EMPLOYEES ONLY
510 Hudson St.
212-242-3021
New York’s cocktail consciousness continues to rise, with fledgling mixologistssplurging on copies of “Professor” Jerry Thomas’s seminal Bon Vivant’sCompanion, or How to Mix Drinks, and urban sophisticates worshipping at themixed-drink altars of Bemelman’s and Milk & Honey. Their elite ranks haverecently been joined by Employees Only, a Deco-inspired West Village wateringhole where atavistically whiskered barkeeps infuse gin with lavender andvermouth with herbes de Provence and combine them in a brilliantly complexinvention they call the Provençal. Their Tifozzi, a Campari-based apéritif, is alight, lively take on the Americano and an ode to afternoons spent watchingsoccer. Loving respect is paid to the classics: a real martini with the meresthint of vermouth. Its precursor, the Martinez cocktail, essentially a Manhattanmade with gin, distinguished here with housemade absinthe bitters. And abracingly bittersweet Manhattan crafted, in the spirit of its earliestincarnation, with the classic rye whiskey and a dash of orange curaçao.