Bar Contra
Dave Arnold runs the drinks in Contra's old room on Orchard Street, and the back bar is so tight he had to pick what survived: liquid nitrogen and carbonation.
Why go
Jeremiah Stone and Fabián von Hauske Valtierra closed Contra in October 2023 and reopened the same address in the summer of 2024 as a bar, with Arnold as the third partner on the drinks. Arnold built Booker and Dax in 2012 and wrote Liquid Intelligence in 2014, which is where most of the centrifuges and carbonation rigs in American cocktail bars came from. Asked by PUNCH what made the cut in a bar with no room for lowboys, he answered: But we're going to do liquid nitrogen, because otherwise why would you even call me? And we're going to do carbonation. Those are the non-negotiables.
The Sagittarius B2 shows what that buys. Rum, raspberries and orgeat, nothing else, with the raspberry juice clarified by enzyme and centrifuge and the orgeat run through a five-ton hydraulic press because that is the only way to get it clear enough to sit in the glass.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Saltair first. The Infatuation calls it
a tequila-based cocktail that tastes like taking the very last sip of a margarita, once the salt rim has dissolved into the bottom of your glass,
and it arrives with a Modelito sidecar. Then take one from the carbonated column, and the stuffed chicken wings that followed the kitchen over from Contra. - Avoid: ordering in rounds. The menu ran a flat $21 across shaken, stirred, carbonated and on the rocks when The Infatuation counted it in August 2024.
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation (7 August 2024): on the Saltair,
The shockingly salty, refreshingly tart, margarita-dregs concoction comes with a Modelito sidecar, which is (almost) too cute to drink, and provides the perfect mellow chaser to the saltiest cocktail in NYC.
2 - Dave Arnold, in PUNCH: on the decade since Booker and Dax,
A lot of things that [I was doing] even at Existing Conditions prior to the pandemic, not very many people were doing in the United States. But after the pandemic, it's a totally different landscape.
1
Good to know
- Timing: a drinks room, not a dinner one. There are low- and no-ABV options on the list.
- Booking: book if you want the bar seats up front, which is where the work is visible.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: Dave's new place?
Verdict
should-visit — Arnold wrote the book the modern high-tech bar is built from, and this is the first room where he is doing that work in a space small enough to force choices. He named the two he would not make: liquid nitrogen and carbonation stay, everything else was negotiable. The Sagittarius B2 is three ingredients, rum and raspberry and orgeat, with a five-ton press behind the orgeat because nothing gentler clarifies it enough to work. That is technique in service of a short drink rather than a long menu. Against it: one published review, a flat $21 across every column, and a two-year-old price. Not a trip on its own, and an easy detour if you are drinking downtown.