Kichi Omakase

Where the Bar Does the Talking

Washington Square West has developed a quiet density of serious drinking rooms over the past decade, largely free of the Old City spectacle that draws casual crowds east. The corridor around South 12th Street sits close enough to the Convention Center and Midtown Village to absorb foot traffic, but the venues that have taken root here tend to reward attention over impulse. Kichi Omakase, at 112 S 12th St, occupies that register: a room that signals its intentions before you've ordered anything.

The omakase format, borrowed from the Japanese tradition of chef-guided menus where the kitchen decides, has migrated from sushi counters into bar programming with genuine conviction in a handful of American cities. Philadelphia's version of this shift is less documented than New York's or Chicago's, but it's happening. Kichi sits at that intersection, where the bartender's discretion and the depth of the back bar replace a conventional menu as the organising principle of the evening.

The Back Bar as Editorial Statement

In cocktail programs built around spirits curation rather than trend-chasing, the back bar functions as a bibliography. What's on the shelf tells you what the program believes in before a single drink is poured. The finest of these collections operate with a point of view: not every category, but deep cuts within chosen ones. Japanese whisky, aged agricole rum, American rye from distilleries outside the top-shelf shortlist, bitter liqueurs from producers most bars won't stock.

Nationally, the bars setting this standard include Kumiko in Chicago, where the spirits library is organised with the same rigor as the food program, and Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu, which applies collector-level thinking to its whisky selection. Jewel of the South in New Orleans draws on historical American cocktail architecture for its curation logic, while Julep in Houston focuses its depth specifically on American whiskey. ABV in San Francisco takes a different approach, building its identity around amaro and bitter spirits in a way that makes the back bar its clearest credential. Superbueno in New York City anchors its program in agave spirits with similar conviction. Kichi's omakase framing implies a comparable commitment: if you're ceding your order to the bartender's discretion, the selection behind them needs to justify that trust.

Internationally, programs like The Parlour in Frankfurt on the Main have demonstrated that the spirits-led, curation-first model translates across markets when the underlying collection is serious. The format works because it shifts authority from the menu to the practitioner, and practitioners without a serious cellar behind them have nowhere to hide.

Philadelphia's Cocktail Tier

Philadelphia's bar scene has matured considerably since the mid-2010s, when a handful of craft cocktail rooms established a baseline of technical competence. The city now has enough density at the serious end to make meaningful distinctions between programs. 12 Steps Down operates as a dive with a curated beer list, a different register entirely. 1501 Passyunk Ave anchors the South Philly neighbourhood bar format. 48 Record Bar combines music and drinks in a format that prioritises atmosphere as much as the glass. Within the city's Japanese-inflected drinking category, 637 Philly Sushi Club draws a clear connection between Japanese food culture and the bar program surrounding it.

Kichi Omakase positions itself differently from all of these. The omakase designation moves it out of the conventional cocktail bar bracket and into a smaller category where the experience is guided rather than chosen. Comparison venues in the neighbourhood, including Almanac with its hyper-seasonal Japanese-inspired cocktails and in-house fermentation, and Next of Kin with its focused cocktails and bar snacks menu, suggest a corridor developing genuine range. The venues aren't in competition so much as they're building a case for Philadelphia as a city where serious drinking now comes in multiple formats.

What the Format Demands

An omakase bar experience places specific demands on both sides of the counter. The guest is expected to arrive without a fixed order in mind, to communicate preferences and limits, and to trust the selection process. The practitioner is expected to read that information accurately and draw from a collection deep enough to make the exercise meaningful. When the format works, it produces a sequence of drinks that no conventional menu could have generated for that particular guest at that particular moment. When it doesn't, it's just expensive bartender's choice.

The bars that make the format credible tend to share a few characteristics: small capacity, a focused rather than exhaustive spirits range, and practitioners who treat the back bar as an ongoing research project rather than a static inventory. Philadelphia's drinking culture, which has historically valued neighbourhood authenticity over theatrical presentation, provides a reasonable environment for a format that strips away menu theatrics in favour of direct conversation between bartender and guest.

Planning Your Visit

Kichi Omakase is located at 112 S 12th St, Philadelphia, PA 19107, in the Washington Square West area, within walking distance of the Walnut-Locust SEPTA station on the Broad Street Line. For a bar operating in the omakase format, advance booking is advisable regardless of specific published policy; the guided experience model doesn't function well at walk-in volume, and the capacity at venues of this type tends to be limited by design. Visiting mid-week typically reduces competition for seats. Given the nature of the program, the experience is worth treating as the primary event of an evening rather than a stop in a longer bar crawl. For further context on where Kichi fits within the broader Philadelphia dining and drinking scene, see our full Philadelphia restaurants guide.