Trick Dog

Trick Dog has, since 2013, been doing a thing where every six months they redesign their entire cocktail menu around a new conceit. A vinyl record. A zodiac. A flowchart of conspiracy theories. Each menu is printed and bound and lies on the bar like a small art-school zine, and each menu has, somewhere in its twenty-or-so drinks, three or four of the best cocktails being made in the city right now.

The bar is on 20th, in the Mission, in a building that used to be an industrial something. Geometric black-and-white tile floor. Long copper bar. Hand-labeled bottles of housemade tinctures and shrubs and infusions in the back. The lighting is intentional but not aggressive. The music is on but you are not aware of what it is. The bartenders know what they are doing, and they know that you know that they know what they are doing, and the result is a kind of unspoken collaboration where you are, briefly, a guest in their work.

Order a smoked old-fashioned. Watch them do the thing with the dome and the smoke. Then order a Manhattan, because their Manhattan, with its house-stretched cherry and its careful build, is a Manhattan you will compare unfavorably with every other Manhattan you have for the rest of your life. Then, if you are still sitting up, ask the bartender what they would order, and order that.

Trick Dog is a cocktail bar in the way that cathedrals are buildings. The discipline is high. The pretense, somehow, is low. You can get in without a reservation if you are willing to wait or come early. The food is small and intelligent. The menu zine is yours to keep. Take it home. The next one will be different.