Tiki-Ti: twelve seats and a family recipe book on Sunset

Tiki-Ti sits on Sunset Boulevard on the Los Feliz and Silver Lake border, in a room so small it is easy to walk past. Inside there are about twelve seats and a menu of more than ninety drinks. It opened on April 28, 1961, and it has been a family business ever since.

The man behind the bar

Ray Buhen was born in the Philippines in 1909 and came to Los Angeles in 1930. He tended bar at the Hotel Figueroa and the Beverly Hills Hotel, and he was one of four Filipino bartenders at the original Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood. He also worked at the Seven Seas in Hollywood and the Luau in Beverly Hills.

When he finally set out on his own, his plan was a bartending school. The space was a former violin repair shop owned by his father-in-law, and his wife talked him into opening a bar there instead.

The early regulars were mostly employees of the Allied Artists studio nearby. When the studio closed in 1965, Buhen stopped selling beer and put everything into cocktails.

The rituals

The house drink is Ray's Mistake. The story the bar tells is that it was born when Ray mixed up his syrups, and it is on special on Wednesdays. Order a Blood and Sand and a wind-up bull charges down the bar while the room chants "Toro." The only beer on offer is called The Last Beer, and its price climbs.

On Wednesday evenings the family leads a toast to Ray, whom they call the Master Ninja. Fishing floats, puffer fish and carvings hang overhead, and placards signed and dated by regulars cover the walls and ceiling.

Still pouring

The bar closed for about eighteen months during the pandemic. It reopened on July 7, 2021, with the same family behind the bar. In 2023 the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation gave it its Timeless U.S. Spirited Award.

• Open Wednesday through Saturday
• No reservations
• The family posts hours and closures on Instagram, so check before you go