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Ever since I started working here at H.I.S. New York, I have always wanted to try out The Bar Downstairs (that is in fact the name, and I am not referring to a definite article, noun, and its location), which is just around the corner from our office on 5th Avenue. The Bar Downstairs offers up a list of both classic cocktails as well as cocktails created by their team of mixologists, as well as an array of shareable, Latin-style dishes. The problem for me was that The Bar Downstairs is a bit on the pricey side, but as luck would have it being in the hotel industry, one of our partners from the Hyatt (owner of the Andaz luxury chain of hotels) invited us to have happy hour there. So not only did I get to try out a bar I'd been eying for over a year, but I only had to walk about 75 feet outside my office to get there. Oh, what a burden...

I did my best to take some pictures, but I'm reliably terrible at documenting my nights out with my camera phone. I did get a snap of my first drink of the night, From Oz With Love, which was a whiskey/scotch cocktail. The drink was delicious; it still maintained the smokiness for which scotch is so famous, but also had a certain sweetness that came from the ginger syrup. The cocktail also came with some crystallized ginger; definitely not a drink for the non-ginger fan.


I also ordered a couple of other cocktails off their seasonal menu. They all had a great balance of flavors, and justified their rather hefty individual prices. Our hosts also order a number of items off the tapas menu, including the cured meat and cheese platters, beer-martinated skirt steak, octopus la plancha, scallops la plancha, and empanadas.


Included here you can see the empanadas in the fore, followed by the meat platter, and cheese platter going back. You can also see the ginger ale that one of my coworkers order as well that included actual pieces of ginger at the bottom!


Above were the scallops la placha, which were simply divine. They didn't last long.

Our visit to The Bar Downstairs came with a hefty price tag I'm sure, but from the cocktails, to the food, to the atmosphere, it was worth every penny. I was surprised to see just how popular The Bar Downstairs actually was; we arrived fairly early on a Thursday afternoon and the place was packed with people. If you are planning a trip soon, I would suggest making reservations first.

The Bar Downstairs
In the basement of the Andaz 5th Avenue
485 5th Avenue
New York, NY
Reservations can be made online via Facebook !