First Look: Essex in Seattle, WA

First Look: Essex in Seattle, WA:
From Drinks






VIEW SLIDESHOW: First Look: Essex in Seattle, WA



[All photographs: Naomi Bishop]

Among the many tasks at hand when opening a new bar, Essex owner Brandon Pettit added a rare one: he started right away working on the house-made Fernet-like beverage. Pettit is the chef and owner of famed pizzeria Delancey next door; Essex is the new cocktail bar he recently opened with his wife and business partner, Molly Wizenberg, who you might recognize from her blog, Orangette.

Pettit and bar manager Gary Abts hurried to get the tequila into aging barrels while the contractor was just beginning to shape the former umbrella shop into a bar. "Everyone's making bitters," Abts admitted, and then pointed out the difference, "we're taking the next step." That next step, making everything from scratch, started fast. When the lease on the space was signed in April, Abts and Pettit immediately got to work on the necessary ingredients (liqueurs, pickles, and more) for cocktails that are "as fresh as possible and as house-made as possible," said Abts. Pettit had already begun making many of the vinegars used in drinks.



An elegant take on the Bloody Mary, for evening.

The bar started out with a vaguely old-school British pub inspiration, but ended up with a quirky, neighborhood feeling, with the vintage refrigerator, minimalist white walls on one side, and mesmerizing, whale-themed wallpaper on the other. The drinks are similarly quirky, based on classics, but each tweaked in their own way, like the Queen Mary, a Bloody Mary updated for the evening crowd.

Abts is working on his second opening in quick succession; he's fresh from putting together the bar program at La Bête on West Capitol Hill. Working with Pettit, he said, made for great drinks because "Brandon is a perfectionist. We try, re-try, try again until we get it right."

Get a look at the drinks at Essex in the slideshow above »

Essex

1421 NW 70th Street, Seattle WA 98117 (map)

206-724-0471; essexbarseattle.com

About the author: Naomi Bishop is a Seattle based food writer and marketer. Find more of her musings on her food blog, TheGastroGnome, where she claims that being a GastroGnome is not about sitting idly on the front lawn of culinary cottages. You can also follow her explorations of cooking and culture around the world at @GastroGnome.