Martinis from clean to very dirty, as well as 'tinis channeling everything from watermelon to chocolate cake, plus bar bites like you've never seen before from Kubo chef Roy Villacrusis, are all on the menu of Cleve Mash's Dirty Martini (11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Ave.; 561-799-1115) bar 'n' lounge, coming to Palm Beach Gardens later this month.
Mash, the guy behind Feelgoods, Lost Weekend, and Monarchy, took over the old Strip House restaurant in the resurgent Downtown at the Gardens mall and set about remaking the 8,600-square-foot space into a midcentury-modern martini bar/lounge/dance club.
Giant oak doors, green crystal chandeliers, and lighted bar tops will
grace the tripartite space, which features an air-conditioned outdoor
terrace with 14 TVs for chillin', a "high-energy main room to dance the
night away," and a more intimate area for watching all the action.
To
handle the food side of things, Mash called on Villacrusis, who came up
with a "bar bites from Mars" kind of menu, taking dishes familiar to
anyone who's ever hoisted a cold one in the local watering hole and
giving them a serious tweaking.
You want an example? How about
the chef's version of potato skins: a whole potato cut into long
strings with a Japanese spiral cutter, then threaded on skewers and
deep-fried, with all the usual potato-skin fixins -- bacon, cheese, sour
cream -- turned into powders and sprinkled on top. You'll need some kind of
wacky martini to compete with that.
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