Keep it spicy

Tokyo Listening Room (Greenwich Village)

BARS • First Round

Restaurants and bars turn over frequently in New York, though not often at the hands of the same operator. But Ariel Arce — who partnered with the Roscioli team to bring Rome’s storied standby to Manhattan last year — isn’t one to dwell on the past. Earlier this year, she flipped her solo debut venue Air’s Champagne Parlor into Tokyo Listening Room, a more suitable companion for her omakase-experience Tokyo Record Bar downstairs. And last month, the establishment finally procured its full liquor license.

Early on an evening this week in the then-uncrowded upstairs Listening Room, the mixologists were making the most of their newfound freedom while one of the rotating DJs spun from his spot at the end of the bar. Our first round of cocktails — Japanese spins on a French 75, with gin, yuzu sake, Veuve Clicquot, and a gin and tonic fashioned with gin, Nigori sake, palo santo, and soda — were impossibly subtle and delicious, perfect drinks to start the night. (If cocktails aren’t your mood, consider Champagne; the new venue inherited much of the sublime bubbles list that Arce built for the space’s previous iteration.)

But it was our next round, when we both ordered what the menu calls a “Spicy” Margarita, that our minds were blown. Made from infused Casa Dragones Blanco tequila and boasting the floralness of green Szechuan peppercorns, the drink led my partner to wonder aloud if we were drinking the best spicy margarita in the world.

Along with the drinks, we ate Japanese-inflected bar snacks, including popcorn flavored with seaweed salt, hamachi over rice with nori and pickled vegetables, and karaage (deep-fried) chicken with three dipping sauces, all excellent. Another night, we’ll return to the boisterous Tokyo Record Bar in the basement for the seven-course omakase ($85 per), but on this evening, we finished those life-changing spicy margs and slipped back into the early fall air. –Lockhart Steele

→ Tokyo Listening Room (Greenwich Village) • 127 Macdougal St • Mon-Sat 530p-close • Reserve (walk-ins welcome).