And the food is devised to match the drinks-pairings are even suggested. The drinks, concocted by Jade Ayala and Sebastian Guerrero, are pure alchemy, incorporating things like rice koji, pét-nats, and spirits and infusions custom-made with the help of the experimental lab at the nearby Real McCoy Spirits distillery. The horseshoe bar and the floor beneath are conjured from wood salvaged from old ships. 12518 Burbank Boulevard -DAVE HOLMESĬould you take a trip to this coastal town just to visit one bar? You will quickly discover that there’s a thriving food-and-drink scene to fill your days, but should you make a stop only at the Port of Call, you will be, well, a happy sailor. Enjoy it before the Vanderpump kids find out. Perhaps best of all, the clientele is the valley’s creative middle class the place is packed with showrunners, comedy writers, and character actors, perfectly good company whom the paparazzi leave alone. A nightly happy hour has inexpensive bottles and a solid burger. Co-owner Nick Caballero mixes good values with rare and vintage bottles, and lockdown forced the tiny hot-plate-and-toaster-oven kitchen out into the parking lot, where a Santa Maria grill cooks whole fish over white oak. Walk through the door into a cozy hunting lodge, where the music is played on cassettes and the wine list offers everything from a solid Napa cabernet to a Tavkveri from the country of Georgia. Tucked between a kosher deli and a bakery on an otherwise unremarkable block in Los Angeles’s Valley Village-a neighborhood that maintains a fragile balance between Orthodox Jews and the cast of Vanderpump Rules-is the best wine bar in town. Seahorses are great fathers, I begin to say, but before she can hear more of my Hippocampus trivia, Feliza is off, twirling into the night. Inside, the rum runs wild, cavorting with banana, fig, honey, and more. Feliza delivers my Forbidden Grog in a pale-green seahorse. The tiki drinks on the lavishly illustrated menu are assiduously sourced and served in mugs that are vessels the same way a parade float is a method of conveyance. Every inch of the wall is taken over by grimacing deities. Perhaps I am simply verklempt at the sensory overload. She sways and twirls like a TGIF waitress on acid before ultimately placing the drink down. Her name is Feliza Bustos, and if you’re lucky she’ll be the one carrying out a glowing fishbowl full of gin, lemongrass shochu, and star fruit as the lights begin to flash and dramatic music plays at this maximalist tiki bar in Texas. Ladies and gentlemen, I have met the most perfect server on this side of the Rio Grande. But should you find yourself eyeing those nice pants? Wear them. We have bars for that purpose on this list, too. You go to feel like it’s your birthday even though it’s just a Tuesday.Ĭan you still simply get a drink in peace after a hard day? Yes. You don’t just pop in for a drink after work. You’ll see proof of it in many of the new bars on this year’s list. But we are happy to report, as per our last bar tab, which included a seafood tower and many martinis: The people want to party. “Wasn’t this supposed to happen last year, post-vax?” you might ask. It is time for the Big Night Out.ĭrinking culture over the past two-plus years has morphed from negronis hastily made on your kitchen counter to cocktails on the go to cautiously rediscovering what it’s like to sit at a bar to where we are now-going out with a sense of epicness. Or, hell, hop on the next flight to New Orleans. It may have been a while since you put on a pair of “nice pants” to go to a bar, but when that very 2022 confluence of joie de vivre and pandemic ennui begins to stir and you hear about a new piano bar with red booths or a semisecret room with Kubrick-level design details or a place that has the best damn Sazerac in the world, you put one leg in after the other and you order yourself a Lyft.
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