Christopher T.
Yelp
It doesn't live up to the hype.
There's a brilliant Director or Social Media Marketing on staff because this place was massively hyped on Instagram. The gimmick was that there was only one way to score a reservation: by texting a secret phone number which was to be publicized on Instagram for only one hour. After that, anyone who wanted to get their foot in the door would be required to acquire the secret phone number by word-of-mouth. (Technically, they also accept walk-ins on Mondays and Tuesdays but the secret phone number was the only formal way to secure a spot.)
Sounds pretty fun, right? The classic I-want-what-I-can't-have mentality of scarcity was employed in their marketing and and they got me: hook, line, and sinker. Ironically, less than two months after opening, they abandoned the secret phone number exclusive access and now, any old Plain-Jane can make a reservation using Resy. (I guess that they weren't able to fill seats with such a restrictive gimmick. Sorry, guys.)
We sat at the bar and had two different bartenders because we landed there at the changing of the guards. The bartender who made our first round of drinks was sweet enough, for sure. But she told us that her only other bartending experience had been at Péché which (in my experience, is not a particularly cocktail-centric establishment.) But she pulled through for us, providing me with an off-the-menu mezcal-ginger-chili sour up-drink. Our second bartender was great also: much more engaging and impressive with her improvisational skills. My biggest sticking point is that there was really nothing particularly innovative on the menu (which is one of the reasons that both rounds were ordered off-menu.) They do a cocktail with a blueberry-basil syrup. What year is it -- 2016? But as a brand new speakeasy promising a focus on tequilas, mezcals, natural wines, and rare Japanese whiskys, they had surprisingly few mezcal cocktails with any sort of appeal.
One redeeming quality is that the second bartender was able to deliver a pretty imaginative mocktial using a syrup made from palo santo. I had never heard of such a thing and it ended up being quite tasty. However, if the most exciting thing that they've got going on here is their mocktail-game, then perhaps you should go elsewhere in search of your next innovative cocktail.
The website is gorgeous; go check it out. Enjoy the website experience but save yourself the time and money and don't bother going in-person. There are many other spots downtown where you can find a much more exciting cocktail experience. The ambiance is lovely, warm, and cozy. I feel like I could sit there for hours. I hope that the bar survives for the sake of the bartenders because both of ours were very kind. I only wish that they had allotted as much for their cocktail program as they did for their marketing budget. It's a fun concept but star of the show -- the cocktails themselves -- are lacking what it takes for this place to thrive.