The Omakase Fad Took Over Restaurants. Now, It’s Coming for Bars

Before presenting the final drink of the “Omacocktail,” an omakase-style cocktail tasting at Ophelia in midtown Manhattan, the bartender anoints your frothy coupe with three drops of Louis XIII Cognac. A server swoops in behind with a bump of caviar on an ice tray to pair with the drink, which the bartender also baptizes with droplets of the rare Cognac. The menu describes the drink as a “Japanese-inspired sidecar,” but little else about the Omacocktail experience feels very Japanese.

The 90-minute tasting, which features seven petite cocktails and a smattering of small bites sold through reservation platform Bucket Listers for around $100, is almost uncomfortably Instagrammable — drinks are smoked, atomized, clarified, and even dosed with edible glitter. The theatricality of the whole affair makes the Omacocktail feel more spiritually aligned with Benihana than with the sushi counter at Nobu. “Everyone wants to know what’s going on behind the scenes these days,” says Amir Babayoff, Ophelia’s beverage director. “When you do the Omacocktail, you get to sit with the bartender, and you get to learn about the processes and techniques. It’s very intimate.”

These days, the word omakase is being co-opted to describe all manners of gastronomic experiences. Pujol in Mexico City offers a taco omakase; Pasquale Jones in New York serves pizza omakase; Equipment Room, a listening bar in Austin, curates a vinyl omakase. Cocktail tasting menus are still a rarity, but the word omakase has quietly wormed its way into the vernacular in recent years as top bars look for inventive ways to showcase technique and lure younger drinkers with more mindful bar experiences. The result is a new wave of omakase bars that seek to elevate craft cocktails through guided liquid degustations.

Critics malign the trend as gimmickry; truthers see potential in providing a larger canvas for mixologists to express their artistry. But how much demand there is for these immersive, omakase-inspired cocktail tastings remains unclear.

Credit: Ophelia Lounge

Understanding the History of Omakase

The roots of omakase can be traced back to street food stalls during Japan’s Edo period between 1603 and 1868. The tradition began as a humble way for busy workers to enjoy seasonal raw fish, fresh from the docks. These early sushi stalls would offer “omakase,” which translated meant: “I leave it to you.” It was customary to trust the vendor to choose the freshest selection of fish. In the late 1990s, omakase emerged as a buzzword for high-end sushi experiences, beginning in Japan and spreading worldwide with influential restaurants like Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo and Nobu in New York City. Today, sushi omakases have become ubiquitous, ranging from exclusive multi-course menus that cost in the thousands to more approachable neighborhood sushi counters.

Some argue that co-opting the word omakase for cocktails obscures the true meaning of the word and undermines its history. “Personally, I don’t think every cocktail tasting menu should be called omakase,” says Shinya Yamao, beverage director of Don’t Be Shy in NYC’s Hudson Square. “A tasting menu describes the format, while omakase describes the relationship between the guest and the person creating the experience. Simply serving a predetermined sequence of cocktails is not enough, in my opinion.”

Others contend that the principles of omakase can be respectfully applied to a bar setting. “To be called an omakase, there should be a focus on technique, seasonality of ingredients, and hospitality,” says Hiro Nishida, founder of Plus Being NYC, a New York-based hospitality consultant that specializes in restaurant development. “To me, it’s a good thing for consumers to embrace a new and exciting vocabulary for cocktail experiences.”

Taking Guests on a Liquid Journey

When Greg Boehm, founder and CEO of Cocktail Kingdom, opened Cocktail Omakase on NYC’s Lower East Side earlier this year, he sought to design a bar experience that prioritized connection as much as cocktails. “Omakase isn’t just a way we describe the menu, it’s fundamental to how the entire experience is structured,” he says. The bar, a collaboration with Tokyo’s Bar Libre, offers a $55 four-course cocktail tasting menu paired with individual bites that changes every two weeks. “We wanted the philosophy behind omakase to inform the experience rather than to use the word as shorthand for a tasting menu. That interaction is as important to us as what’s in the glass.”

Boehm says the bar’s low-slung design was inspired by a traditional sushi counter; guests are seated directly in front of the bartender and can watch each drink being made, as they would with a sushi chef. “The format gives cocktails room to tell a larger story,” he says. “Instead of one drink standing entirely on its own, we can think about how four drinks build on and contrast with one another, how the accompanying bites fit into that progression and how the experience evolves over the course of an hour.” If guests prefer a more customizable experience, a seven-seat bar hidden in the back, inspired by Tokyo’s micro bars, offers à la carte drinks.

“A tasting menu describes the format, while omakase describes the relationship between the guest and the person creating the experience. Simply serving a predetermined sequence of cocktails is not enough, in my opinion.”

Tiger Sun in Atlanta serves a four-course cocktail omakase paired with food ($95 per person) inside a refurbished vintage tour bus, which it describes as: “Tokyo meets Scorsese in a neon-lit dojo on wheels.” Each new menu is themed around a cult film from the ’70s, ‘80s, or ’90s with cocktail recipes inspired by obscure movie references from films like “The Karate Kid” and “Forrest Gump.” A recent “Back to the Future” menu featured a cocktail called the “Flux Capacitor,” made with reposado tequila, Strega, and pineapple-basil cordial garnished with a glow-stick.

“When guests step on the bus, we want them to sit back and relax and enjoy whatever ride we’re taking them on,” beverage director Heather Rule says. “The term omakase lends itself well to that because if you were having a true omakase, you’re trusting the chef and the front-of-house to show you an experience you may not have had otherwise if you were just picking drinks for yourself.”

Credit: Cocktail Omakase

Riding the Omakase Wave

Even though most of these cocktail tastings have no spiritual connection to Japan, branding them as omakases can be an effective marketing tool. The word carries a certain cachet in the restaurant world, synonymous with luxury. So much so that “bromakases” — as the New York Times referred to the trend of finance bros protein-maxxing in premium sushi restaurants — have replaced trophy steaks as the ultimate status meal. “Calling it an omakase creates an expectation in the guest’s mind that they’re in for something more sophisticated or elevated,” Babayoff says.

Some bars have had to contend with media branding their cocktail tastings as omakases, even when they don’t explicitly use the term on their menus. “We never positioned the experience as an omakase,” says Army Sadeghi, owner of The Arc Room in Houston, a 10-seat bar which offers a five-course cocktail tasting menu with “seasonal bites” for $95. “In the beginning, there was some press where writers applied the term to what we’re doing, but it wasn’t really our intent to brand it that way,” he says. “I just don’t want there to be any confusion. Thankfully, we haven’t had any issues so far with anyone thinking we’re serving sushi.”

“Omakase isn’t just a way we describe the menu, it’s fundamental to how the entire experience is structured.”

With so many different tasting experiences being marketed as omakases nowadays, Nishida says the market has reached a saturation point. “In the culinary world, there is already a next generation of Japanese buzz words like kaiseki and kappo because customers are getting exhausted with everything being called an omakase.”

But Rule believes that consumers are still seeking out programmed experiences like the one at Tiger Sun to mitigate decision fatigue. “After Covid, I think people came back into the world exhausted and overwhelmed by so many choices,” she says. “People started to really consider how they’re spending their money when they go out to eat or drink. I think that’s why these kinds of immersive experiences resonate with people.”

Will Cocktail Omakases Last?

Not everyone is convinced that the omakase trend in bars has legs. Skeptics question whether these experiences are worthy of the care and craft that go into a true omakase. “With a real omakase, you trust the sushi chef because he’s trained on how to make rice for 30 years before he was even allowed to touch fish,” says Sarah Morrissey, beverage director for Golden Age Hospitality and VinePair contributor. “But if calling something a cocktail omakase is just an excuse to put a green drink on the menu with 17 different ingredients so influencers can make content, I’m not in favor of it. I don’t need a one-ounce rotisserie chicken Martini course.”

Jonathan Adler, former Shinji’s beverage director and a partner in the forthcoming Bar Chiqui in New York’s Greenwich Village, has doubts that the cocktail omakase trend will last because the addressable market is so small. “Compared to people who go out for restaurant tasting menus, the clientele who wants this kind of omakase bar experience is even more niche,” he says. Static menus are also less attractive for repeat customers, who may feel like visiting these omakase bars to experience them once is sufficient — a tenuous model for longevity.

Yamao cites Gen Yamamoto’s eponymous bar in Tokyo, which opened in 2013, as the model for omakase’s staying power in bars. But he stresses that the seasonality of Yamamoto’s menu and how he customizes the experience for each guest is the key to its lasting success. Adler points to more recent examples like Esencia at Sips in Barcelona and Cariño at Handshake in Mexico City as evidence of the genre’s potential. But he’s still skeptical that the market will support more of these omakase-style concepts. “I don’t think this will be a long-term trend,” he says. “It’s become an exercise in ego-driven creativity more than anything.”

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