Patent Pending
By day this cellar is Patent Coffee, selling nitro cold brew and two cookies Bon Appétit's senior food editor Claire Saffitz wrote for it. In the evening a hidden door at the back opens onto a bar that takes its name from Nikola Tesla. He lived in the hotel that stood here.1
Why go
Ryan McKenzie opened both halves on 31 January 2018. He runs a creative agency called Simmer and this was his first bar.1 He built it off two rooms he admired: Attaboy on the Lower East Side, and Lovers of Today in the East Village.5 The list came from Harrison Ginsberg and Nick Rolin, who had worked the Dead Rabbit and BlackTail. They cut it into four Tesla categories: energy, frequency, vibration and descent.1
You buzz at street level and walk through the coffee shop to the door.1 Brick archways run round a bronze bar top and banquettes line the corridor beside it.7 Bryan Kim counts about ten seats at that bar and a couple of booths.4
Nothing has been written about the bar since 2018. Alyson Penn reviewed it for Time Out New York seven weeks after it opened and was not carried away. She waited in an antechamber first, under hanging candles and chipped brick. Then she read a 28-page menu a waitress kept trying to take back. The drinks improved as the room did.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Hit By a Taxi, which puts Japanese whisky and Armagnac over pu'erh tea, curacao and star anise.1
- Order: the bacon grilled cheese with it. The bar cooks small plates.1
- Avoid: counting on a table for two. Reservations here are prix fixe and optional6, and Kim found them going to parties of four to six.3
What locals & experts say
- Ryan McKenzie, to Meredith Deliso at amNewYork the day before it opened, on the point of a hidden door:
Literally no one has any idea that it's back there, which is what I love.
5 - Alyson Penn, in Time Out New York, on the room you wait in: it is
similar to the tricked-out waiting rooms inside Disney World rides.
2 - Bryan Kim, The Infatuation's editorial lead in New York, in his NoMad guide:
These people take their cocktails very seriously, serving a seasonal menu of complex signature drinks which tend to be strong, fascinating, and in the $20-$30 price range.
4 - The menu's own opening line, printed by Eater NY:
You are now in a landmarked building conducive to conversation, experimentation and home to the world's first recorded electrical vibrations.
1
Good to know
- Booking: walk-in seating daily, first come. The reservation route is a set menu.6
- Timing: the last seat goes 45 minutes before the doors shut.6
- The Lab is a separate room here and books for private parties on its own.6
Verdict
could-visit — The cocktail pedigree here is real and the Tesla dressing is the least of it. Give the list your attention and the theme none of it.