Grace Tavern

Grace is the word. 

I'm totally biased toward Grace Tavern, one of Philadelphia Magazine's top spots to get a drink. A spot listed within the "Craft Beer" section of the list, (though it would easily fit in the "Neighborhood Bar" section)  I can confirm that it is definitely a neighborhood favorite because I live around the corner. A hole in the wall that sits catty corner to South Street on the very end of Gray's Ferry Ave, it's a simple spot to get a great burger, seriously weird and delicious green beans, and to choose from an always exciting craft beer selection.

Here's Philadelphia Magazine's take on Grace: With a great beer list and a full menu served till 2 a.m. (which means frites and sausages right up until last call), Grace is the neighborhood bar you wish was in your neighborhood. It might also be the only place in town that makes us excited to eat green beans.

Because Grace is one of my favorite neighborhood bars, I have seen how it looks it with its make up on, after it just rolled out of bed, when it was grumpy to have company over it did not particularly like, and everything in between. In the case of the company? Saint Patrick's Day crowd. My boyfriend, Ian, and I decided to stroll over to Grace for a beer on St Patrick's Day because we felt sure that Grace was safe from four leaf clover alien antennas and flashing Bud Lite lapel pins. We were wrong. And the bartenders, though clearly silently irritated with the influx of non-neighborhood, hammered, and bedazzled patrons, were very welcoming to us after we told them we were had just moved into the neighborhood. So just act cool and don't try it out on St. Patrick's day, for goodness sakes.

I've seen Grace on an average every day and night, both weekend and weekday, and it's typically busy but not crowded, and there are certainly no bells and whistles when it comes to this place. In the case of the bathrooms, it's more like there are no wheels and breaks to the place if we're staying with the locomotive analogy. Ladies, I hope you don't mind staring into a urinal whilst using the bathroom, because your face will be less than a foot from one here. But it's worth it because the beer selection is out of this world. The bartenders know what they're talking about and are always happy to offer a taste before you commit. When I moved to Philadelphia, I discovered a lot of the local breweries at Grace. I had my first Yards beer at Grace, in fact. The burgers are as good as everyone says they are - really. And the blackened green beans, while the weirdest thing I've had at a divey bar, are also definitely one of the best things about eating at Grace. I've never been this excited by eating something that tasted like burnt grill bits, but somehow here it's delicious.

I've also strolled in with a friend from out of town to have a drink in the middle of the day. I got to know the bartenders and found that they're offbeat, funny, and nice. And you know how I know for sure that this is a  neighborhood bar? I ran into one of the bar backs at  7-11 the other day and had a little catch up session about my last trip in.

Grace Tavern is a solid bar with solid food and beer. I always get exactly what the bartender recommends for me - something in a stout or a white beer, and whatever is seasonal. I always have a nice time, and if you just want a bar to go have a drink without any fuss, take the trip over to Center City West/Fitler Square/Graduate Hospital (depending on who you're talking to) and try it out. Yeah, it's dark and dirtyish, and rough around the edges, but I think that's exactly how its meant to be.

Arbitrarily assigned grade: Solid B. Lots of points thanks to a great beer menu & good food. Letter taken off for how close my face has to get to a urinal when using the bathroom.

Ranstead Room

Sex & Candy. And amazing cocktails.

The Ranstead Room shot to the top of my priorities list quickly when organizing the list of Philly Mag’s 85 best bars. This was based mostly on my understanding that it was a speakeasy sort of a place. I didn’t know much else about it, including the fact that it was a Starr spot. And if that makes me sound like I’m out of touch, forget not, darlings: I’m new to town. I also know that I have more of the same in store at Franklin Mortgage and Southwark, but come with me on my new-to-town journey. How often does anyone blog the Philly food and drink scene with totally fresh eyes? I went to Ranstead Room during the most jolly of seasons, the work holiday party season. It’s that magical time when companies all over town treat their employees to a rare open bar on a weeknight, and employees then scatter to continue drinking off the company dime, but with no chaperons. My boyfriend, Ian, met me at Tria after his company holiday party, and we then carried on to Ranstead Room, and well, we were pretty jolly and bright by the time we turned the corner onto the dark alleyway that is Ranstead street between 20th and 21st and found the only door that leads to something other than the back of a store. The only indication that it is anything other than the back of a store is the red RR that marks the door. Beyond that door is a small entryway that could be an out of service elevator shaft as much as the entrance to a cocktail bar.

…But before I go on, let’s first check out what Philadelphia Magazine wrote about Ranstead Room: Think of it as a grittier, more authentic backup when you can’t get into Franklin Mortgage. A perfect makeout bar because it’s pitch-black and has pictures of boobs everywhere—plus, the craft cocktails are delicious and will knock you flat.

Yep. We walked in and found immediate sensory overload. Red! Velvet! Leather! Boooooobies! Okay, it’s not the circus I’m describing. There’s a pretty serious, heavy vibe once you enter. It’s quiet, but not library-quiet. No, it's grown-up quiet, the quiet of people who take their drinking seriously and are here to socialize as much as they are to take a purposeful dive into a creative and extraordinarily well executed cocktail menu.

We took a spot at the bar a few seats down from a group of suits, whose happy hour had apparently extended into happy hours. Big, comfy red leather bar stools face a huge, sturdy wooden bar lined with bowls of fresh fruit garnishes instead of sad tubs of pre-cut lemons, limes and maraschino cherries you usually see within the bartender’s reach. Instead, bowls of oranges, pomegranates, a variety of herbs, and spices and jars of fresh juice lined the bar. This was starting to get exciting fast.

Our bartender, Alisha, came over and talked us through some points of interest the menu, including an awkward exchange about the New York Flip, a result of me trying to explain my new fear of egg flips and fizzes after my unfortunate gin fizz experience at the Farmer's Cabinet a few weeks back. She promised me that my fizz wouldn’t arrive in solid form, and I trusted her because frankly, I could immediately tell this girl knew her way around a cocktail menu. While she was shaking (seriously, she surely has a shake weight at home with the caliber of fizz-shaking-skills she brought to the table) we chatted, and she realized she had cocktail enthusiasts on her hands, which seemed to excite her, which got me all excited, and so from this moment forward, I was in tipsy, excited, cocktail heaven. And as a heads up to you other mixology lovers, she mentioned what sounds like a really rad event held at Le Bec Fin on Thursday nights focusing on teaching the ins and outs of making cocktails the proper way. (I’ll definitely be going to one, and writing about it later.)

After lots of careful mixing and shaking, my New York Flip was ready. Nutmeggy, eggy deliciousness, my friends. With bourbon, port and obviously egg yolk, it’s foamy and thick on top, but still creamy and drinkable, and has a cool, rich body. It would be the perfect cocktail on a snowy day. 

My boyfriend had a more refreshing, maybe even out of season if I do say so, cocktail of gin, lime, cucumber, and mint, called the Eastsider. A bright, tart drink, It was definitely a departure from my egg nog on steroids, so who knows what it’s like on a fresh palate, but even with my senses turned in a different direction, it was an awesome, cocktail I’d definitely recommend. My love fest continued as I ordered a few more drinks off of this seriously interesting and inventive menu. I worked my way through a a Major Bailey (gin and mint, another tart, sweet choice) and an Apple Jack 75 (Apple Jack, lemon, champagne.) My boyfriend had a Chin Chin (bourbon, apple, ginger) and ever adventurous, let Alisha the Bartender take the reigns and make a Bartender’s Choice drink, which I in no way can describe because well, I was kind of hammered by the time we ordered our last drink. I practically asked Alisha the Bartender to marry me, we paid our tab, and gushed about how awesome it was and how much we are Stephen Starr’s bitches wee wee wee all the way home. 

We returned to Ranstead Room the next week in a much more sober state to double check that our yuletide pre-gaming at Tria hadn't made for a rosier picture than we would have usually seen. Nope. Just as awesome. It was a Sunday and a different crowd with different bartenders. One was clearly in training and had invited his friends to visit his new bar (they seemed perplexed at how nerdily we poured over the cocktail menu as they sipped beer.) The more experienced barkeep, Derrick, was a pretty committed mixology geek, and we had some solid  drinks courtesy of his shake weight training, too. I had a Violete Fizz, which is a weirdly complex, but at the same time simple drink made of gin, violette, lemon and egg white. It’s a murky, cloudy purple mixture served in a glass you’d expect to be used to serve bathtub gin, with a nice fluffy egg fizz on top. It’s was deep, silky smooth, and dark, but with a little citrus zip tap dancing around the main flavor profile. 

Philly.com, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s online offshoot, describes Ranstead Room perfectly - it’s a grown up cocktail bar, a postgraduate place to get a drink, and a bar for people who know what they’re drinking and have an appreciation for a talented mixologist, to paraphrase. This is not a bar to get wasted on $2 PBR (not that there’s anything wrong with a good Philly Special, now) and it’s not a bar where you have to worry about some undergrad on the stool next to you knocking back lemon drop shots using daddy’s credit card, and trying to figure out how likely she is to puke on your shoes. This is a serious cocktail nerd’s bar. 

In short, I might now be Ranstead Room’s #1 fan. And super-bonus for the Philly Mag description? They were totes right: On our second trip, there was a couple making out in a dark corner booth, and I’m pretty sure they were rounding second by the time we left. Good for them.

Arbitrary assigned grade: A+.

Tria Cafe

Tin cup for a chalice, fill it up with good red wine...

I have a big crush on wine, no pun intended (but I admit I enjoyed it.) I say crush because I know a lot about wine, but not nearly enough to call myself a wine expert, or even an advanced wine drinker. But I’ve been to a few classes, and know my way around a wine menu, and if I have a haven in this town, it’s the wine bar. Today I’m talking about Tria, one of  four wine bars featured in Philadelphia Magazine’s top places to drink in Philly. Here’s what Philly Mag has to say about Tria, located on 18th and Sansom, just north of Rittenhouse Square:

According to one regular, “Though I’ll drink by myself pretty much anywhere, I truly believe Tria is the best place in the city for a woman to drink alone. It attracts the most harmless jerks of any wine bar in the city.”

Tria was already one of my favorite places to have a drink in Philly before I started the project, so I won’t pretend I haven’t been there a million times.

The Pineville Tavern

Thank God I'm a Country Girl!

Due to circumstances out of my control, (those mainly having to do with my boyfriend's social life, post-high school in Moorestown, NJ) I spend a lot of time in South New Jersey. On farms. It occurred to me recently that I have been on more farms since I moved to Philly than I had been on in my entire childhood in North Carolina. And you guys. I went to a college that had its own farm and agriculture school. How's about that for irony? So when I found myself out in the country again the other day to pay a visit to Peddler's Village in sprawling Bucks County to see their Christmas Light display, I realized that the second bar I was going to visit for my tour of Philadelphia Magazine's Best Bars List was going to be in...the country.