Chef de Cuisine James Ho takes A.O.C.’s Sunday Supper table on June 28 with a Cantonese-California menu rooted in family memory and peak farmers market produce. Reserve now.
At A.O.C., the Sunday Supper slot is not handed out casually. Suzanne Goin built the format on her James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques, and for 25 years the table has been hers.
On June 28, for one night, it belongs to Chef de Cuisine James Ho, and he is filling it with Douchi-braised eggplant, XO sauce, and the specific memory of a grandmother’s kitchen at peak summer.
That institutional transfer of the table is the story.
The story is that an acclaimed Los Angeles restaurant, known for its seasonal California produce and Goin’s Mediterranean sensibility, encourages to say: cook what you know.
What Ho knows is Cantonese. What Ho has is access to the same farmers market that has supplied A.O.C. for two and a half decades. The result is a four-course dinner that reads like a chef cooking at full range.
When the CDC Gets the Room
The Chef de Cuisine runs the kitchen daily. The executive chef sets the vision. The CDC executes it: with precision, with discipline, and often, without a platform.
Ho’s Sunday Supper isn’t a guest residency or a pop-up. It is the standing Sunday Supper program, unchanged in format, handed to someone who has been cooking inside this restaurant’s walls. Goin herself put it plainly: she had been eating Ho’s Cantonese-inflected staff meals for long enough that the question became obvious. Why weren’t guests getting this?
The answer, presumably, was that it wasn’t the A.O.C. format.
On June 28, it is.
The Menu, Read Carefully
The four courses deserve specificity.
The dinner opens with Munak Heirloom Tomatoes, Green Mango, Torpedo Onion, Calamansi, and Opal Basil: a salad that runs the full spectrum of summer acidity before a single protein has appeared.
The Calamansi is doing real work here: smaller and sharper than a Meyer lemon, it brings a citrus note that Western California cooking doesn’t usually reach for. That’s not decoration. That’s a flavor decision.
The second course: Pacific Grouper with Douchi-Braised Eggplant, Long Beans, and XO Sauce, is where Ho’s Cantonese fluency becomes unmistakable. Douchi, fermented black beans aged until deeply savory and slightly funky, is the kind of ingredient that doesn’t translate politely into California cuisine. It commits. Paired with Pacific Grouper, a firm white fish that holds texture under braising conditions, and finished with XO — itself a complex sauce of dried seafood, cured meat, and chile — this is a course that knows exactly what it’s doing and has no interest in hedging.
The Pork Secreto Char Siu with Hot Mustard and Red Diamond Nectarines is the pivot point. Secreto is the ibérico cut behind the shoulder blade: marbled, dense, and almost impossible to overcook once you understand its fat architecture. Char Siu technique applied to it produces a lacquered exterior and a genuinely surprising interior tenderness. The Red Diamond Nectarines are a peak-August stone fruit decision that lands the dish squarely in California without undoing anything Cantonese about it.
The hot mustard is not subtle and it is not trying to be.
Dessert is Chinese Shaved Ice: Red Plum, Gaviota Strawberries, Almond Jelly, Malted Milk. Gaviota strawberries are among the most sought-after in the California market — small, dense, almost jammy at peak ripeness. Using them in shaved ice will be a memorable experience.
The Grandmother’s Kitchen, Made Specific
Ho describes the menu as a reflection of summers in his grandmother’s kitchen, the table built around whatever was at peak.
The Calamansi, the Douchi, the XO, the Char Siu technique — these are not approximations of Cantonese cooking. They are Cantonese cooking, applied to produce that didn’t exist in his grandmother’s market.
Nostalgia is usually the enemy of specificity. Ho appears to have not received that memo.
Wine Director Caroline Styne will offer supplemental pairings by the glass or bottle. Beverage director Ignacio Murillo will produce a market cocktail. The pricing is $95 per guest for the menu, exclusive of beverages.
Mini FAQ
What is the A.O.C. Sunday Supper format? A.O.C.’s Sunday Supper is a prix-fixe multi-course dinner format built around Suzanne Goin’s seasonal California cooking, drawing from her James Beard Award-winning cookbook Sunday Suppers at Lucques. The format has been a fixture of A.O.C.’s programming for over two decades, spotlighting peak farmers market produce with wine pairings curated by Caroline Styne.
Who is Chef de Cuisine James Ho at A.O.C.? James Ho is the Chef de Cuisine at A.O.C. on 3rd Street in Los Angeles, operating under Executive Chef Javier Espinoza and Suzanne Goin. His June 28 Sunday Supper menu draws from his Cantonese family heritage and his longstanding relationship with California farmers market producers, including Munak Ranch and Gaviota strawberry growers.
How do I reserve the A.O.C. Cantonese Sunday Supper? Reservations for the June 28 Sunday Supper are available via OpenTable Experience, with seatings from 5:00 to 8:30 p.m. The menu is priced at $95 per guest, exclusive of beverages, tax, and gratuity. A.O.C. is located at 8700 W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048.
Conclusion
The June 28 Sunday Supper at A.O.C. is a single evening. The kitchen that produced it has been running at this address since 1998.
Reserve via OpenTable. Bring someone who demands adventurous eating.
