An ornate bar recently opened in NoMad that’s loaded with interesting antiques and nods to the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The bar, fittingly called Oscar Wilde, found a home inside the historic building that was formerly the Prohibition Enforcement Headquarters.
Stepping into the bar will feel like you took the red eye in a time machine to the past. It’d be hard to tell the it’s a new bar if you stumbled upon it unknowingly. When inside you get the sense that it’s been there forever (or, well, at least since the 1800s).
Paying homage to the playwright, the bar gives off a Victorian era vibe with its opulent collection of decor from the period between the 1700s through 1800s—such as the 1840s French fireplace made of marble, a 1819 Player Piano, and beautiful stained glass from Milan.
If you look closely you’ll even notice that all of the antique clocks (26 of them to be exact) are set to the time of Wilde’s death, 1:50.
Oscar Wilde is also a restaurant, with plenty of seating for those who choose to dine in. Fun fact, at 118.5 feet it’s NYC’s longest bar.
The cocktails are broken up into four clever categories: the Wise Guy, Victorian, Prohibition, and Seasonal. And it should be mentioned that they serve absinthe drip from a traditional absinthe fountain! Which, if you’ve never seen it, is really fun to watch the bartender make in front of you. Other cocktails include the The Happy Prince (bison grass vodka, peach liqueur, Alvear pale cream sherry, lemon, plum bitters, and peach); Prohibition Manhattan (Rittenhouse rye, Carpano Antica vermouth, angostura bitter, and cherry served in a tea cup); and the Godfather (pig’s nose scotch, lemon, and amaretto).
The food menu, on the other hand, is short but filled with delicious options. Some include lamb tartare, buffalo cauliflower, Wilde burger, grilled cheddar Irish skellig, and cottage pie. In a word, yum!
We’ll have to add this to our list of the city’s literary-themed bars.
Featured image source: Oscar Wilde NYC