Cocktail Omakases Are Back and Better Than Ever

Perhaps you’ve already noticed: omakase is everywhere. Pasta omakase. Dessert omakase. Steak omakase. Increasingly, cocktail omakase is everywhere, too.

Styled after the traditional sushi omakase, these multi-course drink experiences rely on a similar “leave it to the chef” directive, which gives every sip an element of surprise. Personally, I love this trend. Compared to a flight, where a series of drinks are plunked down in front of you all at once, a drink omakase is delivered in sequence, often a leisurely and luxurious experience. Leave it to the bartender.

This isn’t the first time cocktail omakases have taken off. The first one I ever tried was at New York City’s EN Japanese Brasserie, which closed last year. Then head bartender Gen Yamamoto (who runs an eponymous bar in Tokyo) specialized in delivering a series of cocktails with a connective thread, such as a sequence of three pristine tomato-water drinks (a martini-style sipper, a fizzy highball, and a stirred drink over a large cube).

But the cocktail omakase has changed.

Cocktails at Atomix. Image Courtesy of Atomix

Omakase Origins

In the U.S., the early wave started in the late aughts, recalls Derek Brown, who ran Washington D.C.’s Columbia Room—widely recognized as the U.S. cocktail omakase OG—from 2010 until it closed in 2022. Among his inspirations were a 2009 trip to Japan, as well as Adam Bernbach’s “Cocktail Sessions” night at Bar Pilar (circa 2008), which featured five cocktails tied to a theme. Brown found the work of Kazuo Uyeda at Tender Bar, which charged a fee just to sit at the bar, to be particularly influential.

“This allowed them to put more care and theatre into each drink,” says Brown, who put a similar structure into place at his 10-seat bar. “When you made a reservation, you committed to four drinks, starting with an opening punch.”

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Of note, these hours-long tastings often cumulated in outsized amounts of booze. There was a sign that, too, would change. Brown’s final menu for the Columbia Room Insects, Algae, and Mushrooms, was a lower-alcohol omakase, presaging his future pivot as an expert in low- and no-abv drinks.

That wave of drink omakase ended in 2020 with the pandemic. When bars began to re-open, high volume was key to survival, and patrons were keen for raucous, escapist fun—not contemplative drinks thoughtfully meted out.

Yet, in the past couple of years, the model has returned with a different vibe.

Milk Punch from Clemente Bar. Photo by Emily Setelin for Clemente Bar

More Fun, Less Booze

The contemporary cocktail omakase craze is more whimsical and high-energy. It sometimes pays homage to Japan, but often brings in new cultural references. It’s an “experience,” endlessly Instagrammable. Notably, the new drink omakase involves more fun—and often, less alcohol.

Look to examples like NYC’s Clemente Bar, which serves a seasonal, five-course, $225 cocktail menu, and lauded Korean restaurant Atomix. In Atlanta, Tiger Sun’s cocktail omakase is hosted in a groovy ‘70s-style bus, with menus referencing pop culture (the current theme is Pulp Fiction), while 7^th House matches drinks and snacks with astrological signs. For the “global omakase” at FandBar in L.A. and Brooklyn, the 12-course cocktail menu nods to sustainable food preservation methods, pairing petite drinks and bites like a honey whiskey sour with chicken and waffles. The NA options are de rigueur.

So why the return now?

Derek Brown, the cocktail maven at the Columbia Room in DC. Photo by April Greer For The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Not to be crass, but it helps boost sales,” Brown says. “Most importantly, I hope it’s because people are realizing that cocktails are incredibly versatile with food and can tell a story through their progression. That way, everyone wins. Bars and restaurants see more sales, and guests get an experience, not just a drink.”

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For now, I’m also keeping my eye on another NYC bar, slated to open in late September, from the same team behind Superbueno and Katana Kitten. This one’s more rigorously focused on Japan.

“Guests will have one choice: between standard cocktails, low-alcohol, or non-alcoholic cocktails,” says founder and CEO Greg Boehm. Based on that choice, guests will receive four drinks, each accompanied by a small bite. In partnership with Bar Libre, a noted bar in Tokyo’s Ginza district, the 12-seat bar will return to more traditional roots.

The name of the bar? It minces no words. It will be called Cocktail Omakase, of course.

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