What makes a good Japanese bar.

The bar at Tsunami runs the full length of the back wall. We added it in the 2015 redesign, and a third of our guests now eat there.

What makes a Japanese bar work isn't volume. It isn't even the spirit list — though ours runs from Roku gin to Yamazaki 18. It's the pacing. A good bartender reads the table, leaves you alone when you want quiet, comes back when you want to talk.

Our bar director designs the seasonal cocktails around what's in the kitchen. Right now: the Lychee Rose Martini (Roku, lychee, rose, lime), the Smoked Old Fashioned (Suntory Toki, miso bitters, cherrywood smoke at the table), and the Voltaire Road (junmai sake, elderflower, cucumber).

If it's your first visit, sit at the bar. Order one of the three above. Tell us what you usually drink at home, and we'll build the second one around that.