ABV Is 2023’s Greatest Restaurant Bar

“A neighborhood bar, that’s precisely what we wish to be,” says Ryan Fitzgerald, managing accomplice of San Francisco’s ABV. “It’s a spot the place you go to be snug.” And that consolation can embody nice cocktails, he provides.

ABV opened as a bar and restaurant in 2014, the brainchild of Fitzgerald, Todd Smith, and Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud, all three veterans of the Bay space bar scene with expertise that intersects like a Venn diagram of hospitality. Reichborn-Kjennerud is the longtime proprietor of Dalva, and he and Smith additionally have been behind The Hideout, a bar-within-a-bar behind Dalva. Smith was the founding bartender at speakeasy-style bar Bourbon & Department, the place Fitzgerald tended bar, following a stint as bar supervisor at Beretta.

“Bourbon & Department had its time and place, suspenders and mustaches and all that hoity-toity speakeasy shtick,” recollects Fitzgerald. “We stated, it’s not sustainable. It was a gimmick. Why can’t you simply get an excellent Manhattan at each bar?”

That sentiment turned the guiding gentle for ABV—an informal area with good meals, good drinks, and good service, plus “a chill vibe, with no pretentiousness.” 

That aesthetic comes via. The bar spans the size of the slim area, making ABV’s point of interest clear (if the identify, a synonym for alcohol power, didn’t already make it obvious). Meals arrives on a steel tray with out silverware, and the drink menu is organized by spirit, if it’s wanted in any respect. There are not any cocktail servers, simply bartenders, who flow into all through the room and in addition serve the drinks whereas providing suggestions based mostly on friends’ preferences. 

“We wished everybody, even on the tables or on the parklet, to have the bartender expertise, explaining the spirits [and] what’s within the drink,” says Fitzgerald.

One side of ABV that has advanced is the tiny 16-seat area upstairs, dubbed Overproof. The unique idea was a bar that was utterly redesigned each three months, with new meals, drinks, and decor. After biking via iterations as a rum bar, a whiskey bar with Japanese meals, a mezcal bar, and a Spanish sherry and gin bar, the idea ended. 

“It was tremendous superior for individuals who went to it,” says Fitzgerald. “It was formidable and tremendous enjoyable—and in addition means an excessive amount of work.” Shortly earlier than the pandemic, Overproof was briefly reborn as a high-end oyster bar. “It even had some silverware,” he says. “It was fancier, a little bit nicer.” Nevertheless, the format didn’t return after pandemic shutdowns, and is at present used as a personal occasion area.

ABV’s drink menu is organized by spirits, supposed to make it straightforward for friends to house in on cocktails or straight pours they could like. The drinks are simple constructs, to hurry service. “Simplicity is the important thing phrase in regard to our cocktails,” says Fitzgerald. “We don’t batch any of our drinks….We maintain them easy so they arrive out quick. 4 [or] 5 elements on the most, fewer if we are able to.”

Living proof: the Gin and Celery, made with gin, Fever-Tree tonic, gomme syrup, and housemade celery bitters. The key ingredient? A pinch of salt on the backside of the glass. “As you drink it, it will get saltier and saltier, and also you wish to order one other one immediately.” 

At the moment, the bar remains to be going robust, and racking up accolades. What surprises Fitzgerald most is how little the bar has modified over time.

“There was a time earlier than we opened when Erik, Todd and I sat down and requested, are we actually going to ask bartenders to attend tables? Are we actually going to not have silverware? It appeared pie within the sky,” recollects Fitzgerald. “However now, 9 years later we’re nonetheless doing the identical and it’s working actually, very well.”