Eel Bar arrives on the Lower East Side on Thursday.
A few weeks ago on Broome Street, drills were buzzing, wooden banquettes were being finished with green-corduroy upholstery, and Holophane lamps were being hung. A bar, the same shade of green as the corduroy and floor, was still covered in paper. Now the space is done, and on Thursday it will open as Eel Bar, the next restaurant (and the first new spot in five years) from the crew behind Hart’s, Cervo’s, and the Fly.
“With all of our places, we try to home in on a few materials we really like,” says co-owner Nick Perkins. At Eel Bar, that’s dark pine, stainless steel, and textured glass on the front windows that will soften the view from the street. At night, the space will be lit by dim pink and green neon running down the walls plus the lamps in the same textured glass as the windows.
Perkins’s partners on the project are Nialls Fallon and Leah Campbell, wine director Taylor Ward, and Aaron Crowder, the Cervo’s chef who will play the same role at Eel Bar. For the new project, the group is staying closest to Cervo’s, both geographically and thematically. Rather than Portugal, however, the team is pulling inspiration for the food from the Basque Country: On the menu are a handful of snacks (though, as of press time, no eel) including gildas, piquillo peppers with crab, and tinned snails — from the group’s brand Minnow — given the escabeche treatment. There’s a burger topped with Roquefort cheese and, as at Cervo’s, boquerones, plus rainbow trout in pil-pil, but the dish everyone seems most excited about is chicken-and-pork meatballs served with a light tomato sauce and thickly cut fries.
“As a company, I think the ethos of our food is that it’s simple and there’s not a lot of gimmicks,” says Fallon, “but there’s a lot of complexity behind it.”
The wine list, handled by Ward, compiles producers from the shared region where northern Spain meets southern France, and in addition to cocktails, there’s a selection of “prepared vermouths,” as one might see in Bilbao, including the Marianito (red vermouth with rhum agricole, Curaçao, Angostura bitters, and olives). “It’s sort of lower ABV, but it’ll still have a little bit of that backbone from a bit of spirits being added,” Fallon says.
At all of its restaurants, the group manages the rare feat of turning opening buzz into a lasting scene. (Cervo’s, for example, predates and will no doubt outlast any kind of Dimes Square moment.) And they are restaurants where I’ve gone with both 20-something influencers and my own 60-something uncle, all of whom are quickly put at ease. There are no tricks or gimmicks: The group just wants customers to have a good time. “First and foremost,” Fallon says, “we see all of our restaurants, but Eel Bar especially, as New York restaurants.” It’s a formula, and a vibe, that is difficult to capture — hard work that feels effortless, etc. — but when it’s done well, it’s difficult to resist. A nice plate of meatballs-frites only adds to the appeal.
