One of L.A.’s best restaurants is closing, but owner Okay Inak hopes that it won’t be the end of Sora Craft Kitchen.
On Sunday, Inak shared the news on social media: His lauded 16-seat Turkish restaurant in downtown L.A. — included in The L.A. Times 101 List as well as Esquire’s guide to the country’s best new restaurants — will shutter in two weeks. Inak primarily cites unresolved maintenance issues with his restaurant space, including habitual flooding.
“After I rent, I saw so many issues in the building,” Inak said by phone. “I put in my own money. I’m just stuck. I work hard, I try to take care of everything, but it’s very hard after three years.”
The building repairs and temporary closures caused Inak to announce Sora Craft Kitchen’s closure, slated for Oct. 25, and his search for a new space in Los Angeles.
Shrimp in tarhana butter at Sora Craft Kitchen, pictured in 2025.
(Yasara Gunawardena / For The Times)
Inak self-funded the restaurant with his wife, Sezen Vatansever, after his years of training in the likes of Eleven Madison Park and Mélisse. He decorated the space with $25 tables from Ikea in order to invest in high-quality, local ingredients for his içli köfte, kirecte kabak and garlic-spiced kebab. Inak, who grew up in southeastern Turkey in a town called Bitlis, injects his family recipes and flavors into fine dining interpretations of Turkish cuisine, resulting in “a Turkish restaurant like no other in L.A.,” as The Times’ restaurant critic Bill Addison wrote in a 2025 review.
“Focus on these dishes,” Addison wrote, “and you’ll feel Turkish ground beneath your feet.”
Later that year it debuted on the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants list at No. 39 and appeared in Esquire’s guide to the best new restaurants of 2025. In June, the Michelin Guide added Sora Craft Kitchen to its California dining guide, noting the restaurant as “recommended.”
In addition to its reverent and innovative Turkish cuisine, Sora Craft Kitchen made waves due to its one-man-band format: Inak is often the sole force behind the restaurant, working upwards of 17 hours a day to shop for ingredients, prepare them, cook them, serve them to guests and clean the restaurant. Given the structure of the business, he said, when a problem arises with the building and without other staff to help, he must temporarily close Sora, resulting in upset customers and loss of revenue.
Inak said that every time it rains, the ceiling leaks. He must then cancel reservations, place containers below the leaks to catch water, ensure the safety of the building’s electrical system and then clean the dining room again. In his announcement of the closure on Instagram, he included videos of plastic tubs filling with falling water.
Sora Craft Kitchen’s kitel dumpling in yogurt sauce.
(Yasara Gunawardena / For The Times)
According to the office of the L.A. County Assessor, the property is owned by AMDT Corp.Representatives for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Inak said the social-media support he received online felt enormous. The post amassed more than 1,100 likes and more than 150 comments.
“So many people sent me love,” he said. “They say, ‘Go anywhere. We are coming.’ ”
Currently Sora Craft Kitchen is fully booked through the end of its run in its current space.
Inak will close the restaurant on Oct. 25 and hopes to reopen as soon as possible in a new, undetermined location. Due to budget constrictions, the chef said his options are limited. If he cannot find a space, he said he might work in another restaurant.
If he does find a new space for Sora Craft Kitchen, he hopes to tweak the format by hiring two or three chefs to help alleviate some of the demands of a one-man kitchen. “Next location, I need to hire someone,” he said. “It’s not too sustainable anymore.”
Inak said he would ideally continue with his format of chefs also working as the servers.
Some of the most support he’s received has come from fellow restaurateurs, who hope to cook with him and offer their kitchens.
“I’m trying to find a new location, and so many chefs texted me,” Inak said. “They want collaboration. I love them. And this is life: You know, sometimes it’s going down, sometimes it’s going up. But I’m very happy because I’m always fully booked.”
Sora Craft Kitchen is at 1109 E. 12th St., Los Angeles, and is open Thursday to Sunday from 5 to 10 p.m. through Oct. 25.
