The line between bar and restaurant has never been blurrier than at Jilli, the 6-week-old Mission location of a high-spirited, after-work tapas spot in L.A.’s Koreatown. Dotted with tables, with a kitchen cranking out popcorn fried chicken and shrimp toast, Jilli would appear to meet all the qualifications of a cafe or restaurant. But owner Hwanghah Jeong is adamant: Jilli is not a restaurant. It is a “sool jib,” a Korean-style third place where friends and colleagues gather over traditional drinks.

“We want it to be seen as a bar,” says Jeong, citing nearby cocktail temple True Laurel as her north star. “You go in for the drinks and stay for the great bites.”

We can get on board with that. The beverage at the heart of this drinking den — located in the corner space that used to be Khamsa, a Moroccan joint that had no issue calling itself a restaurant — is makgeolli, the cloudy, slightly sweet rice wine that’s been brewed in Korea for two millennia. At a price of $18 to $72 per bottle, with a few pricier options available by the glass, it dominates Jilli’s opening menu, although Jeong rounds it out with a selection of natural wines.

For people with little experience in the vast world of fermented rice beverages, sake may be a handy reference point. But makgeolli — occasionally anglicized as “makkoli” — is different in almost every way. It’s milkier in appearance, creamier in taste, and the mouthfeel is lightly effervescent. The alcohol content hovers at 6% to 8%, less than half that of most sake. Served in teapots and poured into metal bowls with handles, makgeolli underscores the communal nature of sool jip-style drinking. 

But what should you eat with it? “When it comes to makgeolli, the best pairing is oily, greasy food,” she says. To that end, the kitchen offers plenty of appealing dishes — not so much through a fusion approach as via a bunch of mashups, often starring a lot of cheese. Rigatoni alla kimchi vodka ($22) is by far the standout and the most popular item: a bowl of zesty pasta with kimchi folded into the sauce. The optional house-made burrata is a must.

At the same time, it’s hard to view Jilli as a tapas spot; a few of the dishes are full meals, best consumed on a per-person basis. For example, the melted mozzarella atop the fiery tteokbokki ($25) may not be as thick as the gruyère on a bowl of French onion soup, but it requires a bit of excavation to get to the delicious rice cakes beneath, making this stew-like stir-fry cumbersome to share. A much more elegant option would be the sliced pork jowl jeyuk ($32), marinated in gochujang for 24 hours. 

An order of Korean popcorn fried chicken served with a tangy-sweet yangnyeom sauce and pickles ($23) is more or less mandatory. It’s a product of mini-chain Chimmelier, which Jilli initially invited as a temporary pop-up to get things rolling — until fans revolted at its impending disappearance.

“They were like, ‘You can’t just tease us and leave!’” Jeong says. So she decided to make it a standalone restaurant within the bar for lunch on Fridays and Saturdays, when the small patio is open.

There’s a sense of humor throughout Jilli. The slogan “Drink responsibly reckless” appears on the menu, as does the promise of a Korean “hangover cure” jelly packet in exchange for a positive Yelp review. (They’re available on eBay at $8.45 for a four-pack, if you’re curious. And, in my experience, they work.) “Make mistakes” is listed among the house rules. And when I first visited, a banana was duct-taped to the restroom wall, echoing the jokey conceptual art piece that a crypto billionaire bought at Sotheby’s last year for $6.2 million. “There was a really big hole, and I just didn’t have time,” Jeong said of her lavatory aesthetic.

Is it art? That’s debatable. Is Jilli a restaurant? That’s also debatable — but only over makgeolli.