For those avid viewers of Salvage Hunters like me, wondering where all the green and white pendant factory lights that Drew is always buying end up, the answer is places like Bar Amá in Los Angeles. There’s a big white van full of them at the recently opened venue in the Old Bank District – a downtown area of 20th Century commercial properties currently undergoing regeneration.
It’s called a bar, but the food of chef-owner Josef Centeno is arguably the main draw (soft shell crab, yummmmm!). This is the third restaurant in his portfolio which is growing in tandem with his reputation, and Bar Amá offers up Centeno’s take on classic Tex-Mex in a relaxed, vintage environment of reclaimed wood and hacienda tiling. The shelves rather handsomely stacked with bottles hold a range of agave-based spirits – that’s tequila and mezcal, plus the lesser encountered bacanora and sotol, which sound even more dangerous than the first two, but there’s also a range of South American wines available for the less adventurous.
Photography, DYLAN + JENI
