Magdalena Waz

Writer
@ThrowBigWords

José A. Alvarado Jr. 

Photographer
@josealvarado

When we first learned about Lua Bar, a new cocktail and small plates bar replacing Okiway on Flushing Avenue, details were scant. 

Henrique Stangorlini, one of the bar’s partners, told Bushwick Daily that the “menu of ramen and bar snacks…reflects our backgrounds in cooking and experience and focuses on genuine flavors, great ingredients, and fun eating.”

It wasn’t until the bar opened that we could see how such an amorphous concept could transform a bar on the first floor of a newish building into a cozy space full of surprises.

The menu is broken down into two categories: snacks and noodles. Because of the neighborhood’s recent explosion of ramen offerings, we made a beeline for the snacks instead and tried the most compelling fusion dish we could find, the Spicy Boys, which are two spam “corndogs” slathered in a spicy sauce that resembled sambal oelek, pineapple chunks and beautiful slivers of scallion.  

Even with all of the accoutrement, the spam flavor, a rare sight on most menus, managed to poke through to our surprise. Next time, we’ll definitely hit up those butter wings and general tso’s cauliflower in addition to the spicy sesame cold noodles.

The two drinks we tried, the Hawaiian Zombie and the Michelada Formosa, had the right amount of smoky flavors and at $9 and $7 respectively constitute some of the best deals in the neighborhood. None of the cocktails cost more than $9. While the beer list is not the usual mix of hyper-local offerings, the prices are a breath of fresh air. 

Now that the bar has been open for a few weeks, Stangorlini says, “I’m really happy to be part of this neighborhood in which I have lived for almost a decade, see other local business thriving is very exciting and inspiring for me.”