AT A LATE-SUMMER dinner at n/naka, the first plate to arrive — in custom with the ritualized, multicourse form of kaiseki — was sakizuke, a course composed of elements meant to reference the immediate past and future seasons. On this night, a scallop from Hokkaido had been layered into a precise disc with oyster aioli and fermented asparagus gelée. Yellow carrots and beets cut into thin petals encircled the scallop, and a dollop of caviar on top completed the picture: The composition, which resembled a sunflower, was the loveliest food I demolished this year. And in its arc of spring-to-fall contrasts, among the most delicious too.

Niki Nakayama composes her tasting menus around the precepts of kaiseki, which evolved out of Japanese tea ceremony traditions, but she isn’t confined by its structure. Along with Carole Iida-Nakayama, her wife and fellow chef, she follows an Angeleno’s regard for the farmers markets and for her own unmovable individualism. Their plates revise the notion of “what grows together, goes together” into Mary Oliver poems. Forests and seas of vegetables, noodles, seafood and broths appear as distinct habitats. It’s as if they’ve somehow occurred naturally, though the skill involved is also obvious and tremendous.

You will need to fight like hell for a reservation at n/naka. It will be worth it.

• 3455 Overland Ave., Los Angeles, (310) 836-6252, n-naka.com