Icarus
There are a number of restaurant bars which function fine for people who aren’t even dining, or who just want to come in for cocktails and casual bar food. Then there are those like Icarus, where the bar is really meant as a side attraction to the food. Part of it is the layout. The wood paneling and Ethan Allen furniture made it feel more like a Maryland country club lobby and less like a tony South End eaterie. The bar itself is small and awkwardly situated en route from the entrance to the dining floor and is conspicuously visible to half the restaurant. When I went there were a number of nondining patrons lingering around their drinks, but I’m not sure they weren’t the exception.
So, no, I’m not expecting a destination restaurant bar like the Franklin Cafe, but even by its own standards, Icarus’s bar could probably do better. More importantly, the food at Icarus is excellent, but the drinks menu seemed mismatched, trading in many of the sweet vodka sensations that flashy nightclubs do. Space constrictions result in a smaller selection than you’d want and expect; they didn’t stock my favorite gin – normal enough, but the lack of a high-end rum surprised me. I ended up going with a gimlet and was served a watery, unbalanced cocktail that made me wonder if the bartender used the misguided “fancy” recipe of squeezing actual lime juice into the drink. Maybe I should have stuck with the glowing yellow mango drink the woman next to me was having.
Pardon my ignorance, but why is lime juice not OK?
Kudos to you for writing this blog, by the way.
Thanks - glad you’re enjoying the site.
The proper gimlet is gin and Rose’s lime. (I do four parts gin, one part Rose’s). Rose’s is a different animal from fresh lime, with more of a bite and sweetness. Lime juice, which compliments rounder liquors like rum and tequila so well, ends up mismatched against gin’s dryness. I suspect that bartenders who put it in don’t really like gin and are working under the mistaken assumption that fresh is always better.