Excerpt from Village Voice:
By Hannah Palmer Egan Fri., Nov. 15 2013
In recent memory, the NYC bar scene has witnessed few belly-flops as full-on and frontal as Matt Levine’s idiotic Cocktail Bodega (an alcoholic smoothie bar), which shuttered in April after just seven months in business.
Afterward, Levine filed a $20 million lawsuit against his former partner Michael Shah, whose company The Line Group was already busy building out Rochelle’s (205 Chrystie Street) (Formally: Leave Rochelle Out of It), a pretty, dark-wood whiskey lounge, which quietly soft-opened last night.
“[Cocktail Bodega] was, and still is, a great concept for an airport…Not so much for here.” The Line Group’s operation manager Victor Jung said as we sat casually at the bar tasting an Old Forrester barrel-aged Breukelen cocktail. It tasted almost identical to the glorious bastard Manhattan I usually order (Bourbon, rocks, two cherries, no bitters) — serendipitous.
Jung seemed relaxed and pleased and happy to sit and absorb the space and the people filtering into it, a mix of friends and family and randoms wandering in off the street, a casual crowd mostly in their late twenties and early thirties. Soothing rock and roll classics hummed over the soundsystem at a tolerable volume.
Creative directors Brett David and Stephen Yorsz, both NYC nightlife veterans, were gracious hosts; David worked the floor with the nervy excitement of a kid at his dream birthday party — it was clear he really, really, REALLY wanted to make sure everyone was enjoying themselves as much as he was — while Yorsz stuck to the bar, mixing cocktails in a cut-off t-shirt, asking every bar guest their name and then amazingly, actually, remembering them when they returned for a second drink. Hospitality, man.
The bar is named for a mutual ex-girlfriend of David and Yorsz (Rochelle must have a thing for tall, tatted-up, dark-haired dudes with beards), who have been tight friends for years.
Yorsz’s cocktail list seems bent on introducing classic whiskey tipples to a younger generation. A rusty nail ($15) bit sharp and deep, while a brown derby ($13) was sweet and sour, just like you want it. If you want your whiskey straight, the options are plentiful. And if you feel like a beer, there are $5 craft brews on draft. Rochelle’s is also offering barrel service, playing on the bottle service concept by allowing patrons to order their own one-liter barrels of whiskey for a table.
We stuck to the cocktail list, but we glanced at the menu, and the food, which runs in the dressy pub fare vein, is reasonably priced. Offerings like confit duck sliders ($6) and a bowl of fries ($7) were more tempting on a cold late-fall evening than the extensive cured meats selection, but those’ll be nice come spring.
Rochelle’s makes its official debut on November 21.
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