NoMad (Closed)

Words by Simon Difford

Address: The Nomad Hotel, 1170 Broadway, (at 28th St), New York, NY , 10001, United States
Tel: +1 212 796 1500
Website: view NoMad (Closed)’s website
Style: Hotel bar
Food: Tapas/plates & dishes
Established: 2012

Review

The stylish and plush NoMad Hotel boasts three drinking spaces, The Elephant Bar, the Library and NoMad Bar - each interconnected but the latter boasting its own entrance from the street. The Elephant and Library Bar share the same menu, indeed the drinks in the Library are dispensed from the Elephant Bar, while the NoMad Bar, which has more of a pub feel, has a different broader drinks offering. The cocktails across the board are excellent and the service 5-star.

As you walk through the restaurant from the hotel's lobby, the first bar you encounter is the Elephant Bar, so named due to the two statuesque Elephants carved into its impressive deep mahogany back bar, bookending a huge liquor selection. It's a smallish high ceilinged room with dark wooden panelling exuding a plush gentleman's club feel. Two standing tables accommodate drinkers who missed one of the ten converted bar stools.

The NoMad is the newest of the three spaces but with its dark wooden panelling and overlooking gallery seating, feels like a bar that has been here for decades. The cocktail menu here is extensive with drinks listed under the following headings: Classic cocktails; Soft cocktails; Aperitifs; Light spirited; Dark spirited; Reserve cocktails and Cocktail explosions with serious classics reverentially presented alongside sharing drinks such as Mai Tais served in vase-like towing glass vessels. For those after a beer rather than a cocktail, a choice of five draught beers, including Brooklyn Brewery's Le Poulet are joined by 22 bottled and canned brews.

Back in the Elephant Bar and Libruary brilliantly executed classics are joined by house drinks using ingredients such as goat's cheese stabilised using hydrosol molecular techniques. We also recommend the North Sea Oil with Islay scotch, aged aquavit, Cocchi Americano and triple sec.

The NoMad offers a trio of bar spaces - each with a different feel but each as excellent as the other.