Los Angeles native Kevin Nguyen has worked at some of the best craft cocktail bars in the city, but he got his start in more humble settings. “I started out at a chain restaurant, the now-closed Elephant Bar, as a host and worked my way up to serving, bartending, and shift leading for a number of years before I decided to really focus on bartending,” he says. “Working at Elephant Bar really put me on my current path, with their structure and attention to detail, and that’s where I learned my love for hospitality.”

Then in 2016 Nguyen started working with the hospitality group Gin & Luck. “I worked at a number of their Los Angeles bars for the bulk of my career—I ran the prep program at The Normandie Club, bartended at The Walker Inn, and then in 2019 I transitioned to Death & Co., where I was head bartender from 2020-2023,” he says. Bolstered by his experience at such high-end cocktail spots, Nguyen decided to pursue other opportunities and in January 2024 he fortuitously read an online article that started him on a new path: He learned that the team behind popular Japanese concepts Tsubaki and Ototo were opening a new restaurant and bar called Camélia. “I just sent out a cold email with my résumé and asked if they were looking for someone to run their bar program,” he says. “Eventually we started talking and I was brought on at the end of March.”

Camélia, a Japanese French bistro, opened its doors last July with Nguyen as bar lead. “Camélia is a restaurant with two main influences, French and Japanese, and I find it important that the beverage program also fits that vision,” Nguyen says. Naturally, his cocktails ($16-$20) highlight products and ingredients from these two distinct countries. His Shochu Oyuwari ($15) blends Japanese whisky, shochu, French pear liqueur, hopped grapefruit bitters, and hot water, while his New York Sour ($18) features guava-infused rye, Calvados, crème de cacao, lemon juice, simple syrup, and a Malbec float. “My style of bartending revolves around classics and understanding how each ingredient plays an important part, and then taking it one step forward to ‘Mr. Potato Head’ the drink, a term I learned at Death & Co. where you change out certain components in a drink to create something familiar, but new,” Nguyen adds. “I enjoy looking for new spirits and liqueurs or just something unique and novel to add to drinks to create something memorable.”