Cocktail Daily – Picare I HATS Bar, Jakarta

Reposado Tequila / Ancho Reyes Verde / Orange Liqueur / HATS Pickled Bitter Gourd / Homemade Gentian Liqueur

Located in Melawai, South Jakarta, HATS Bar begins with a deliberate sense of misdirection. From the street, the space looks more like a bright gelato and sorbet shop. The cocktail bar is hidden behind it; once you move past the front counter, the atmosphere shifts into a darker, wood-led interior framed by a distinctive red back bar.

This “dessert shop in front, cocktail bar in back” arrangement is more than a speakeasy-style entrance. It reflects the broader identity of HATS itself.

The bar opened in September 2024, and that pastry background continues to shape the way the team approaches precision, texture and ingredient combinations.

In 2026, HATS entered the Asia’s 50 Best Bars 51–100 list at No.77 and received the Campari One To Watch Award 2026.

Beyond the hidden-bar concept, one of the strongest impressions from this visit was the warmth of the service. Despite the international attention the bar has quickly attracted, the experience remains relaxed and approachable rather than overly formal.

Its current menu, Things Taken for Granted Vol. 2, focuses on ingredients that are deeply familiar in everyday life but often overlooked. Rather than searching for increasingly exotic ingredients, HATS reframes familiar ones through cocktails. Coffee, corn, pickled fruit and even bitter melon are given the opportunity to take centre stage.

Picare is one of the clearest expressions of that philosophy.

The cocktail is inspired by siomay, the Indonesian interpretation of Chinese shaomai. Over time, siomay developed its own local identity, and bitter gourd — pare in Indonesian — became one of the ingredients commonly served alongside it.

Within that dish, pare rarely receives much attention. It quietly contributes bitterness and texture while remaining secondary to the rest of the plate. Picare reverses that hierarchy and places bitter gourd at the centre of the drink.

HATS pickles the bitter gourd and seasons it with soy sauce, using its unmistakable bitterness together with salinity and umami as the foundation of the cocktail.

The drink begins with Reposado Tequila, bringing agave-driven vegetal notes together with the softer structure and subtle wood influence of barrel ageing. Ancho Reyes Verde pushes the profile further into green, herbal territory with poblano chilli character, while orange liqueur supplies citrus aroma and sweetness. A house-made gentian liqueur then extends the bitter structure beyond the bitter gourd itself, creating another layer of botanical bitterness.

What makes Picare particularly interesting is that it does not attempt to disguise the bitter melon.

HATS clearly understands that pare can be polarising. Instead of simply covering its bitterness with sugar, the drink creates a framework around it using tequila, chilli, citrus, gentian, acidity, salinity and the umami created through pickling.

Rather than trying to turn siomay literally into a liquid dish, Picare extracts one specific relationship from it — the interaction between bitter gourd and seasoning — and translates that idea into a spirit-forward cocktail.

The presentation is equally restrained: a low rocks glass, a large clear block of ice, and a slice of bitter gourd placed directly on top. The golden liquid could easily be mistaken for a conventional stirred cocktail at first glance, allowing the more unusual culinary reference to reveal itself only after tasting.

Tasting Notes

Aroma: The structure suggests an agave-led foundation supported by green chilli, citrus and bitter gourd, giving the drink a distinctly vegetal and herbal direction. The pickled component adds another savoury dimension beyond straightforward bitterness.

Palate: Reposado Tequila provides the backbone, while orange liqueur introduces citrus and sweetness to soften the edges. Ancho Reyes Verde contributes green chilli and herbal spice, while bitter gourd defines the drink’s central character. The soy-seasoned pickling element introduces salinity and umami, turning bitterness into something closer to culinary seasoning rather than a single dominant sensation.

Finish: Both bitter gourd and gentian naturally lend themselves to a lingering bitter structure, so the finish moves away from fruit sweetness and toward herbal, vegetal, lightly spicy and bitter notes.

Overall: What makes Picare compelling is not simply the novelty of putting bitter melon into a cocktail. HATS treats it as more than a gimmick. An overlooked component of siomay is isolated and rebuilt through tequila, chilli, citrus, pickling and gentian.

In that sense, Picare captures the central idea behind Things Taken for Granted particularly well: the goal is not to find increasingly rare ingredients, but to reconsider flavours that have been sitting in plain sight all along.

HATS Bar
Jakarta / Melawai, South Jakarta
Jl. Iskandarsyah I No.9, RT.5/RW.2, Melawai, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta 12160
Instagram: @hats.bar
Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026 No.77 / Campari One To Watch Award 2026

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