BAR CENTRALE

324 West 46th St

A well-hidden spot in the middle of the Theater District.

Located in the middle of the touristy Theater District, Bar Centrale masquerades itself as a typical 19th century residential New York brownstone.

The place is quiet and intimate, decorated with black-and-white photographs of famous actors and musicians.

Bar Centrale boasts delicious selections of food and wine. But until recently, and strangely enough for a speakeasy, it didn’t offer a cocktail list. Why? The idea was that the patrons are people who know exactly what they want, and the bartender can always oblige.

The art of the cocktail calls for attention to every detail of the drink, including its temperature. A cocktail is meant to be sipped slowly, making it bound to get warmer from either your hand or from the outside temperature. Many lesser establishments dismiss such fine details, but certainly not Bar Centrale. Here, a cocktail always arrives with a little refill pitcher buried in salty ice. This way you can enjoy sipping the drink as slowly as you desire and refill it from the pitcher, always being sure that it will not get warmer or get watered down by melting ice.