When you walk through the doors of one of the short, frescoed buildings on Eldridge Street, your eyes might convince you that a sushi feast is about to take place. The Lower East Side space, after all, was formerly Bar Ocho, a Michelin-starred restaurant with a sushi counter in the front and a kaiseki bar in the back. The room still embodies what you would expect from a high-end Japanese concept: minimal, elegant and bright, with a contrast between white and light hinoki wood. But when you settle into your plush chair, a completely different experience begins. You’re not here for the omakase sushi, you’re here for the omakase cocktail.
Nobody’s pulling any punches on that. This latest project from Greg Boehm Kingdom of Cocktail Hospitality GroupIn cooperation with Tokyo Bar librenamed as frankly as possible: Omakase cocktail. Boehm, responsible for New York hotspots Katana Kitten, Mace, Superbueno and The Cabinet, as well as the now-ubiquitous holiday pop-up bar Miracle, developed the Cocktail Omakase concept with his wife, Jessica Boehm, and Bar Libre’s Yujiro “Kiyo” Kiyosaki and Kazuaki “Kazu” Nagao. The experiment goes a bit like this.
You take your place at the 12-seat L-shaped counter and are greeted with a warm towel and a small welcome drink. On opening night, this was a kind of dashi. Then you choose from three menus: non-alcoholic, low ABV, or “spirited.” Over the course of one hour, you’ll receive four cocktails, created by bar captain Matthew Ressler and consulting beverage director Gillian Vose, in collaboration with Bar Libre. The non-alcoholic menu naturally sticks to all non-alcoholic drinks, the low-ABV menu starts with one non-alcoholic drink followed by three lower-alcohol creations, and the lively menu progresses from non-alcoholic to low-alcoholic drinks to two full-strength cocktails. Each is served with an accompanying bite. It’s not a strict coupling. More like a snack to complete your drink experience. The bites are the same across all drink menus, the only choice is whether to be vegetarian or not.
These menus will change every two weeks, per Boehm, just as the omakase sushi menu changes depending on what’s in season. The first lively menu started with the Ember Highball, a non-alcoholic drink that was smoky, sweet and tart with Lapsang Souchong tea, rice, local honey and plum soda. There was something a bit like barbecue sauce, but it was interesting and tangy enough to be considered more exotic. This came alongside a soy-marinated jam-egg, cooked to perfection – all of Chef Philip Kirchen-Clark’s bites of this experiment are a success, but the jam-egg is such a triumph that this writer would have liked six more.
The second low ABV cocktail was the drink winner. The Tomatillo Shiso Sour, with gin, citrus and soda, was bright and herbaceous, with a touch of sweetness balanced with acidity and fizz – as refreshing as it was interesting. This came with miso baked oysters with umami. The third drink, Sushi Sazerak, was a rare weakness. I was excited to describe the menu: shochu, rye whiskey, nori, aperitif, soy and soba cha demerara, bonita bitter, absinthe and watermelon aromatics. There’s a lot going on there, and unfortunately, the rye has taken over. Not bad, but not the multi-layered flavor journey promised.
The Mizunara Negroni with Umi finished off the omakase on a high note – it was like a classic Negroni with the bitterness of Campari, with an oaky finish, with slightly sweet floral notes. The biggest bite came here: “ultra-crispy” koji-marinated chicken, followed by a dollop of ume patty in sour shiso sugar that I wish were packaged and sold. Think elevated Sour Patch Kids that melts in your mouth.
Aside from the excellent shiso tart and jam-packed eggs, there’s one thing that probably comes to mind for anyone reading this description: four drinks in one hour? Yes, you read that right, it is fast. The cocktails are what Boehm calls “Tokyo-sized” at about three to four ounces each. It didn’t seem noticeably smaller than a standard New Yorker, and I started to feel a little shudder as a new drink landed in front of me before I took more than three sips of the last one. (I am, admittedly, a slow drinker.) This isn’t the kind of experience where you’re going to stick around and take your time chatting — you’ll have to concentrate to keep up.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. This entire omakase cost only $55, half of what I expected based on the sheer quantity and quality of drinks and snacks and the elevated ambiance. Greg and Jessica Baum say they worked hard to stick to this price point to make this experience accessible (it’s all relative, of course), and while I wouldn’t mind paying a little more for a longer stay, I think this might take some reworking for guests. You’re not settling in for a long, enjoyable evening. This is its own event, an hour in which you indulge in four different drinks that require attention to their ingredients and flavours, as well as the snacks that accompany them. And when your hour is up, you can enjoy a more relaxed experience at Bar 7, a hidden seven-seat bar at the back of the venue for both reservations and walk-ins, where you can order drinks and à la carte food.
There’s been talk of a growing omakase cocktail trend in the past year or so, with omakase options on menus at New York spots like Clementi Bar and Atomics. But the Omakase cocktail, as its name suggests, stands out for its complete dedication to this type of experience.
“I’ve been going to Tokyo to visit cocktail bars for years,” Boehm says. “I drink more cocktails in Tokyo in a year than I do anywhere else in the world combined. The bar experience is amazing, and it’s not something you can get in other parts of the world.” Boehm attributes this to an increasing emphasis on hospitality and precision in smaller, more affordable mixology and cocktails that allow you to drink more and move to more bars in one evening.
The Boehms also love omakase sushi, and began thinking about how to bring the Tokyo cocktail bar experience to New York through the lens of authentic omakase. The idea began to develop once the Boehms partnered with one of their favorite bars in Tokyo, Bar Libre, as well as CKHG partner Greg Nolen.
When looking for a location, they specifically looked to former sushi bars to maintain that atmosphere — Boehm says they didn’t need to change much in the location they chose, aside from details like restoring the original wood floors and installing a back bar to make drinks, not sushi. A huge wooden umbrella hung over part of the bar, round and swirling; Boehm likes the way it mirrors the bartender stirring a drink. The room effectively expresses Japanese omakase inspiration, but when your first drink arrives, you’ll feel the atmosphere of a cocktail bar.
The bi-weekly menu shift isn’t just a nod to the seasonality of sushi omakase; It also promises guests that they can keep coming back and discover something new every time. Without that, it might be hard to imagine someone needing to do this more than once — or at most, three times, once they’ve tried the non-alcoholic, low-ABV, spirited trails. Although the hour window is quick, at $55, it feels like a bite-sized, drink-based version of the omakase experience, which can easily stretch to more than two hours and feel like a large special-occasion event. Boehm wants people to be able to incorporate Cocktail Omakase into any type of night, whether it’s before or after dinner or a show, or the one thing they go out for before heading home to relieve the babysitter.
“Cocktail drinkers are now looking for a complete experience,” Boehm says. “Of course they want a delicious cocktail, but having four drinks with four pieces of food in an hour compared to just one drink is more of a choose-your-own-flight experience… and people can fit it into their busy lifestyles.” At $55 for a brief hour and with the temptation of new drinks every time, I can see adding a visit to the Omakase Cocktails to the evening plans every now and then. Maybe tell my companion I won’t talk until the hour is up.