Stainless stations, low-waste bar craft
Workstations built before the drink
David Rocha sets the work at bench height as co-founder and bartender at Form + Matter in Roma Norte, Mexico City, where the bar begins with the station, not the garnish. David Rocha arrived with more than thirteen years in hospitality behind him, including drinks programmes at Luciferina, Pata Negra and Brujas, then four years as head bartender at Handshake Speakeasy. At Form + Matter he works with José Olivas, also co-founder and bartender, whose route passed through Vancouver before a return to Mexico City and creative development at Handshake Speakeasy. Olivas won CANIRAC Mixologist of the Year in 2022, a credential that sits here less as decoration than as time on the tools. Po Tsai, co-founder and restaurateur, brought nearly two decades in food and beverage, including two cocktail bars in California. Together they shaped the room as a hospitality-led cocktail laboratory, with low-waste thinking, experimentation and purpose-designed workstations folded into the daily method.
A bar program held in the apparatus
The published outline of the drinks does not give recipes, cocktail names or a spirits architecture, so the clearest reading of the program comes through the way the bar has been built. Custom stainless-steel stations sit at the center of the room, giving the bartenders a working language of reach, temperature, rinse, build and pass. The official menu is presented through separate Spanish and English entry points, a small but useful signal in a bar designed for local regulars and visitors to read the same work from different directions. Form + Matter opened in 2024, and the project has already been recognized by North America’s 50 Best Bars with a number 13 ranking in 2026. Those figures matter here because they attach to this address, this team and this young program, not to a borrowed reputation from elsewhere.
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Stainless steel under close light
The room sits inside a modern apartment building in Roma Norte, hidden enough that arrival feels compressed before the bar opens out. Stainless steel catches the light first. Then the back bar, the hands, the measured exchange between guest and bartender. The mood is lively, but the scale keeps the work close; a small room asks the pass to carry both theatre and discipline without letting either get loose. Rocha and Olivas work from the guest side of precision, where the gesture needs to read as care rather than display. Tsai’s part in the house shows in that calibration: the bar is designed around movement, service and sightlines, not only the drink in the glass.
The next measure is the room itself
There is no named release or seasonal drink to point toward, so the useful close stays with the craft now in motion. Watch how the three founders keep a laboratory from becoming cold, one station at a time, under the stainless steel of Form + Matter.
Questions
Frequently asked
Who runs Form + Matter?
Form + Matter is led by David Rocha, José Olivas and Po Tsai. Rocha and Olivas are co-founders and bartenders, while Tsai is co-founder and restaurateur.
What is Form + Matter known for?
The bar is built around custom stainless-steel workstations and a hospitality-led cocktail approach shaped by low-waste thinking, experimentation and purpose-designed service flow.
Has Form + Matter received recognition?
Form + Matter is ranked number 13 in North America’s 50 Best Bars 2026.
Do reservations at Form + Matter need to be booked?
Reservations are recommended.
The field
How it compares
| Place | Awards | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Form + Matter | 50 Best | Centro Urbano Benito Juarez, $$$ |
| Bar Mauro | 50 Best | Mexico City |
| Handshake Speakeasy | 50 Best | Mexico City |
| Hanky Panky | 50 Best | Mexico City |
| Kaito del Valle | 50 Best | Mexico City |
| Licoreria Limantour | 50 Best | Mexico City |
| Tlecān | 50 Best | Mexico City |
Similar places
The Sunday email
Read about the people behind bars like Form + Matter in the Sunday email.
Every Sunday we send a lead story and up to four more about the chefs, winemakers, sommeliers and hoteliers behind the restaurants, bars, wineries and hotels we cover.
Recent stories
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