60
The brand: Kerzon. The scent: eucalyptus, but, like, real,
woodsy eucalyptus—not potpourri-esque. Nine months
ago I made a mental note of the tall teal bottle in a res-
taurant bathroom in Los Angeles. Then, because I was
confident that this soap would improve my life, I ordered
it on the flight home. (It’s not even on Amazon!) Every day
since then I have thought about Konbi.
I’ve thought about that first visit, when I watched in
awe, but also a certain amount of disbelief, as a bulked-
out guy in a short-sleeve white button-down meditatively
attended to the same two square-shaped pans of eggs
for my entire visit. He folded the beaten eggs methodically
with chopsticks until they formed tidy little omelet pillows,
which he set between slices of cloud-soft milk bread
spread with spicy mustard and mayo that he then carefully
trimmed two crusts off of, like some loving parent making
a PB& J for a five-year-old.
That guy was Nick Montgomery, who opened Konbi
with Akira Akuto; both are alums of David Chang’s
Momofuku restaurants in New York. American chefs talk
about opening “odes” to little spots they stumbled upon
in Tokyo, and while this 10-seat space is indeed Mont-
gomery and Akuto’s ode to Japan’s konbini (24-hour
convenience stores), there is a palpable intensity to their
level of study that makes Konbi entirely its own.
I’ve thought about what it was that compelled me to go
back the next day, this time to the take-out window, for
another omelet sandwich, sliced in three segments and set
in a little white box of just the right size. And a crispy pork
katsu one. And the egg salad one made Instagram-
famous by its orange-yellow yolk half-moons. And also
the carrots with weirdly good dip that turned out to be
blitzed shishitos and pistachios.
I’ve thought about my next visit to L.A., when I vowed
not to leave without one of Konbi’s coveted croissants, of
which only 36 are made daily. I showed up at 11 a.m.:
sold out. I returned early the next morning: They weren’t
out of the oven yet. I came back 90 minutes later: The last
two chocolate croissants were mine!
This experience should have made me resent Konbi, a
place that actually prompted me to describe the process
of buying a pastry as Kafkaesque. But I didn’t (obviously).
Because as I stood there, on an Echo Park sidewalk in
front of the shop next door that sells vegan cheesecakes
and crystals, and shamelessly covered myself in the deep-
golden crumbs of a croissant so fresh that the ample
amount of chocolate inside hadn’t yet returned from its
melted state, I knew: This was the best croissant I’d ever
had, and it was worth it.
This is the thing about Konbi, a tiny sandwich shop that
has received, since before it even opened, an inordinate
amount of attention. Its sheer popularity should make it a
maddening place (and a maddening choice for best new
restaurant). If only everything about it, from the croissants
to, yes, the hand soap, weren’t so perfect. —J.K.
THiS STOR
y
BE
g
iNS
WiTH HAND SOAP.
THE CULT
OF THE
CROISSANT
The egg salad
sandwich isn’t Konbi’s
only offering with
a fanatic following
�The take-out window; the chocolate croissant worth
planning your morning around
The fastest
they’ve sold out,
in minutes
7
Max number
a customer
can order
2
Days they’ve
chosen not
to serve any
at all due to
imperfections
3
Ounces of
chocolate in
each one
1
36
Croissants
made daily
