{"id":998414,"date":"2026-08-13T16:02:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/998414\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:02:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:02:33","slug":"liwei-liao-opens-the-butchers-counter-at-joint-seafood-in-l-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/998414\/","title":{"rendered":"Liwei Liao Opens the Butcher\u2019s Counter at Joint Seafood in L.A."},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"restaurantThe Butcher\u2019s Counter opens at Joint Seafood in Los Angeles on August 14th. Evan Robinson<\/p>\n

Dry-aged fish guru Liwei Liao<\/a> has influenced how elite chefs all over the country serve seafood. Now Liao, who\u2019s sold fish to restaurants run by Dominique Crenn<\/a>, Wolfgang Puck<\/a>, Aitor Zabala<\/a>, Jos\u00e9 Andr\u00e9s<\/a> and Enrique Olvera<\/a>, is launching his own high-end restaurant inside his new Joint Seafood<\/a> fish market in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The Butcher\u2019s Counter<\/a> at Joint Seafood\u2019s Arts District location<\/a> will debut on Friday, August 14, with a $280, 10-plus-course tasting menu.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to do it because it\u2019s fun,\u201d Liao tells Observer. \u201cBut I\u2019m also doing it because there\u2019s only so much I can share with other chefs. I need an outlet to share myself. This is an outlet for me to understand my ingredients better and to portray them in my words, because I keep creating the pen and the paper for chefs, but I never do the writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as is befitting of a fishmonger whose seafood has been on the menus of three-Michelin-starred restaurants like Atelier Crenn<\/a> and Somni<\/a>, Liao is using the highest-quality ingredients.<\/p>\n

\"seaUni crostini at the Butcher\u2019s Counter. Joint Seafood<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the perfect way to explain this would be that I don\u2019t do food-cost math,\u201d Liao says. \u201cI\u2019m literally working from the inventory that all these other restaurants order from, so I have access to the best shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example: \u201cWe\u2019ll start with an oyster and then lead into an uni crostini, where the best uni that week is going to go on my French omelet and house-made sourdough,\u201d Liao says. \u201cI\u2019m always going to have a sashimi dish that\u2019s broken down from beginning to end in front of the guests. I\u2019ll break down a whole \u014cra King salmon and Cut<\/a> its belly out just to serve at The Butcher\u2019s Counter<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fish might change from week to week, but the format of the menu at the eight-seat counter will always include a couple of starters, soup, salad, two main courses and four hand rolls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"salad\"The otoro salad. Joint Seafood<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to pick those special small silver Japanese fish that I will incorporate into hand rolls, like sardines or kamasu, which is baby barracuda,\u201d Liao says. \u201cI will incorporate those in a very non-traditional way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liao, who is Taiwanese-American, isn\u2019t trying to compete with Japanese restaurants. He wants to do something different. At the Uoichiba<\/a> hand roll bars he has inside Joint Seafood in Sherman Oaks and the Arts District, he serves toasted lox bagel hand rolls and wagyu cheeseburger hand rolls. The Butcher\u2019s Counter is a new way for him to showcase his point of view and his insatiable appetite.<\/p>\n

If you ever go out to eat with Liao, you\u2019ll probably notice that he orders a lot of meat. He loves steak, Korean BBQ and fried chicken because it\u2019s not what he\u2019s sampling at work every day. So he\u2019s serving Westholme Wagyu\u2014dry-aged in-house, of course\u2014at The Butcher\u2019s Counter.<\/p>\n

\"\"The wagyu tartar hand roll. J<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I do all fish, I will drive myself crazy,\u201d says Liao, who\u2019s also been hosting monthly block parties at the new Joint Seafood with food from restaurants like Tacos 1986<\/a>, Heng Heng Chicken Rice<\/a>, Fuegos<\/a>, Frank \u2018n\u2019 Frank\u2019s<\/a>, Souu LA<\/a> and Porto\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It makes sense that a purveyor who spends countless hours thinking about rarefied ingredients enjoys ragers with food from quick-service restaurants. This is how Liao lets loose.<\/p>\n

At its core, dry-aged fish isn\u2019t about frills. It\u2019s the opposite of gilding the lily. It\u2019s about purity and enhancing the essence of an ingredient.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main goal is to purge impurities,\u201d Liao says. \u201cDry-aging removes the blood, the slime, the water content that makes fish spoil quicker and develop those fishy flavors. If you remove all those impurities, you have a protein that is a lot cleaner. And when it has that clarity, you can taste the fruit notes of the salmon, the flavors that are otherwise hidden. What I\u2019m actually trying to do is present fish in the most simple way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This focus on optimizing seafood has turned Liao into a game-changing fishmonger. You can taste Joint Seafood\u2019s fish at Andr\u00e9s\u2019 restaurants like Zaytinya<\/a> in Las Vegas and at Puck restaurants like Cut and Spago<\/a> in Beverly Hills. Michael Cimarusti<\/a> of three-Michelin-starred Providence in Los Angeles credits Liao for turning him on to dry-aged fish. Zabala\u2019s Somni, the only other L.A. restaurant with three Michelin stars, serves Liao\u2019s sardines. Olvera\u2019s Damian<\/a> in Los Angeles has used Liao\u2019s branzino, barramundi and striped bass for its pescado a la talla.<\/p>\n

Before Crenn started buying Liao\u2019s tuna and black cod for Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, she popped by Joint Seafood to learn about the dry-aging process.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe visited the shop by herself just to meet me and understand what we do,\u201d Liao says. \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of chef she is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"tastingThe eight-seat tasting counter. Joint Seafood<\/p>\n

Liao is always eager to share ideas and tell chefs how he thinks they should prepare certain fish. But ultimately, what restaurants buy and how they use these ingredients isn\u2019t his call.<\/p>\n

The Butcher\u2019s Counter is about Liao finding his own voice. It\u2019s also about letting the ingredients tell the story. Liao, with just two cooks alongside him, and his wife, Iris Chen, handling the front of the house, knows it\u2019s important not to overcomplicate things. This is his tasting menu, with his ingredients, and he\u2019s preparing every dish himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Guests will see him cutting 16-day dry-aged salmon and hand-toasting nori. They\u2019ll see him mixing ultra-premium Yukitsubaki rice that they will enjoy at the end of their meal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were to cost out what we do for this meal, it should cost way more than $280,\u201d Liao says. \u201cI\u2019m doing it for fun because so many people are not doing what I think they should be. I\u2019ve spent years talking to so many chefs about how to use this or that. This is the first time I get to do what I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Butcher\u2019s Counter<\/a> at Joint Seafood, located at 600 E. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, will serve its tasting menu every Friday in August and add Saturday service in September.<\/p>\n

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