What are your favourite locations to seize a drink? is a query I get requested rather a lot. Naturally, I’ve quite a few go-tos that I recurrently suggest. However these days, my sincere reply to that query has not been a cocktail bar in any respect, however a restaurant, or extra precisely, eating places.
For a lot too lengthy, the cocktail packages at eating places have been an afterthought, not often given the identical consideration because the meals menu or wine listing. As such, the drinks have been usually lackluster, disconnected from the idea and infrequently well worth the price ticket. This considering created a self-fulfilling prophecy: By not investing in a bar crew and program, the drinks not often matched the standard of the meals, not often bought accolades and subsequently didn’t appear price growing.
But, the bar—the place diners are invited to have a drink till their desk is prepared—is commonly chargeable for a visitor’s first impression of a restaurant. It’s, in different phrases, a elementary a part of the eating expertise. The eating places getting it proper, creating drink packages that rival the most effective cocktail bars on the earth, all acknowledge this.
I now have a rising listing of eating places the place I’d recommend you don’t skip the cocktails: In New York, Le Veau d’Or and Libertine come to thoughts; on the other coast, in San Francisco, there’s Quince, with its stunning bespoke bar. Jewel of the South in New Orleans and Magnus on Water in Biddeford, Maine, too, are standouts. These eating places even have one other factor in widespread: They’re not afraid to share the highlight, which could in any other case be reserved for the cooks and somms, with the bar crew. Right here’s to extra of that in 2025.
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