UPDATE: So I'll leave my original review of our experience here for people's reference, but I appreciate the owner's reply and it seems we did get the cocktails we ordered. It does feel a little odd to me to serve a take on a Manhattan that looks and tastes so much like an old fashioned, and I do believe this is a change from previous visits. But it's their prerogative to do signature cocktails their way! If you're a Manhattan lover like us and want the classic, just be specific when you order.
We've been here quite a few times - it's one of our go-to places when we're visiting with my parents in the area. The food here is consistently pretty good. The service can be hit or miss. Tonight, we had a discombobulating experience that seemed worth sharing.
A Tale Of Two Cocktails:
The Manhattan Gaslight Project
My husband and I are always happy to order the B&B Manhattan when we come here - we love that they make it with Piggyback Rye, and it's pretty much always a solid Manhattan. I will add here that we are pretty avid cocktail hobbyists and also own a shop in town focused heavily on cocktail ephemera, mixers, etc. In short, we like a good cocktail and we know our way around the bar.
Tonight we ordered two manhattans as usual. After quite a long wait, a server finally arrived at our table with two drinks - which looked exactly like a classic.....old fashioned. Served in a rocks glass over a nice single cube, exactly the color and consistency you'd expect from a textbook old fashioned, served with an orange peel and cherry garnish. We tasted to be sure (and because we had waited so long already and wanted to enjoy a drink, even if it was the wrong one), and it tasted like a nice old fashioned should taste. Okay, no big deal - they gave us the wrong cocktail. We'll let them know next time our server comes back.
That took awhile, but when she did come back, we ordered our food and pointed out the error in the drinks. She apologized and said she'd get it taken care of. Great!
This is when things get weird.
Another girl comes to the table (bartender? manager? we don't know) and asks what the issue was. We told her no big deal, we just got old fashioneds instead of the manhattans we ordered, and if we could just get a couple of manhattans to replace that would be great. She then tells us that she knows maybe it's confusing, but these drinks are, in fact, manhattans and that even the younger staff sometimes get confused between the two drinks. Um, okay. But we're not confused. We're quite clear on the difference between a Manhattan and old fashioned.
The diatribe continues and to try to salvage this novel of a review, I'll summarize as best I can:
- Girl asks why we think it's an old fashioned and not a Manhattan
- We say just because of the taste, the glass, the ice cube, and the garnishes (so, pretty much everything)
-She says oh, we don't have any fancy martini glasses but it's still a Manhattan. And oh yeah we make ours with orange peel. I made these with all the liqueurs listed on the menu. It's a Manhattan.
- We say um, okay.
- She says what would make it more like the Manhattan you're looking for? (Which granted, is good that she's trying to get to what we want)
- We say bourbon, sweet vermouth and some bitters, served neat. (So, you know, a Manhattan)
- She says oh okay, let me see what I can come up with - brb
- She brings us what we're pretty sure is a glass of bourbon with some bitters in it, over ice in a rocks glass again (NOT neat as requested), and with sweet vermouth on the side. Wtf?? This time the orange peel was there but the cherry was gone. So.....really, even less like a Manhattan than before.
At this point we feel we're completely in the twilight zone and we know we're not getting any manhattans tonight, so we just drank whatever it was we had at this point and let it go.
There were so many things wrong with this interaction. This girl was sweet to us, but she was pretty condescending and we're also pretty sure she didn't make any of these drinks herself as she claimed. Whether she did or not, why is it that no one on staff seems to know how to make one of the simplest drinks in the world - AND one that's been on their menu for years?
The icing on the cake was when, a few minutes after we accepted our fate and tucked into our mystery cocktails, the next table over from us received a beautiful looking dirty martini - in a lovely, "fancy martini glass" which supposedly was not available for our manhattans.
Lastly (as if anyone is actually reading this anymore) I want to mention that this wasn't the only issue with our experience tonight. The service overall was friendly, but incredibly slow, and some items were incorrect on our check.
But the cocktail gaslighting was really the nail in the coffin here this evening. Moral of the story: just don't mess with a woman's Manhattan.
The End. read more