Three Bars, One Atrium, and a Pappy Van Winkle Old Fashioned
Simon Kim's first dedicated bar splits itself into three programs — martini, whiskey, wine — under a 60-foot atrium at 550 Madison. Walk in at the bar if Resy fails you.
A Norfolk pine grows through the middle of the room. It is a real tree, sixty feet up through a sixty-foot atrium, lit warmly enough that the leaves read green rather than black at night. Around its base sit three bars — one dedicated to martinis, one to whiskey, one to wine — each with its own lead and its own list. A table anywhere in the room can order from all three. The water in your cocktail has been filtered and re-mineralized specifically for that cocktail. This is the level of intention Bar Chimera is working at.
Bar Chimera is the first dedicated bar project from Simon Kim, the operator behind Cote and Coqodaq, and it sits inside the 550 Madison redevelopment alongside Cote 550. Where Cote 550 downstairs is loud and full, Bar Chimera reads more buttoned-up — a lobby bar at a very nice hotel that happens to serve a $95 prix-fixe and a headline Old Fashioned built on Pappy Van Winkle. Parts of it read as gimmicky and luxury-chasing, and there is something to that. There is also a martini here worth crossing town for.
Three bars in one room is a real idea, not a marketing line, and the martini program alone would justify the trip.
Editorial Deep
The Potocki Martini is the drink to order. Small-batch double-distilled unfiltered Polish rye, served clean, and it tastes like the bartender has stopped trying to hide the spirit and started trying to frame it. The filthy variant is worth asking about — the bar keeps four olive garnishes and will talk you through the difference, which tells you how much thought went into it. If you want the martini program to make its case in one sip, this is where it makes it.
Conversation is possible at a normal volume, which for a Midtown bar at 10 PM is not the default. The room is quieter than Cote 550 downstairs and reads more lobby bar than scene bar — deliberately. Rockwell Group did the interior; Martin Creed did the neon. The sixty-foot atrium and the living Norfolk pine growing through the middle of it are the room, and they do the work no amount of banquette upholstery could.
Expense accounts, hotel guests staying nearby, Cote regulars trading up to a quieter room, and a steady thread of finance couples on second dates. The crowd is older and better-dressed than the downstairs crowd, and the volume stays civilized because of it. This is not a bar where anyone is waiting on your stool at 11 PM — the turnover is polite. If you want a scene, go downstairs. If you want to hear the person you came with, this is the room in this building.
The $95 Dinner at Chimera prix-fixe is the sleeper value — banchan-style shared hors d'oeuvres, then an entrée, and it removes the decision-making for a table of four. The line item that's hard to defend is any second cocktail off the specialty list once the novelty of the first one wears off; the martinis are the program, and the rest is scenery.
Come back after 10 PM, when late-night discount pricing kicks in and the room settles into its better version. Sit at the martini bar, order the Potocki, add the corndogs, and let the night decide whether a second round happens. The bar is not trying to be a destination cocktail temple — it is trying to be the best hotel-adjacent bar in Midtown, and on the martini program alone it lands close. Skip it if you want a scene, if you want cheap, or if a headline Pappy Old Fashioned reads as a punchline rather than a menu item.
Order this
Drink this.
Potocki Martini; Dinner at Chimera $95 prix-fixe for four
“Go for the Potocki. Skip the headline Pappy Old Fashioned unless someone else is paying.”
Bar Chimera is the best hotel-adjacent bar in Midtown on the martini program alone. The whiskey bar rewards curiosity, the wine list is serious, and the room is quiet enough to talk. The specialty menu drifts into gimmick after the first round, and the pricing floor is high. Sit at the martini bar, order the Potocki, and treat the rest as scenery.
The Verdict
