Toro

A Japanese omakase spot in Carmel-by-the-Sea with a sommelier and a wine list anchored by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti — that's not a sentence you type every day. The list is curated tight, somewhere in the 200-350 bottle range, and it reads like Jake DePasquale sat down and asked himself: what would a Burgundy collector order before a plate of uni? The answer, it turns out, is exactly what's on this list.

France and California share the spotlight here, and both come correct. On the Burgundy side, you're looking at Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet, Domaine Dujac Morey-St-Denis, and Faiveley Gevrey-Chambertin — producers that belong in serious cellars, not tourist-trap wine lists. California holds its own with Kistler, Aubert, Kongsgaard, and Hirsch Vineyards Pinot Noir, which is the kind of lineup that makes Sonoma Coast devotees nod slowly. The list isn't sprawling — you're not getting deep dives into Rioja or Rhône — but what's here is deliberately chosen and genuinely exciting. The pairing logic with Japanese cuisine is smart: high-acid whites and elegant Pinot-based reds do real work alongside raw fish and Wagyu.

Twelve to twenty pours by the glass is a healthy count for a room this intimate, with prices running $14 to $28. We'd expect the glass program to rotate with the tasting menu's seasonal shifts — this is exactly the kind of place where the sommelier should be steering you toward whatever opens the door to the next course. If Jake's doing his job (and the credential suggests he is), the by-the-glass list isn't an afterthought.