Moongate Lounge
This floor was the banquet hall of the Four Seas restaurant. Brandon Jew and Anna Lee reopened it as a bar in March 2019, one floor above their own Mister Jiu's. They kept the Four Seas mural, the brass pendants and the redwood beams. The drinks are built on the Chinese lunar calendar.
Why go
Steph Wong-Swig Architects and Anna Lee built the room around a moon gate, the circular opening you walk through in a Chinese garden. The gate takes its cue from the artist James Turrell.1
Danny Louie and Alex Kulick wrote the opening list. Garrett Marks is bar director now. The seasonal drink Eater found on the list in 2026 was Clear and Bright: duck-fat-washed rye, single malt, apricot and lapsang souchong.2
Esther Mobley's picks show the same instinct three years earlier: the Grain in Ear is mezcal with yellow chartreuse and chile crisp. The Major Heat sets Chinese wintermelon against bourbon, under hawthorn-berry bitters.3
Eater's 2026 map records a Michelin star at Mister Jiu's downstairs.2 You can end dinner up here without leaving the building.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever the current calendar drink is.
- Order: the Grain in Ear if it is still on, for the chile crisp.3
- Avoid: arriving unannounced. Eater warns the room is often given over to a private event.2
What locals & experts say
- Brandon Jew, to Eater SF when the plans were announced:
It was always a banquet room, a place that people celebrated in. My uncle got married up there, we had a lot of celebrations here as a kid. We want to reopen it as a place to have those kinds of celebrations.
1 - Lani Conway, The Infatuation, May 2024, with the caveat: the room is swank, and a night here
tends to add up.
4
Good to know
- Booking: reservations through Tock.4
- Where: 28 Waverly Place, up one floor, in Chinatown.
Verdict
could-visit — There is no valet and no validation here, so the Portsmouth garage on Kearny is the answer if you drive.