Booze News
Famous bartender from Tokyo will pop-up at Dallas Arts District restaurant
A world-famous bar owner is coming to the Dallas Arts District, where he'll take up a two-night residency at the end of February.
Hiroyasu Kayama, owner of Bar BenFiddich, will take over the bar at Tei-An, the acclaimed Japanese restaurant at One Arts Plaza, on the nights of February 28-29.
Located in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, BenFiddich is a tiny place but is known for having some of the best cocktails in the world, earning it the 49th slot by "World's 50 Best Bars."
Now in its 11th edition, The World's 50 Best Bars provides an annual ranking of bars, as voted for by more than 500 experts from across the globe.
They describe Kayama's approach to cocktails as "farm-to-bar" — the farm being an actual farm at his parents' home where he's planted botanicals such as anise, fennel, mint, and juniper, and where he hangs wormwood that he transforms into absinthe, his favorite spirit.
Bar BenFiddich's profile has been elevated in recent years thanks to its appearance in a YouTube series called "Japan's Greatest Bartender." The notoriety has made it a destination for traveling gourmands. Punch calls it "Tokyo's most radical bar," and "most ground-breaking bar."
At his Tei-An installation, Kayama will prepare six cocktails with ingredients he's bringing from his farm.
The lineup is as follows:
- Crystal Jungle Bird
- Shiso Bitter Gimlet
- Green Negroni
- Perfect Nikka
- Oryzae Sour
- Double Umami Old Fashioned
Tickets are $150 per person, which may seem steep, since food and service are not included. It gets you three cocktails, which comes out to $50 each, but if you consider the price of the alternative — a $1,000 minimum round-trip flight to Tokyo — it's kind of a bargain.
