Mace
Nico de Soto opened this bar with Greg Boehm in 2015. Twelve cocktails sit in a hardcover bound with brass brads, each under a line drawing of its spice. North America's 50 Best Bars gave that menu the first Best Cocktail Menu award it ever handed out, in June 2022.
Why go
De Soto travels with a notebook and logs ingredients by season, then matches them to flavors from somewhere else. Some entries wait years. He first tasted mangosteen nearly a decade before he found a drink for it.
Milk punch is a fixture. The Mace 3.1 version is called Oregano: olive-oil-washed rum, moussaka spice mix, tea, tomato water, aubergine, lemon and whey. The drink named for the bar runs Aperol, aquavit and beet juice against a young Thai coconut cordial. A mace mist finishes it.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the milk punch, whichever spice it is running under. De Soto calls it his favorite drink.
- Order: the Mace itself once, so the name makes sense.
- Avoid: asking for the cocktail list by drink name. Ask for a spice.
What locals & experts say
- Nico de Soto, to The World's 50 Best in July 2022:
I never really think that I'm going to make a twist on a Manhattan or something. Instead, I start with the combinations that I've discovered. I only want one flavour, one spirit.
1 - North America's 50 Best Bars: the bar placed No.35 in 2022 and No.18 in 2023.2
Good to know
- Getting in: a walk-in bar, open through the afternoon and into the small hours at weekends.
- The room: 35 West 8th Street, which is the larger space it moved into.
Verdict
should-visit — Nothing here is built to be familiar, so skip it if what you want tonight is a properly made Negroni. Two drinks is the right length of visit, and the snacks are built the same way as the cocktails. Walk in without a plan and pick by what you cook with.