The Best Bartender You’ve Never Met Signs on to MistralKitchen
Andrew Bohrer leaves Bellevue for Seattle’s most ambitious restaurant project to date.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Nov 18, 2009 at 01:00PM
3 Comments
Seattle cocktail freaks will no longer have to cross the bridge to sample the mixed-drink magic of Andrew Bohrer. This Monday was Bohrer’s last day at Chantanee/Naga Lounge in Bellevue, and he has signed on to head up the bar at William Belickis’s exciting MistralKitchen project in South Lake Union. “I just met him three weeks ago,” says Bohrer of Belickis. “He’s a straight shooter like me.”
Opening in early December, MistralKitchen has four separate kitchens open to the front of the house: a rustic station with a wood-burning pizza oven and a tandoor, a molecular gastronomy kitchen, the pastry-chef’s station, and Belickis’s own kitchen.
Bohrer has developed a menu of 12 cocktails: 3 drinks inspired by the rustic kitchen (including one that will be partially produced in the old-timey ovens), 3 classic midcentury drinks, 3 cocktails that involve molecular mumbo jumbo, and 3 dessert drinks—Bohrer is working with pastry chef Neil Robertson to develop garnishes for those digestif-centric drinks. The menu will change often, says Bohrer, who has also developed a separate brunch cocktail menu. “I love the morning cocktail,” he says.
The bartender told me to expect a happy hour with discounted cocktails and cheap drinks. More on that to come. This restaurant, man. Does anyone else feel like a kid on Christmas Eve? Can.Not.Wait.
wow, I had not heard this news yet.
Durnit! Just when we finally got a good after-work cocktail joint on the e-side, William had to go and take him back to Seattle. Sigh.
Eastsiders need not fear as bar tender extaordinaire Mike McSorley takes over at Naga.