Michael Ovitz's slick WeHo sushi spot, Kumo, is curiously sweet

After months of construction, Michael Ovitz, the former uber-agent and Disney executive, has opened Kumo, a high-end sushi restaurant in the former Citrine (and before that, a number of other restaurants) space. Seems karma, the good kind, doesn't lie thick on the ground at the Melrose Avenue address. But the neighborhood has certainly changed around, as rug and antique stores have given way to elegant boutiques. And so now, if you're feeling peckish after picking out some ebony knitting needles at Knit Cafe, Kumo awaits your attention.

The name means "cloud," and the sushi restaurant is a vision of purest white. Gleaming vertical elements shutter the windows, looking like ribs of a giant radiator. A dropped ceiling outlines the curve of a cartoon cloud. Water shimmies down a wall like rain. The furniture is all white leather and silky chrome. Posh. At the back is the sushi counter, and also a small bar dispensing cocktails and sake.

But the real action is in the open kitchen directed by executive chef Hiro Fujita, who headed the kitchen at Ovitz's first sushi venture, HamaSaku, for seven years.

I'd bet big money that our server is an actor manque, who professes, quite convincingly, that he loves everything on the menu. We also believe him when he tells us the four of us can share most of the first courses -- a variety of hot and cold dishes, most of which sound complicated and fussy. Edamame, though, are hot and good.

Once the dishes start coming, we're floored by how elaborate they are. And how small. More attention has been given to how the food looks than to how it tastes, making Kumo the perfect fashionista restaurant. Appetizers include octopus ceviche with cherry tomatoes and Belgian endive drenched in a lime miso sauce or sweet shrimp with black truffle, salmon roe, edamame and crispy ginger among other ingredients. Most dishes have five or more ingredients, and almost everything we try has a sweet sauce. East and West meet over and over again, in a genre started here in L.A. by Nobu Matsuhisa. Japanese mackerel tataki, for example, comes with crispy potato and shallot in a ginger and balsamic vinegar sauce. Smoked salmon cozies up to baked mozzarella with Mediterranean vegetables and a black pepper sauce. Maine lobster is served with mango in a vanilla vinaigrette.