Apotheke

Address: 9 Doyers Street, (between Bowery & Pell), New York City, New York, 10013, United States
Tel: +1 212 406 0400
Website: view Apotheke’s website
Style: Lounge bar

Review

This apothecary-styled cocktail lounge is set in a former opium den, under a red awning wrongly proclaiming it to be the 'Gold Flower Restaurant'. To find it you'll have to venture down a somewhat foreboding side street in China Town, which was not so long ago dubbed 'Bloody Angle' for the once fierce triad wars fought there.

Once inside you'll find yourself in a candlelit Victorian-styled lounge with all manner of apothecary paraphernalia and other curios. Ahead of you lies your final destination, a five-ton marble bar where self styled doctors ply their concoctions to willing patients. I should warn you now that in my experience some of these are more medicinal than others so, as always, pick you libation and bartender wisely.
Late week and weekends Apotheke tends to become rammed, attracting plenty of sensation seekers by the house 'Pharmaceuticals' cocktails. Basically this involves the spirit being poured across the bar and ignited to cries of wonder from an impressionable audience.