Passing the Bar: Theater Bar
In the summer of 2010, Theater Bar, the new venture from Apotheke owner Albert Trummer, hosted a press event.
Apotheke is famous for its showy, fire-heavy mixing, so Trummer set the experiential bar pretty high by putting the word "theater" right in the name of the place. According to reports, the bar went all out, with shirtless bartenders pulling drink ingredients out of guitars, geishas in kimonos shuffling between patrons, flames everywhere and even a live fucking horse trotting in at one point. The place was supposed to open to the public that September.
Which it did. Sort of. Between September 2010 and April 2011, you could book Theater Bar’s opulent goldand-red-velvet setting for private parties.
That must not have paid all the bills, because last month it opened itself to the general public.
I arrived with my companion around 7, and as we walked into the tall central chamber (VIP areas behind the bar and on the second floor are partially visible and still available for private parties), we realized that we were the only customers. The staff teased each other in Spanish, the bartender flirted with the waitress and a band that would be playing later that night carried stereo equipment back and forth from the stage to the door. According to our waitress, things usually get going late on Saturdays and other times are "hit or miss."
At least we’ll get the chance to appreciate the insane alcohol-slinging show this place is marginally Internet-famous for, I thought.
I watched excitedly after I ordered our drinks. But… nothing. No show, no rumpus, no mishegas, no nothing. Apparently the theater part of Theater Bar didn’t survived the transition.
The menu is organized into five "acts," thematically grouped and each bylined by a different mixologist: Appertivi and Champagne, Asian and Latin American, Mayan and Aztec, Harlem Renaissance and Alchemy and Illusions. It’s in this last act alone that something of the spirit of the original idea of the bar remains. These drinks are only available in the private rooms and come accompanied by a magic trick performed by a real honest-togoodness magician.
Act III, "Mayan and Aztec Remedies," has drinks which all feature tequila, usually paired with a fruit. Have it with prickly pear purée (Bolero), passion fruit and agave (Pasion de Lima), pineapple (Alme de Dios) or honeydew (Del Espiritu). If you’d like to keep things classy (and marginally less alcoholic), consider ordering from Act I, "Appertivi and Champagne." I’d recommend the fruity and earthy A Delicate Balance, which features passion fruit, house bitters and, of course, champagne.
The drinks are eclectic, melding a few schools of recent fancy-bar trends. I opted for the only drink on the menu with bourbon: the Cotton Club Flip. Flips contain egg whites, which froth the drink. Bartenders were long wary of offering them due to a certain reluctance of most people to drink raw eggs. Recently resurgent, they’ve found a place on many revivalist menus and are totally safe. Mine had an incredibly rancid smell that had me holding my breath every time I took a sip. I’m fine as of this writing, but it’s not very pleasant to have your drink smell like last year’s Easter eggs.
The middle two acts are tropical and rummy, reminding this drunk of the recent Tiki revival. These are the safest bet on the menu. The Pisco Punch, which was pleasingly garnished with a fresh coconut leaf, had a complex flavor that danced around my mouth and kept my brain engaged in drinking. Of its half-dozen ingredients, the pineapple and ginger were the most obvious to me, their sweet and spicy flavors chasing each other around my palate as I sipped.
All the drinks on the menu have another interesting feature: Theater Bar’s own numbered elixirs, which start at 1, skip to 16, and then jump around a bit in the mid- 20s. I couldn’t get a clearer description for these than "spice mixes" from my waitress, and it’s hard to say what they added to our drinks other then a splash of color. The menu has one more interesting feature—no prices. All drinks, it turns out, are $15.
I wasn’t at Theater Bar during the normal peak time. I suspect I am not the normal patron, whom I imagine come in collared shirts with tigers on them and dresses which leave little to the imagination. As we slowly drank our cocktails, reclining on overstuffed cushions, alone in a gigantic, opulent room, being treated by the staff like we were the only people there (because we were), it was easy to overlook the bar’s abandonment of its titular theatricality.
>>Theater Bar
114 Franklin St. (betw. Church St. & 6th Ave.), 212-334-3633.