Nightlife
The Ginza Hour, Don't Be Shy Opens in Hudson Square
Don't Be Shy brings the quiet precision of Tokyo's classic bars to Hudson Square
The ice cube is made of tomato water. It sits in a drink called Windy and Warm, built on mezcal flavored with horseradish, with Campari, sudachi, and jalapeño alongside. It is the kind of detail that tells you where you are. That is Don't Be Shy, a new cocktail bar at 68 Charlton Street in Hudson Square, on the block between Hudson and Varick. The bar says it draws its inspiration from the classic bars of Ginza in Tokyo.
The bar's own website announced a soft opening starting August 28. Eater NY reports that it opened on Tuesday, September 22. The hours are short and exact. Tuesday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to midnight, with last seating at 11:30. Reservations go through Tock.
Precision Over Performance
Don't Be Shy lays out its thinking on its website, and the pitch is brief. It describes the people working the bar as "a team that values precision over performance." The cocktails, in the bar's telling, are its own inventions, drawn from Japanese history, the turn of the seasons, and the small textures of the culture. The site is careful to say they are not attempts to reproduce classic Japanese recipes. They are one bartender's reading of them.
The man behind the counter is head bartender Shinya Yamao. According to Eater, he worked at Piora, the Michelin-starred restaurant that has since closed, and at Shigure, the sake bar that ran in Tribeca for a decade. That résumé sits right on the line between New York fine dining and Japanese drinking culture, which is exactly where this bar wants to live.
The site is careful to say they are not attempts to reproduce classic Japanese recipes.
The pitch ends by asking guests to step away from New York for an evening and feel a bit nearer to Tokyo. It is a big promise for a bar on a Hudson Square side street. The menu is where it gets tested.
A Trip to Japan, at the Counter
The headline act is a signature list called Trip to Japan. The Infatuation describes it as a set of drinks named for places in Japan, including a swizzle made with Okinawan rum. There is one catch, and it is a telling one. The bar's drink menu marks the Trip to Japan cocktails as available at the counter only. The best seats are the ones closest to the work.
Eater, for its part, describes a menu built around the regions and food traditions of Japan, and singles out a drink called the Edo. The name is the old one for Tokyo. It mixes a vodka flavored with sweet potato and miso with vermouth and an ice cube of Campari and sweet potato, a nod to the sweet potato snacks once sold on the streets of old Tokyo. Eater does not say which section of the menu it belongs to.
The rest of the list is split into sections with a sense of humor. The Original is the house cocktail menu, at $24 a drink. Leaves Falling pairs black tea gin with Calvados, apple juice, maple, and lemon. Sunset Romance mixes gin with kirsch, cherry brandy, and lemon. Filthy Mind is a martini riff with honey vodka, an olive gin, vermouth bianco, olive juice, and a honey blue cheese olive. ScuzzleButt pours Iichico Shinwa with celery syrup, chili tincture, lemon, and soda. P&T blends Caol Ila 12 and Laphroaig 10 with a tonic the menu calls Shiny's.
The classics menu is called Nothing Special, also $24. Dry martini, gimlet, Moscow mule, espresso martini, Negroni, a rye Manhattan, and a whisky mizuwari at market price. The nonalcoholic list goes by Pretender Drinks, at $16. Purple Town is built on house red shiso with tonic and soda. Pompelmenthe pairs grapefruit with tonic, mint, and a zero-proof blue curaçao. Cola Bianca is a house white cola.
The best seats are the ones closest to the work.
The back bar leans the way you would hope. The whisky list runs deep into Japan, with Hakushu, Hibiki, Yamazaki, and a long run of Nikka bottles. The food is small and pointed. The Infatuation mentions sandos and tuna tartare. Eater names wagyu and egg salad sandos.
Why It Matters After Dark
New York has no shortage of serious cocktail bars. What Don't Be Shy offers, on paper, is a smaller and more personal version of the form. A counter. Five nights a week. A menu with jokes in the section names and careful work in the glass.
The hours are worth noting too. Midnight is an early close by downtown standards. That suits the style. This does not read like a room built for the fourth round and the wrong decision. It reads like a room for one drink done well, maybe two, and then out into the night before the city gets loud. We once wrote about a bar with only six seats and a waitlist to match. Don't Be Shy seems to share the same belief. The best part of a night out can be the smallest one.
The name is an invitation. Take a seat at the counter, where the Trip to Japan list lives, and see what arrives.
Don't Be Shy is at 68 Charlton Street in Hudson Square. It is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to midnight, with last seating at 11:30 p.m.