LA’s cocktail revolution begins again at this Tokyo-inspired Long Beach bar

A bartender pours daikon liquor from a sink behind the bar at Tokyo Noir, a small speakeasy off 4th Street in Long Beach. The vegetable is more than a foot long, and the width of the barrel of a baseball bat.

“Is that for my cocktail?” I ask.

He offers a firm mouthful, then proceeds to wash the radish, releasing its pungent, peppery aroma into the air. Her snow-white shaft seemed to glow in the dark. The room is dark enough to dilate your pupils.

The daikon in question is a garnish for dirty soba, a cocktail of soup bowls reserved for miso soup at your local Japanese restaurant. Remove the top of the bowl to reveal a clear and smooth square of ice swimming in a blend of bonito dashi, ichiko shochu, buckwheat shochu, gin, sake vermouth and yuzu. On top of the ice is a small pile of freshly roasted daikon. The bartender instructs me to drink the cocktail by itself first, then use the provided wooden spoon to dip in the daikon.

Dirty soba cocktails from Tokyo Nour in Long Beach.

(Jane Harris/Los Angeles Times)

The drink is very sweet, almost on the edge of earthiness, but the yuzu balances it out. Each cup is beautifully coated with wood mushrooms and konbu from dashi, and warm, nutty notes of buckwheat. Dine in the daikon and it’s as fresh as the radish, its bitterness cut through the thick layers of scallions.

The Dirty Soba, like the other dozen or so cocktails at the bar, has all the intricacies and showmanship of a multi-course tasting menu.

Tokyo Noir is a speakeasy located halfway down an alley behind the El Barrio Cantina restaurant, with a green entrance under a bright red lantern.

Co-owners Kevin Lee and Jesse Doron opened the bar in late 2024. Duron is the restaurateur behind El Barrio Cantina and Lee is a bartender known for his innovative bar programs that highlight his house-made bitters, amaro, vermouth and liqueur. Lee previously ran Wolves in downtown Los Angeles and designed the delicious cocktail menu for his sister’s concept, Lee Nanette.

“The reason we created this bar is because we thought it would be something cool to bring to California, and there aren’t many Japanese-inspired cocktail bars,” Lee says. “Jesse is half-Japanese, I’m familiar with Japanese bartending, and when he and I started talking we really got excited about doing something that looked and felt Japanese.”

Lee and Duron source Japanese whiskeys, shochu, gin and umeshu. Yuzu, Okinawa sugar and shiso also appear frequently on the menu. If you want to get your hands on a Hibiki 30 yo or a Yamazaki 25 yo single malt, this is the place.

The entrance to Tokyo Nair in Long Beach can be found under a bright red lantern in the alley behind El Barrio Cantina.

(Wanhu Frank Lee)

These drinks are made from clear blocks of ice crystals from Kanazawa, Japan. Lee, who claims to be the only “certified ice master” outside of Japan, uses a knife to carve blocks of ice into segments, squares and diamonds. The shapes are visually stunning, but the curvature and size of the ice also contribute to how quickly or slowly the ice melts in the drink.

The first sip of Khanda Soba transports me to the dawn of the cocktail revolution in Los Angeles. It was 2009, and Varnish had just opened the doors behind Coles in downtown Los Angeles. Founders Sasha Petraski, Sid Moses and Eric Alperin introduced handcrafted iced drinks, artisan spirits and farmers market products, and in doing so, turned cocktail enthusiasts Angelenos into serious connoisseurs.

Tokyo’s others embody the same spirit of discovery and sophisticated craftsmanship, regardless of what Lee will do to achieve the desired chemistry in the glass. When Lee opened his first bar, Puzzle, in La Mirada, he made all his own bitters, amaro and vermouth. He experimented with different varieties of mint from local farms to make the front.

The dashi used in the Dirty Soba at Tokyo Nayyar is a nightly favorite, made from matsutake mushrooms, bonito and konbu. The bar makes all of its bitters from scratch.

Tokyo More’s menu is presented like a zen, with pictures and tasting notes for each cocktail.

(Jane Harris/Los Angeles Times)

The drink menu is similar to the food menu, with intricate illustrations and tasting notes for each cocktail.

“It was a big discussion, because there are so many ingredients,” Lee says. “We don’t list everything because you’ll get like 12 ingredients and five you won’t even taste because most of them are for layering cocktails.”

Lee and his team tried to narrow down and highlight the recognizable flavors for the drink description.

The text accompanying Khanda Soba reads: Imami. update Complicated. A bit oversimplified but spot on.

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Introductory B Cocktail from Tokyo More in Long Beach.

(Jane Harris/Los Angeles Times)

Initial B is: bright dry bitter The drink is literally a play on Boulevardier, made with bourbon, white miso, Campari, sweet Japanese vermouth and banana liqueur.

“We use house-made aromatic bitters and a little bit of our own citrus bitters,” Lee says. “Yeah, and we throw a little bit of bitter tomato in there too. It was kind of based on having a miso banana bread that I really liked.”

The drink is surprisingly warm, wonderfully bitter and balanced, with plenty of banana hanging in the background. It is crowned with a Castilla cake square on top. Bouncy, Japanese sponge cake adds sweetness and another interesting textural element to the cocktail.

You can browse the menu for dinner (with a designated driver, of course), starting with something light and refreshing like Okinawa gimlet before moving on to dirty soba or white and silk, a delicious drink topped with sea urchin foam.

Ulises Pineda-Alfaro, who is the chef at El Barrio Cantina next door, has also put together a short snack menu to complement Lee’s cocktails.

Okonomi Corn Dogs from Tokyo More in Long Beach.

(Jane Harris/Los Angeles Times)

Spicy Tuna Temaki Dressed with Salsa Matcha Ponzo. Corn ribs are brushed with butter and soy and garnished with cotija crisps. Japanese corn dogs tossed with okonomiyaki sauce and kewpie mayonnaise, then garnished with bonito flakes and serrano peppers.

With seasonality in mind and a creative desire that never fades, Lee has already started changing ideas and flavors for the cold weather. He intends to replace the messy soba cocktail with a chawanmoshi-inspired drink, though I will mourn its absence.