Ebanos Crossing, embracing spirit of Prohibition era smugglers, set to open downtown

The drinks and hospitality team behind Ebanos Crossing hopes to bring some of the history of a Texas border town to the corner of 2nd and Hill streets downtown when the restaurant/bar opens toward the end of July.

Ebanos Crossing, partly conceived by Phil Ward and Justin Shapiro of mezcal and tequila bar Mayahuel in New York, is a nod to the smuggling of whiskey, rum and tequila across the Rio Grande through the tiny Texas village of Los Ebanos during Prohibition in the ‘20s and ‘30s. (It’s now a town -- well, not even a town but a “census-designated place” -- of about 400 people, with a three-car ferry that connects Texas to Mexico.)

Ward’s the beverage director who is creating the menu of cocktails based on those smuggled spirits, divided into three sections: El Norte for whiskeys, El Sur for tequila and mezcal and Ebanos Crossing, where “everything comes together,” Ward says.

It’s a 150-seat space that formerly housed a 24-hour pho restaurant in the base of the old Kawada Hotel, with a dark, lounge-y décor of black and red that includes sofa-like seating, exposed brick and Victorian elements.

At the bar, Ward’s mixing drinks such as the Colt Neck Cobbler (Laird’s apple brandy, sloe gin, lemon juice and blackberries), the Thornton Affair (jalapeno-infused blanco tequila, rhum agricole, lime cordial and green Chartreuse) and Angel’s Flight (mescal, Pamplemousse, Aperol and lime juice).

Ward knows his way around agave-based cocktails, having come up with a couple hundred for Mayahuel. “How many cocktails could I make with tequila? I started to use more spirits as modifiers, adding accents,” Ward says. “I call it splitting hairs.”

Shapiro says the dinner menu will include dishes meant to complement Ward’s drinks: bacon-wrapped grilled shrimp and mango skewers with roasted red pepper sauce, and habanero-marinated braised goat tacos with Greek yogurt slaw, for example.

200 S. Hill St., Los Angeles, www.ebanoscrossing.com.

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