SURVEY OF MARTINIS: QUILL

Of the 4 or so historic downtown hotel bars - The St. Regis bar, Off the Record, and the Round Robbin bar have committed to their dated charms, The Mayflower bar/restaurant underwent an egregious modernization some years ago that feels like a Clarendon Courtyard Marriott bar, Quill is attempting to thread the needle of trad and contemporary.

The bar is tucked away past the lobby, but opens to a well hedged terrace on 16th street, prime for afternoon drinks and cigarettes when we used to be a real country. The front parlour room reads traditional, with rich mahogany wood paneled walls, but without any withering antiques or Persian rugs, and minimal ornamentation. All correct height lounge furniture (no hightops) in a non-descript, transitional style. Beyond this room you find the bar, centered around a curvy, self illuminated acrylic counter in a Veuve Clicquot orange colorway; not demure. There was an opportunity here to really lean into a Gen-X Soft Club vibe, but they were content with just a glossy ‘feature’ bar.

The preferred hotel bar TVs are undersized, obsolete Sony flat screens (much like the obsolete Sony Trinitrons at your rich friend’s house growing up, because the new tech was gauche) installed somewhere you might never notice, away from the direct site of most guests. At Quill you have a large flat screen right in your face playing Thursday night football with closed captions, and I don’t care for any of this.

Among the historic hotel bars, only Quill has had the full ‘mixologist’ revamp. They used to offer a super cringe, coconut oil washed, saffron infused, Chartreuse/madeira, gold leaf, smoke bubble topped cocktail situation for $100 dubbed the Centennial. I hope it was worth it… On my last visit, they had an elaborate espresso martini, but zero gin martinis on the list. Most often the small premium for top shelf (Sipsmith or Botanist would be my choice at Quill) is worth the already steep entry price for Tanqueray. The glass is prechilled with some ice water, gin is measured and stirred with big ice in a crystal mixing glass, well strained with good clarity, and standard-premium pimento stuffed olives, and I doubt they have any prepared olive brine. It’s all… fine, but it falls short of expectations for a high-brow martini. Their program has invested in seasonally inspired spirit infusions of every sort, “verjus gastrique”, Polynesian glassware and pebble ice where it’s warranted; it’s not unreasonable to expect a more rigorous approach to super chilling the gin and maintaining that chill in the glass, or just some quirk or sense of generosity to its service would go a long way.

Quill is ultimately an ‘elevated’ cocktail lounge that offers a reliable sanctuary for a spur of the moment rendezvous, without the bustle and compromised service of Round Robbin and Off the Record, and it’s very much where you would suggest meeting your posh recently divorced aunt for drinks, and throw in the caviar devilled eggs, and she’ll order the salmon, without looking at the menu, and rest assured, the kitchen would prepare an off menu entree of seared salmon, haricot vert and tarragon mustard creme sauce.