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Internationally renowned Japanese ramen restaurant chain Ippudo has gone vegan at its newest location in West Hollywood.Known for its traditional noodles and rich slow-cooked Tonkotsu pork broth, the restaurant, which has 140 locations in Europe and Asia as well as places in New York, San Francisco and Culver City, opened Ippudo V, a fully vegan restaurant on Sunday, May 11.

Ippudo’s West Hollywood location, ippudo V, will serve a vegan-only menu to meet the increasing demand for plant-based options. Standout ramens, among others, include Pla-Ton, Ippudo’s plant-based take on Tonkotsu; Daichi no Miso, a savory miso-based variation; Shojin, a traditional shoyu ramen made with a broth extracted from Hokkaido Rishiri kelp and Kyushu dongko shiitake mushrooms; and Hakuna Matata, which swaps wheat noodles for housemade carrot fettuccine paired with spicy miso and a 48-hour marinated mushroom tsukudani.

Before the Yelp ratings and “best of” accolades start to roll in, how do you know what’s actually good or not among L.A.’s just-opened eateries? Every month, I put myself through the wringer attempting to visit every new, notable restaurant around Los Angeles. Usually, I enjoy revisiting the city’s best eateries and sipping cocktails at tried-and-true bars, but scouting for the best new restaurants and bars in L.A. is, to put it nicely, kind of a grab bag. Whenever I’m out scouting for the latest openings, I’m just as likely to blow hundreds of dollars on an overhyped dud as I am to stumble upon the city’s next truly great restaurant.

CULVER CITY – Ippudo, the internationally-renowned Japanese ramen brand, has opened a new Culver City location and will debut a refreshed concept at its West Hollywood outpost later this month.

When popular Japanese ramen spot Ippudo landed in West Hollywood in 2019, it didn’t quite create the same splash that it did on the East Coast, where it garners long lines in New York City. It’s possible that at the time, LA had a bit of ramen fatigue, or that West Hollywood’s dining scene didn’t support a rich pork broth noodle soup spot. Ippudo hopes to recapture the heart of LA ramen fans with a new location in Culver City that opened on April 9 in a part of town now teeming with ramen restaurants like Afuri, Moto, and the incoming outlets of Tensho and Jinya.

This Eater NY article details a partnership between Ippudo’s parent company and Panda Restaurant Group aimed at expanding Ippudo across the United States. Morabito writes that the two firms formed a joint venture called “I&P Runway” with the explicit goal “to develop and expand the [Ippudo] brand in the US”​. At the time, Panda’s reps hinted that Ippudo would add more New York locations and beyond in the coming years. This piece (cheekily titled about a “world domination plan”) underscores the significance of an American fast-food giant teaming up with a famed ramen brand to accelerate Ippudo’s U.S. growth.