Kimika

A greenmarket hand at the pass

A flatbread takes its cue from the market before Christine Lau, Chef at Kimika in Nolita, New York City, lets Italian structure meet Japanese seasoning. Lau’s station here is built on that exchange: porchetta with miso mustard, dry-aged ribeye with sesame ponzu and wasabi chutney, seafood pastas sharpened by produce rather than weight. Raised in Oakland by parents who emigrated from Hong Kong, she brings a Bay Area habit of seasonality to a Manhattan kitchen that could easily have leaned on novelty alone.

Her path to this room began at age 17 at One Market Restaurant in San Francisco, then moved east with New York University and the city’s restaurant culture. At Bar Basque at the Eventi Hotel she met Doron Wong; at The Sea Grill she worked under Yuhi Fujinaga, folding travel and seasonal thinking into the discipline of a professional menu. Bar Chuko Izakaya in Brooklyn gave her a Japanese-inspired seasonal program with yakitori at its edge. Kimika is where those earlier stations narrow into a clearer method.

Italian form, Japanese pressure

The menu works by keeping both references legible. Rice cake lasagna does not need to explain itself once the chew is set against the comfort of the dish; uni pizza asks the same of brine, fat, and heat. Tuna tartare, truffle carbonara, lobster and uni combinations, and mochi bombolocini sit in an à la carte rhythm of small plates, pastas, flatbreads, and larger dishes, with the kitchen using Japanese ingredients as pressure points rather than decoration.

In spring 2023, Lau’s A-Sha noodle collaboration made that method plain. From April 1-15, she worked with air-dried noodles including Tainan Thin Noodles, bringing them into brunch, dinner, and shabu shabu formats. One noodle could move between sauce, broth, and table ritual without losing its line. That is close to the way Kimika handles the broader menu, holding Italian comfort and Japanese precision in the same register.

The room keeps the exchange close

The room at Kimika is small in scale, warm in light, and tuned for conversation. It suits food that often arrives as a shared sequence rather than a single procession: a flatbread at the center, a pasta set down beside sake or a house cocktail, a larger plate cut into the rhythm of the table. The counter and the pass matter here because the food depends on timing, temperature, and restraint. Too much garnish would blur the thought. Too little seasoning would make the exchange academic.

Kimika’s two recent awards include its 2022 James Beard Foundation Best New Restaurant semifinalist recognition, earned by the restaurant in New York City. Lau’s cooking carries the attention, but the room helps make it readable: polished without ceremony, close enough that the kitchen’s decisions still feel bench-side. Rice cake lasagna holds Kimika’s Italian-Japanese exchange in one dish.