Barsha Wine & Spirits Tasting Room: Best Wine Bar
Lenora and Adnen Marouani, owners of Barsha Wines. Photo
Wine Bar
Barsha Wine & Spirits Tasting Room
Barsha Wines is many things. It is a shop, with an expertly curated selection of fine wines as well as craft beers, cheeses, spices, and meats; it is a salon of sorts, a place of conversation, art, ideas, and meals; it is a love story, the culmination of a chance meeting between two chefs in a restaurant kitchen in Las Vegas that begat a marriage, a child, and a relocation to the Beach Cities; and Barsha is a wine bar, the likes of which the South Bay has never before seen. Barsha is the creation of Adnen and Lenora Marouani, who met when he was about to quit his job as a personal chef for the high rollers at Ceasar’s Palace and she was searching for some good spinach for the Michelin two star restaurant Guy Savoy. The couple left Las Vegas and a little more than two years ago established their storefront, a convivial little haven off Sepulveda Boulevard in Manhattan Beach. Walk into Barsha at any given time and you’ll be greeted like an old friend; walk in a second time, and you will be an old friend; walk in a third time, and you will be an old friend whose palate is understood and carefully nurtured. Adnen, originally from Tunisia, is a man with a gift for both people and palates. “I may not remember someone’s name, but even if you’ve only been here once, I’ll remember what you had, and what you liked,” he said. Lenora is a culinary artist who can take a simple salad, say a Kale Ceasar, and with the addition of few wild mushrooms and artisanally grown tomatoes, make it a dish you’ll wake up the next morning thinking about. Together, they’ve made Barsha is an artfully executed wine bar utterly without pretension. “My wife and I did not try to do this,” Adnen said. “It came naturally. Wine is not an intimidating thing. Wine is fun. Don’t forget that.”
Barsha Wine & Spirits Tasting Room, 917 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Manhattan Beach, 310-318-9080, barshawines.com.
Runner up: Bacchus Wine Made Simple, 1000 B Manhattan Avenue, Manhattan Beach, 310-372-2021, bacchuswinesla.com.