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“Tailor”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Soho	Moderate	Good

u might say tailored, vests, in the center of a few nooks filled with low lounge couches for comfortable seating while drinking.

Steven and I started downstairs with a few cocktails, which are the creation of Sam’s fellow WD-50 ex-pat, cocktail guru Eben Freeman. His cocktails are hand-made to order, and feature the sign of a bar that cares—fresh juices, house infusions, and Kold Draft ice cubes. The list also offers many drinks that contained ingredients I’d never heard of, like the Bohemio—a mix of tequila, Becherovka, and Naranja Agria ($12). I tried to get the bartender’s attention to ask a few questions about the drinks, but since they are always busy mixing and shaking, it was difficult to get any time with them. Perhaps a few words of explanation under each drink might be helpful? I ended up ordering a drink with just two ingredients that sounded familiar—The Waylon ($12)—a simple highball filled up with house-smoked coke and bourbon, which tasted like bourbon and root beer (yummy), while Steven went for the drink that most closely resembled a Manhattan, in this case called Blood and Sand—scotch, sweet vermouth, with orange head and Redbach that was served with an impressive frothy head in a nice fat old fashioned glass. (For the record, Becherovka is a traditional Czech herbal liquor with cinnamon notes; Naranja Agria is sour orange; orange head is fresh oj that has been aerated, which explains that nice frothy head, and Redbach is a Belgian Flemish red ale brewed with cherries.)

The avant-garde drinks dovetail nicely with Mason’s wildly inventive salty-meets-sweet menu. For those of you who may bristle at the sounds of pork belly with butterscotch miso, roasted duck in raisin dashi and foie gras with peanut butter cocoa and pear, let me assure you that much of the menu sounds a lot stranger than it tastes. In fact, much of it tastes great.

Mason’s menu is divided between salty (savory) and sweet (dessert), with each section offers seven to eight choices. Early on, complaints that the savory plates were a bit small led Mason to add two sizes (small and large), allowing for bigger appetites to be sated. Between the two of us, we had five salty (small size) and two sweet, which was more than enough to leave us both feeling like we should’ve exercised a bit more restraint. But when you’re faced with a menu that’s so daring, you kinda want ... [more, click below]

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Posted: November 19, 2007

Other restaurants in Soho :
+ Balthazar   + Savoy   + Blue Ribbon   + Lupa   + Public   + Kittichai   + Lure Fishbar   + Barmarche   + Porcupine-- CLOSED   + Ama   + La Esquina   + Jerry's- Closed Now   + The Tasting Room   + Papatzul   + Shorty's.32   + The Monday Room   + Ed's Lobster Bar   + Aurora   + Provence   + Tailor   + Hundred Acres   + Delicatessen, By Guest Reviewer Julie Besonen   + The Mott   + The Dutch   + Cherrywood, by Guest Reviewer Dara Pollak   

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