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Bar talk
s.e. asia
reMix
adaM NystroM, Beverage director, e.p. asiaN eatiNg house, West hollyWood
By alia akkam
n alum of the now shuttered, contemporary (and controver- sial) Vietnamese restaurant
Red Medicine in Beverly Hills, Adam Nystrom is the beverage di-
rector of chef Louis Tikaram’s E.P. Asian Eating House and the upstairs L.P. Rooftop Bar in West Hollywood, CA.
Beverage Media group: You’ve been with E.P. and L.P. from the beginning. How do you think you’ve de ned the beverage programs?
adaM NystroM: For me, coming from a drinks background with a culinary focus, I start with the Southeast Asian spice cabinet and Southeast Asian produce. Instead of building cocktails from a traditional base, I do it from these raw ingredients and see what comes from them. E.P. and L.P. have different strengths, but there are de nitely things that tie them together.
BMg: For example, the rooftop is devoted to easy, refreshing cocktails?
aN: The rooftop integrates the same avors as E.P., but it’s more about drinks that appeal in a relaxed outdoor space— patio pounders that don’t necessarily need to go with food. We make a mil- lion vodka sodas, and our lager Chang is a huge mover. Our Boba tea cocktails, Walk This Way (vodka, lychee, coconut water, lime, tropical fruit pearls) and the
OG Ice-T (white whiskey, Thai tea, gua- nabana, amaro, coconut milk, tapioca Boba) are especially popular, and exclu- sive to L.P. On the rooftop we have two physical bars: L.P. and Frankie’s Private Bar. We really try to treat Frankie’s as a lab, with bartenders throwing up ideas on the board and serving specials that we put through R&D.
BMg: What’s your process for developing the more complex drinks at E.P.?
aN: I’m always chatting with Chef Louis about which new dishes the kitchen is working on. I like pulling the avors of the curries into the drinks—coconut, lemongrass, ginger. The Where Love Lives cocktail has passionfruit and guava purees and a housemade Thai chile tincture. They pair well with the earthy complexity of mezcal and Damiana, a honeyed herbal liqueur from Mexico. There isn’t a dish on the menu that it doesn’t go with.
BMg: These cocktails are designed to sip with the food. Do your customers like this approach?
aN: L.A. always surprises me. The more traditional model is having a cocktail before dinner and wine with the meal, but here we almost feel like we have to push people into drinking wine because nine times out of 10, it’s cocktails all the way through. Our drinks do not take over or clash with the avors of the food.
“Less and less
we’re seeing guests whose only mode of ordering is the base spirit.”
BMg: And guests are keen to try these specialties rather than straight- up classics?
aN: Less and less we’re seeing guests whose only mode of ordering is the base spirit. They aren’t ordering the tequila or vodka cocktail anymore and are now getting excited about their complementary avors. If you’re talking to people and you can tell they’re not adventurous and want something familiar, the easy drinks open the door to getting them to try things they never had before.
BMg: How your menu is organized helps simplify ordering for them, too.
aN: As geeky and out there as you want to get, it’s important to present drinks in an approachable way so that when guests read it they understand it. We serve a California Love, which is essentially a rosé sangria. It has 14 ingredients in it, but we write it as just rosé wine, a rosé aperitif blend and seasonal fruit because it’s a lot easier for them to read an actual description than a list of obscure items. ■
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AUGUST 2017 HAWAII BEVERAGE GUIDE A-1