kimbap seem to hint at Chang’s involvement, but even then, the execution doesn’t feel particularly Momofuku-like.

Each table receives complimentary rice crackers to start, a brief but nice snack to enjoy with cocktails, wines, or beers before the rest of the meal arrives. Drinks get their own small four-page menu plus a full page next to the food items; the Super Peach Spritz ($20) we tried was a delicious and surprisingly large Aperol/peach/prosecco/basil cocktail – a highlight of the experience.

Super Peach’s plating is arguably its weakest point. Virtually all of the dishes we ordered arrived on fairly plain, black-rimmed white ceramic dishes with little to no artificial beautification. Photos shared with friends – even ones familiar with Momofuku and Chang – inspired no interest from afar, and we’d be surprised if anything you saw in our shots made you interested in spending $80 to $90 per person on food and drinks.