Live A Little And Try The Anse Ceron At The Newly Reopened Experimental Cocktail Club New York

Photo Credit: Evan Sung

One floor down from La Compagnie Wine Bar in Manhattan’s Flatiron district is where you’ll find the newly returned Experimental Cocktail Club, which closed its original, lauded location back in 2016, after four years of serving as a Lower East Side destination and neighborhood gem. Now, ECC is a a subterranean haven filled with really good cocktails and a uniquely cool vibe.

Photo Credit: Evan Sung

The space feels Art Nouveau, but darker and sexier, with amber hues reminiscent of scotch, rye, and rum, highlighted by lacquered wood and shiny metal, large banquettes by Zak+Fox, colored glass sconces by Sophie Lou Jacobsen, and large mirrors. The piece de resistance is a lacquered white piano that sits in the middle of .the bar, a nod to the Experimental Cocktail Club Paris.

Photo Credit: Evan Sung

The back bar is where patrons will find a collection of rare, artisanal, and sometimes out-of-production regional French aperitifs and liqueurs, all carefully curated by Experimental Group partners Romee De Goriainoff, Olivier Bon, Pierre­ Charles Cros, and Xavier Padovani. ECC New York also marks a reunion with Nico de Soto, who started out with the group as head bartender at Experimental Cocktail Club Paris, then at ECC Chinatown, in London and ECC Lower East Side in New York; he has since opened NYC’s Mace, Danico in Paris, and Wacky Wombat in London,. De Soto designed Experimental Cocktail Club’s beverage menus, which feature classics such as Old Cuban, St Germain des Pres, and Kota Ternate, as well as surprising novelties using clarification, carbonation, and lacto·­fermentation. He also designed our two favorite menu items, which have thus become our cocktails of the week.

Photo Credit: Evan Sung

The first: Anse Céron, a combination of Rhum Arrangé, coconut oil, banana, lime, and absinthe. The second, The Pea and the Elevator, is a mix of Salers, rye whiskey, petis pois, rhubarb, and sparkling wine. So, at the end of the day, all we can say is that this experiment is one that works. 

Experimental Cocktail Club is located at  6 W 24th St, New York, 10010