Saint Tuesday

The Frantic Atlantic is where to start — pisco, elderflower, grapefruit and lime, tangy without the sugar bomb that usually comes with elderflower drinks. From there, the menu splits between drinks that are trying to be theatre and drinks that are trying to be dinner. The Lost & Found is the theatre pick: roasted pineapple brandy, banana-forward Grand Marnier, torched whipped cream on top, essentially a Baked Alaska you can drink. The Choco-Cherry Boom leans warm spice and black cherry, and it works on a cold night more than a hot one.

Nothing on Cortlandt Alley announces this. The door is unmarked apart from two initials, and the actual entry runs through the Walker Hotel Tribeca lobby, then down two flights of stairs. By the time you reach the bottom, the street has fallen away and the room takes over — low ceiling, warm light, a guitar close enough that you register the strings as much as the notes. That approach is doing half the work of the atmosphere before anyone hands you a menu.

The room reads date-night first, industry-adjacent second, hotel guest third. Couples in the booths, a few solo drinkers at the bar who know Covey's name, and a rotating share of Walker Hotel guests who found it via the concierge. Thursdays skew louder and looser because of the burlesque; the rest of the week the crowd keeps its voice down and lets the guitar do the talking. Nobody is on a phone for long. Nobody is standing at your booth waiting for you to leave. It is a room that expects a slow evening and gets one.

House and classic cocktails are $22 and specialty cocktails $24, and a beverage minimum applies every night — the exact figure isn't published, so build your evening around at least two drinks each and you're inside it. The Lost & Found is where the theatre sits, and if the torched-Baked-Alaska trick isn't for you, it is the drink to question. Tribeca cocktail pricing is what it is — this sits inside the going rate for the neighbourhood rather than under it.

This is the best version of a hotel-basement jazz bar in Tribeca, which is a narrower claim than it sounds — the format is rare done well. Come back on a Wednesday around 10pm, book a booth on Resy, order a Frantic Atlantic and then a Bartender's Choice, and stay for two sets. Skip it on a Thursday if burlesque isn't the evening you're after, and skip it entirely if you were hoping to walk in on a Friday without a reservation. The room rewards planning and punishes the opposite.