Julia Momosé

Part 1: A Bartender’s Beautiful Movements
Resemble a Ballet Dancer

Born in Japan, Julia Momosé grew up there until finishing high school, after which she moved to the U.S. for university. The beauty of her bartending is second to none in the world. With her unique style of serving personalized cocktails and other drinks, Momosé tailors each one to her customers’ tastes and food, while her warm hospitality and smile never fail to put them at ease. She also possesses a deep knowledge of shochu and sake, enabling her to answer any questions customers may have about alcohol. It is no wonder that kumiko, her bar in Chicago, has been selected as one of “The World’s 50 Best Bars,” and was also featured in Time magazine’s “World’s Greatest Places” and in Esquire magazine’s “The Best Bars in America.” This two-part feature will present Momosé’s motivation for becoming a bartender and her vision for her bar, kumiko.

⇒Read Part 2: “Employee Well-Being Is the Top Priority. That Leads to Better Customer Service”

Text: Akira Suzuki / Photography: Koichi Mitsui / Composition: Contentsbrain / 
English translation: LIBER
Interview Location: Bar Tannel (1-12-2 Kitahama, Beppu-city, Oita, Japan)

A Memorable Bartender Who
Moved Like a Ballet Dancer

What was your motivation to become a bartender?

I was in a bar in Kyoto’s Gion district with an acquaintance when I was mesmerized by the delicate and beautiful movements of a bartender. Each one had a flow to it, like a ballet dance, as the delicious drinks were mixed with such elegant motions. I remember that time clearly. I left that experience, thinking that one day, I would like to create an elegant moment in some way for another person too.

Sounds like it made quite the impression. So that event led to your bartending ambitions?

Not at first. I was still a student, and I’d decided to go to college in the States. After getting my degree, I was planning on coming back to Japan to find work. That led to my decision to study at Cornell so I could get a good job upon returning home to Japan.

That’s a reputable Ivy League school. Did you have to study pretty hard to get in?

Yes, I studied a lot. Essays were a focus of the admissions process. My family name is Momosé, which is Japanese, and I was born and raised in Japan. My mom is Japanese, but Dad is American and Japanese, which makes me a three-quarter Japanese. Although my face doesn’t look very Japanese, I think my mind and my heart are. I thought about what it feels to live in Japan with this appearance, and I wrote about that in my essay. I wrote about things like belonging and about longing; about how the outside and the inside are not always the same. In the end, I managed to get admitted.

I majored in Design and Environmental Analysis (DEA). That would be similar to an interior design major in Japan. Cornell’s campus is in Ithaca, a town in Upstate New York. It’s a beautiful place surrounded by nature. Tuition at private universities in the U.S. is very expensive, so I knew I’d need a part-time job. That’s when I thought of that bar in Kyoto and I decided that I wanted to work as a bartender.

The bar I got my part-time job at had a general policy of not hiring women, or as they said it, “college girls,” as bartenders. The manager was born and raised in Ithaca, and I think she was very protective of her establishment. Most of the staff were locals, and I think that’s why she didn’t want to hire a newbie college girl to work behind the bar.

I didn’t question her policy. I asked for the chance to prove myself. I started as a host, a server, cocktail server, and as a barback. I studied cocktails, got to know the regulars, and then six months after I started, the manager let me take a shift as a bartender for a Saturday brunch. I was thrilled! After that, I was able to pick up more shifts and learn.

She changed her policy? That sounds like a big deal.

I think that it was important for me to prove myself. I’m sure they had some poor experience in the past. The bar’s still around. It’s called Rulloff’s. Working there, I learned about interacting with people and how to move fast. I also worked at Cornell Catering. They brought me to investor-hosted parties and alumni gatherings. These events happened all over campus and in some private residences.

Standard cocktails were popular, so I practiced them over and over again by watching videos on YouTube and other platforms. I also prepared a cocktail set at home so I could practice there, too. Videos of bartending competitions in Japan were very helpful. I also watched a lot of classical ballet videos. That was because I thought that bartenders, like the one I saw in Kyoto, move like ballet dancers. Strength and elegance.

Did you keep bartending part-time until you graduated from the university?

I never stopped bartending, but I also never graduated. I dropped out after three years. After matriculating, I had a series of friends pass away. The causes were illness and suicide. I was utterly heartbroken. It hurt so much that I had trouble interacting with customers while working at the bar. I felt like I couldn’t stay there anymore. Everything was a reminder.

I decided to move back in with my parents to get my head straight, so I submitted a leave of absence and came back to Japan. At that point, I thought I’d eventually go back to school and graduate, but I ended up not. Instead, I went fully into the bar business.

Were your parents back in Japan surprised to hear about you dropping out?

They were incredibly worried. My mom and dad are both very kind people. It seems like they’re always concerned about me. That made me feel so bad for them.

The Decisive Moment: Watching the
Meticulous Work of a Kobe Bartender

After dropping out, why did you decide to get into the bar business instead of going back to school?

I liked studying design in college, but I also wanted to open my own bar one day. I think a big influence was the impression I got from a bar in Kobe that I happened to visit with a friend after I got back to Japan. The owner-bartender worked the bar all by himself. I also heard he had designed the interior on his own.

He was painstakingly shaving a block of ice into a sphere for a single cocktail. Even for a simple highball or a rum and coke, he would carefully craft each one. I could tell he really wanted to serve the best possible drinks for his customers.

While I was watching, I decided that when I open my own bar, I want to design the interior myself and attentively serve the customers on my own. I felt the importance of focusing on the accumulation of little things. I formed a clear idea about what kind of bar I wanted to open. That was the moment I made up my mind: “I’m gonna make it happen before I turn 30.”

After that, I went back to the States, went through the procedures to withdraw from the university, then headed for Baltimore. The first place I worked at was a café/bar/restaurant for families. They mainly served simple cocktails, so nothing fancy.

Around that time, a friend took me to a cocktail bar called RYE of Baltimore, and I really liked it because it was intentional. One day, RYE’s owner visited the bar I was working at. I made various cocktails for him, and later he asked if I wanted to work at RYE, so I ended up getting a job there. RYE was a bar that mainly served old-fashioned standard cocktails like Manhattan or Sazerac, but it also served new ones like fruit cocktails. It was also a place that chefs and bartenders from nearby restaurants would visit from time to time. I helped them open a second bar, and it became more creative with my own recipes.

One day, a chef brought in all sorts of ingredients from the kitchen and suggested we try making cocktails with them, so I experimented with yaki-imo (baked sweet potatoes). When I salted and baked them, the sugar inside came out and they tasted like caramel. I put them in bourbon and added some flavor. When I tried making an Old Fashioned with them, it became a popular cocktail at our bar.

I included this cocktail recipe in my book, “The Way of the Cocktail.”⋆¹ I call it the Yaki-imo Old Fashioned.

★1  “The Way of the Cocktail: Japanese Traditions, Techniques, and Recipes” (Coauthors: Julia Momosé, Emma Janzen. Publisher: Clarkson Potter. Publication date: November 9, 2021)

One day, a friend gave me some advice: “Julia, you should go somewhere bigger.” They meant a big city like New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, instead of just staying in Baltimore. So I made up my mind and moved to Chicago in 2013. I got a job there at The Aviary.

Momosé’s Own Bar in Chicago, Opened in 2018

What was your impression of Chicago?

It’s a big city, but it feels like there are small towns inside it. Chicagoans are very friendly. They are also hard workers who endure long winters, and celebrate the summers. It sounds simple but these factors made me feel like I could live there for a while.

It was around this time that I made a long-term plan for my life. After Chicago, I was going to go to San Francisco, and then to Singapore. That was because there are lots of interesting bars opening in Singapore. I also thought it would be easy to visit Japan from there, because of the distance. But after 12 years, I’m still in Chicago. (Laughs.)

What kinds of places did you work at after moving to Chicago?

I was a “bar chef” at The Aviary for two years from 2013 to 2015, and then I worked at a restaurant called GreenRiver. It was a collaboration between New York’s Dead Rabbit and Danny Meyer. GreenRiver had an interesting bar with an extensive restaurant cocktail menu. As the opening bartender, I was writing up the cocktail menu recipes.

In 2017, I started working on the side as a bar consultant. I was creating spiritfree pairings and writing cocktail menus for Oriole. Soon after that, the chef Noah Sandoval asked me about opening a bar with him. We decided to open kumiko in the West Loop, an area of Chicago with a lot of restaurants. Until kumiko opened, I was working at Oriole while also writing drink menu recipes for five Starbucks Reserve^® Roastery locations (in Seattle, Milan, Tokyo, Chicago, and New York).

⇒ Read Part 2: “Employee Well-Being Is the Top Priority. That Leads to Better Customer Service.