The residency is part of the hotel bar’s Visiting Bar Luminary Series, which will also host Laurent Tourondel of LT Hospitality and Meaghan Dorman of Raines Law Room and Dear Irving.
Speaking to Drinks International, the team behind Schmuck, Moe Aljaff and Juliette Larrouy described how the residency would be a preview for their new bar which is due to open in the Lower East Side of Manhattan after the Summer.
“It’s great for us to be able to invite people and showcase what we've been working on and what the bar will be like,” said Aljaff.
“We’re only doing the residency two days a week, so we can give them a taste of the bar and introduce people to our vibe while being able to work on our bar at the same time. There will be an easel with the floorplan and how the bar will look so people who come down will be able to get a preview of what’s to come.
“In terms of the drinks, the service, to have the chance to talk to people about what we’re working on. It’s the Kimpton Hotel, so we can’t start painting things, but the design of the interior is so important to us and there will be elements on show.”
The residency will be an opportunity for New York to get more of a flavour for Larrouy and Aljaff, and vice versa, the duo are firm that it’s not a space for them to do their growing up in public.
“The drinks that will be at the residency won’t change,” said Larrouy. “I don’t see it as a place to test things out, the drinks should already be perfect when people order them.
“We only have eight cocktails to show so that’s been a challenge, we want them all to be memorable, we want to showcase the kind of thing we are thinking for the bar. Some might make it onto the list when the bar opens, others won’t.”
The bar is currently on track to open at some point after the summer, notoriously bureaucratic New York liquor licence permitting, and while the pair are keen not to lose any of the fun that made their Barcelona venues so revered, the New York venue will be a more elevated experience.
“Two Schmucks was a reflection of who I was in my late 20s, it was a dive bar with great service and great cocktails,” said Aljaff. “The new place will be a reflection of who we are today. We’re into some different stuff design-wise, food-wise, drink-wise, we still want it to be fun and for the service and cocktails to be great, but an evolution of what we were doing before.”
