Attaboy

Tell Them What You Like

3.5 of 5

Eldridge Street has a door with no sign worth reading and a room behind it that has been teaching New York how to drink for years. Attaboy runs seven days a week from five in the afternoon to three in the morning, which gives you the full night to get it right. There is a decent chance you will not.

The setup is simple. You sit down, name a spirit and a mood, and your bartender takes it from there. No menu to hide behind. Bartenders around the city talk about it with a kind of reverence, because the room runs on skill and not on spectacle. Some seats are held for OpenTable, and the rest are first come, first served, so a late weeknight beats a Saturday every time.

Parties are six and under, and you need valid ID because it is strictly twenty-one and over. The bar also hosts monthly cocktail classes for groups of up to ten. Go as a pair, skip the phone, and order the first drink by feel. The bartender has seen your mood coming for a while. Expect to wait if you arrive late on a weekend, and treat the wait as part of the ritual. The people who run the place have been at this craft for a long time, and it shows.

Order this: Your mood and a base spirit, then trust them, A bartender's choice, bitter or bright, A classic, if you want to test them
The damage: $$$
Go: Late weeknight, two people, sitting at the bar
Find it: 134 Eldridge St, New York, NY 10002