All in Playboy
Americans usually spend their days going from home to work to home to work to home…you get the idea. There’s not a lot of in-between. To break up that monotony, establishments are embracing the idea of becoming “the third space”—the space where people can come to do lots of different things in one location.
Why just be a good beer bar or a good cocktail bar or a good wine bar when you can be great at all three? That’s the motto at Edmund’s Oast brew pub in Charleston, South Carolina.
Depending on whom you ask, cider is either the next wine or the next beer. But really, it’s the next…cider. “Cider is something that is very old, but very new too,” says Jennifer Lim, owner of Wassail cider bar in New York City’s Lower East Side.
Playboy talked to chef Paul Kahan about why he’s keeping his restaurants in Chicago (for now), why he’s suddenly so excited about vegetables, and the crises restaurateurs are really facing. Hint: It doesn’t have anything to do with tipping.
This St. Patrick’s Day, upgrade your green beer to a green drink that isn’t dripping with food coloring. These 17 verdant cocktails, made by bartenders from across the country, feature ingredients such as Green Chartreuse, vegetable juice and matcha to give them an all-natural, leafy glow. And they taste pretty darn good, too. Sláinte
In Austin you can throw a breakfast taco in any direction and hit a decent place to eat or drink. But if your only exposure to the city’s dining scene is when you parachute into town for South By Southwest, you should be aiming for higher than decent. Here’s our cheat sheet for nine of Austin’s notable openings, new expansions and essential institutions to get you through the week.
Selling craft cocktails in cities known for their historical sites is not an easy task. Small-town social studies teachers—your target demographic—are usually hesitant to order a drink made with Malört. But saloons such as the Ice Plant Bar in St. Augustine, Florida, are proving that if you embrace and celebrate your area’s history, you can become a stop that’s just as essential as the local fort.
“I don’t allow music in my kitchens. Whether cooking and working in a restaurant is a blue-collar profession or a white-collar profession is up to us. It’s up to us how seriously we take our own profession. When I’m cooking at home though, I’m a staunch fan of Norwegian black metal.”
Jamie Boudreau, the owner of Canon whiskey and bitters emporium in Seattle, has a joke: “If we are at full capacity and the zombie apocalypse comes along, we could shut the doors and board the windows and each person would have 200 bottles of booze to themselves until it was over.”
The White Horse bar in Austin, Texas, has the best wine list in town: Red ($5), White ($5) and Shut Up ($10). “We’re a honky tonk,” co-owner Denis O'Donnell says. “If you come in and ask for a martini, we’re going to laugh you out of here for being stupid.
Every cocktail is a riff off of a handful of classic drinks. If you visit a lot of bars, you begin to spot the patterns, the repetition, the tired variations of old fashioneds and gimlets. But at The Aviary in Chicago, drinks are being played with in ways that you won’t see anywhere else.
Playboy talked to chef Barbara Lynch about how else she’s coping with the major issues in the industry right now, what’s keeping her in Boston, and why she’s done opening restaurants.
As more and more restaurants around the country introduce cocktail programs, cocktail-only bars—such as The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company in Philadelphia—have to fight to hold their ground as a necessary player in the nightlife scene.
For nearly 80 years Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge has been keeping customers in the dark—both literally and figuratively. Not only does the oldest cocktail bar in Milwaukee have impossibly dim lighting, but what its bartenders put in the drinks is also a complete mystery.
Playboy talked to chef Jonathan Waxman about how the dining industry has changed over the years, what finally brought him back to the Bay Area, and why he can’t bear to watch himself on TV.
Even if you haven’t been to Phoenix before, you can surmise a thing or two about the bar culture: it’s hot. Citrus-based drinks do well here because they cut through the heat and outdoor patios are essential. But one thing you may not expect? The sizzling popularity of a bar specializing in Southern drinks.
Playboy talked to chef Chris Santos about his top-secret new restaurant, why micromanaging is so important, and why he’ll never be pushed out of the Lower East Side.
Playboy talked to chef Chris Shepherd about what’s fueling the Houston restaurant boom, what culinary schools aren’t teaching, and how he’s redefining American food in the most diverse city in the country.
Cane & Table is not a tiki bar. Sure, it serves big, colorful drinks out of hollowed-out pineapples, but owner Kirk Estopinal says he and his business partner Neal Bodenheimer are not fanboys. “We like tiki drinks, but we feel like they are one note,” Estopinal says. “How many nights a week does someone want to drink tiki? Maybe one night a week? Once a month? Once a year?”
Playboy talked to chef Naomi Pomeroy about her ideas for her new restaurant, what’s keeping her in Portland and why winning national awards actually puts chefs on edge.
