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Expert barman Kenta Goto, who helped put cocktail spot Pegu Club on the map years ago, is opening his first solo project Bar Goto tonight in a dark and handsome space on the Lower East Side. The room, which has a tight bar area and some table seating, is decorated with with framed fabric from his grandmother's 100-year-old kimono and glowing bar shelves.
Goto's cocktail den will double as a Japanese snack house, offering dishes like miso wings, blanched octopus sashimi with seaweed chili, and several okonomi-yaki, or savory Japanese pancakes with fillings like pork belly and rock shrimp. To drink, Goto is offering a Japanese-inspired list of nine house cocktails like the sakura martini made with sake, gin, maraschino and cherry blossom, and a yuzu calpico fizz made with gin, yuzu preserve, Japanese soft drink calpico, lemon, and soda. The drink is sort of cross between a Tom Collins and chuhai, a popular drink at Japan's izakayas. Prices will be familiar to anyone who has sipped at Pegu Club, all house cocktails go for $15.
