Brix and Stones

You walk into a second-floor lounge on Waimanu Street — cigars, spirits, and a wine retail wall that immediately signals someone actually cares. This is not a restaurant wine list; it's a curated natural wine shop where you're allowed to drink your purchase on the spot. In Honolulu, that alone makes it worth knowing about.

Owner Rick Lilley has built a 60-to-90-bottle selection that leans hard into natural and low-intervention producers — pét-nats, méthode ancestrale sparklings, orange wines, and small European and New World labels you won't find at Safeway or Total Wine. The European sparkling game is real: Laurent-Perrier Brut La Cuvée and Gondolino Rosé Prosecco Extra Dry anchor the fizz end of things, with a handful of natural pét-nats rounding out the category nicely. The list has gaps — no deep cellar, no verticals, no old-vine throwbacks — but the intentionality is obvious. Brix and Stones isn't trying to be everything; it's trying to be the natural wine shop Honolulu needed.

Glass pour documentation is murky — this place operates more like a retail-with-seating model, so bottles are the main event. A 'J. Bordeaux' carafe option does show up on the menu at $55, which suggests some pours are available, but formal by-the-glass programming isn't the focus here. If you want to drink by the glass, ask — the staff knows the list well enough to guide you.