3 days ago
The Most Surprising New Restaurant In Los Angeles Is Hiding Near LAX
Harry Posner and Natalie Dial are the husband-and-wife team behind Tomat. Zsuzsi Steiner
Nobody talks about LAX and its environs as a premier dining destination. It's certainly not part of Los Angeles where you'd expect an atmospheric rooftop terrace, house-baked pistachio madeleines and smoky roasted butter served with cloud-soft barbari bread. But then you walk into Tomat, tucked into a Westchester strip mall opposite Staples, and the assumptions start to fly away.
Tomat is the work of Harry Posner and Natalie Dial, an amiable husband-and-wife team whose path to this unlikely corner of Los Angeles comes with some impressive passport stamps. Born in Los Angeles but raised in England, Posner cooked at The Clove Club in London, an acclaimed Michelin-starred kitchen, and at the now-closed Inua in Tokyo, an experimental fermentation-forward offshoot of Noma. In between medical studies, he trained at Ireland's Ballymaloe Cookery School and both he and Dial, also from Los Angeles, spent a formative stint baking at a friend's rustic bakery in Northern Italy.
Tomat brings a fresh new culinary twist to an area of Los Angeles not known for fine dining. Tomat
For years they dreamed of opening a neighborhood restaurant rooted in the kind of food they like to eat, which is seasonal and soulful and influenced by their cultural backgrounds—Persian, British, Californian. When a Westchester space became available just before they pandemic, they took the leap. Construction sprawled for three years as plans shifted but they stayed it through.
Today, Tomat is a bright, all-day cafe by morning and a globally inspired dinner destination by night. You can order Lamill coffee and croissants after a morning walk or sit on the rooftop terrace with blankets and cocktails at sunset. The dinner menu includes everything from fesenjān-inspired roast duck to black cod in Thai-style curry and ghormeh sabzi–flavored Rancho Gordo beans.
Posner and Dial are fabulous restaurant hosts. They like to chat and you want to spend time with them beyond just hearing about each dish. They come from very different backgrounds but have the same value for food, sourcing and community and are very much in this venture together—even as they devote themselves to their two-year-old daughter.
I sat down with the couple to hear how Tomat came to life, through a pandemic, across continents, and with an eye toward building something lasting in the most unexpected of places.
Even in a city flush with farm-to-table menus, Tomat stands out with a dinner menu that namechecks more than two dozen regional growers, makers and artisans. Wonho Frank Lee
David Hochman: The area around LAX has never been associated with amazing food—beyond the iconic In-N-Out Burger location that people love to hit when they arrive in Los Angeles. Talk about your personal history with this location and what the Westchester neighborhood means to you.
Natalie Dial: My family has a long history in Westchester, like back to the 1940s. My great-grandmother bought one of the first big grocery stores in Westchester called Jim Dandy, back when there were still bean fields. And then my grandparents lived here. My parents both grew up here, although I grew up in Montana, and now we live here. This has always felt like home to me. We've watched it go through many iterations but it's always had a really strong family feel, even as the mom-and-pop shops have come and gone. Tomat: A Community Player (With Pastry) By Day and Fine Dining By Night
Harry Posner: Community is the word I'd use. People who live here love living here and they're raising kids and like to go to places that feel like an extension of their homes. What's fun for us is being be a part of that community — we have a young kid ourselves — but also to be bringing something new to the area. There really hasn't been a high-end, finer dining experience in Westchester so we wanted to set the tone. That means being really welcoming instead of, you know, intimidating. We're a community player where you can start the day with us with coffee and a pastry or get a little dressed up at night for a date night and go up to our rooftop and watch the planes take off at LAX.
David Hochman: Of course, you also need to stand out among all the fine-dining establishments in Los Angeles. How would you say Tomat is different from other restaurant experiences in this city?
Harry Posner: For us it starts with the farmers and artisans and purveyors who source for us. We're constantly reviewing and re-reviewing our source list and how to make the menu as local and as sustainable as we can. That's not unique to Tomat but we feel we do things differently. We'll design whole dishes around one special fruit that's in season, like the Weiser Family Farms melon with strawberry kimchi currently on the menu.
Tomat is pastry stop by morning and a fine-dining restaurant by night. Wonho Frank Lee
Hochman: Even by farm-to-table restaurant standards, your menu is unusual in that you namecheck more than two dozen partners by name, from Alex Weiser and Tcho Chocolate to Oaktown Spice Shop. TOMAT TOMAT | FARM-TO-TABLE RESTAURANT | 6261 W 87TH STREET, WESTCHESTER, CA, USA
Posner: Why not? These are artisans who don't always get recognized for the hard work they do. We work very closely with K&K Ranch, and they're the loveliest family. It's a fourth-generation farm in Orosi, California. The brother owns the dentist practice at the end of the street. Their peaches, their nectarines, the blueberries, the apricots, the raisins—they're just insane this year. It's some of the best fruit I've ever had and it's a joy to highlight small producers like them. Or this this super small producer called Chico Rice, another fourth-generation farm, that we use for all our rice dishes, including making our misos and things like that. These places are like family to us. Tomat's Signature Rice Dish Is Worth Missing Your Flight For
Hochman: Speaking of rice, your saffron rice dish alone is worth the trip to Westchester. Talk about what goes into that deliciousness.
Posner: I'm from Persian heritage and I worked a little bit in Japan, and I've always felt—although I may be completely off the mark—that there's a synergy between Persian and Japanese cultures around cooking. It sounds strange, but there's a lot of rice-based dishes and pickle-based dishes. Obviously, there are very, very different flavors, but the goal is similar. These dishes have to be perfect, even in their simplicity, and there's something exciting about striving for that.
Hochman: For people who haven't the saffron rice yet, what should they know about the dish, which—spoiler alert—arrives at the table in a clay pot that instantly makes every other table in the restaurant want to order it.
Posner: That's the Japanese donabe pot. I learned about that style of cooking in Japan from a Michelin-starred chef who told me about cooking rice in a donabe in an oven. You can also do it over an open fire. In a way, it's super easy but it's also quite sophisticated as far as flavors. There's saffron, pickled raisins, pumpkin seeds, dill and this beautiful jeweled rice. Even the donabe is sourced locally. We get them from Toiro Kitchen, an amazing Japanese cookware store in North Hollywood. With a menu item like this, we really hit the sweet spot of cooking in a way that links together all these cultures that we love.
Hochman: You recently started having music on the rooftop in partnership with Sam First, the phenomenal jazz club that's next to the airport. Clearly you're going for more than just serving meals. What do you want people to know about Tomat and what you're going for?
Dial: The main thing is, we are here, we're doing something slightly different, so try us out, give us a go. We're going for sustainability and showing off Californian produce, and if that's something that they're interested in, I think they'd really like our place. But if you want to come in the morning for a coffee, a pastry, or really fun brunch options or or cocktails, we have that as well.
And then if you want to come at night and just sit on the roof and have a drink and have some live music, try that out. Yes, we want everything to be delicious but we also really want to take some of the pretentiousness out of fine dining and make the experience accessible and welcoming.
Hochman: And in the rare moments that you are not working—because I know you work like 12 hours a day—and you're not being parents to a two-year-old, where do you like to eat?
Dial: We usually take our daughter out when we're going out, so we go to a lot of dim sum. We love going to Torrance and the South Bay, because it's an easy drive for us. Otafuku in Gardena is amazing for noodles—one of our favorites.
Posner: It's the fun of it. I'd say beforehand—I've worked with Junya Yamasaki at Yess, and I think everything he produces is absolutely delicious and amazing. Dudley Market's one of our favorites for an amazing glass of wine and great food. It's always very comfortable. And Chef Connor [Mitchell] hates the fact that his burger gets more attention than the rest of his incredible menu, but the burger is really good, and I am happy to annoy him anytime. It reminds me of the places where I started out in London, especially St. John, where the atmosphere is relaxed but the food is unbelievably good.
Dial: It's about being comfortable and trying amazing food. In the mornings, we've got a Welsh rarebit-style croque monsieur—it's delicious, and it's fun. And, you know, the farmers market runs here on Sundays, so it feels like a big community moment. And we love that. It's maybe the most meaningful part for us. Our regulars and the community are showing up. That's why we opened Tomat in the first place.
This interview with the couple behind Tomat has been edited and condensed for accuracy and clarity.
