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Three LA Cocktail Spots Land on World’s 50 Best Bars List for North America

Plus, barbecue and burgers at Majordomo, and what might have been for Long Beach’s waterfront

Genever, a dim cocktail bar in Historic Filipinotown, is shown with rows of seats at night.
The moody interior of Genever
Wonho Frank Lee
Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

Three prominent Los Angeles bars have landed on the North America’s 50 Best Bars list (from the World’s 50 Best team), with Historic Filipinotown’s inventive Thunderbolt coming in at number nine. The list reads as a who’s who of big-name drink spots across the region, including options up into Canada, down into Mexico, and even in the Caribbean. The other entrants for Los Angeles are Death & Co. (at number 34) in the Arts District — which also has outlets in New York, Denver, and beyond — and Genever (number 50), the tiny cocktail spot that was originally funded through a Kickstarter campaign.

New foods to try

The small all-day cafe inside the Arts District’s Rykn Kensho (where the current restaurant Kodo is also located) is gearing up for a series of Sunday pop-ups with Mami Yamamoto’s Moon and Sun. Dishes will include half-and full-sized versions of tamago sandos and katsu sandos, with hours running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Elsewhere in the area, rooftop dinner spot LA Cha Cha Chá is opening for brunch this Saturday, June 11, with chef Paco Moran turning out dishes like chilaquiles, fried egg sandwiches, and more. Bar manager Zack Rager is on drinks.

Over in Hollywood, another rooftop hangout — this time Desert 5 Spot — is starting a weekly happy hour that runs Wednesday to Friday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Find $3 tacos, $9 cocktails, and plenty of views.

Wine conversations

Melanie Wine Bar’s Wine Talks series returns this month, offering one-off tastings and educational panels around different topics in wine. The first is sparkling wine, set for June 11 ($65), while a June 25 event will tackle the topic of Austrian wines.

What might have been, or still could be

Longbeachize offers a fun look back at what might have been for the Long Beach waterfront, tracking the various proposals and promises surrounding Shoreline Village over the years. The current iteration of a waterline revamp has been put on hold as a result of the pandemic, so where things stand now remains a very big question.

A meeting of meats

Majordomo in far Chinatown is gearing up for another summer of meaty collaborations, including this upcoming daytime event on Sunday, June 12 with Central Coast option Priedite Barbecue. Expect burgers as well as lots of other shareable dishes and banchan for a large group.