The Alembic
The Alembic opened on Haight Street in 2006, one of the first San Francisco bars to make a case for the craft cocktail. Owner Dave McClean, who founded Magnolia Brewing, went bankrupt in 2015. The bar's future was an open question. A new team took it over in 2018. Esther Mobley's verdict is that it came out better than it went in.
Why go
The room is dark wood, floral wallpaper and shelves of books.2 Negronis and herbaceous gin drinks sit under a list that changes with the season.
The Brown Butter Old Fashioned uses roasted sugar. The Night Market runs St. George Botanivore gin against a cucumber-lemongrass shrub, and the heat comes from Thai chile.1
The bar took the space next door in 2015. It later shrank back to the size it started at.4 There is a parklet out front. The staff hand out space heaters when it turns cold.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Night Market, then the burger, which Lani Conway calls
just-above basic but exactly the move after drinking a few Night Markets.
2 - Order: the housemade potato chips, and put them on the table for everybody.
- Avoid: the bone marrow.
What locals & experts say
- Lani Conway, The Infatuation, February 2023, rating it 8.0: the potato chips are
perfectly crispy
, and the bone marrow,served cold, is overpowered by whipped butter.
2 - Paolo Bicchieri, Eater SF:
Alembic was one of the first San Francisco bars to really showcase the craft cocktail when it opened in 2006.
4
Good to know
- Getting in: walk in.
- Where: 1725 Haight Street, in the Upper Haight.
Verdict
could-visit — Ask for a booth, and go at the end of the week: the room's published days run Thursday to Sunday.