BARS • First Round
It was a big summer for bars on the usually sleepy cobblestone stretch of Peck Slip at the South Street Seaport. On the corner of South Street, Paris Café — established 1873, but recently dormant — sprang back to life, serving a new French menu. And two blocks up, on the corner of Water Street, emerged Quick Eternity.
The two-level venue has a long bar space on the first floor and surprisingly elegant second-floor dining room, where, for the love of literature, they’re also selling books. When I pulled up to the downstairs bar — backed by an on-the-nose Moby Dick portrait and ersatz whale tusks — the talkative bartender welcomed us, then whipped up a round of the eponymous house cocktail of Perry’s Tot Navy Strength Gin, passionfruit, lemon, and absinthe. It’s citrusy and bright, the licorice absinthe note evident but not overpowering.
My second round, the Howling Infinite — “essentially a spicy margarita,” the bartender confided — arrived in an oversize frosted horn-shaped mug topped with crushed ice. Quite the show. But the pomp served a purpose, too, the cocktail initially too spicy but easing as the ice melted into the drink. My companion’s second drink, The Rachel, a bourbon sour topped with Madeira, also looked beautiful. Both rounds confirmed that this place knows how to mix them.
We weren’t planning on eating, but a patron at the other end of the bar directed our attention to corndog-battered lobster on the short menu, and the concept of a lobster corndog being so perfectly absurd, we ordered it. It arrived with two spears of lobster (“about half a tail’s worth”) and tartar sauce for dipping. Kooky as it sounded, it proved a delicious bite, slightly more elevated than it needed to be. Which is a good way to think about Quick Eternity, a worthy new escape from the canyons of Wall Street for an after-work hang. –Lockhart Steele
→ Quick Eternity (South Street Seaport) • 22 Peck Slip • Mon-Fri 4p-12a, Sat 2p-12a, Sun 2p-11p • Reserve (2nd-floor dining room).