CityLife

Apotheca

Apotheka: NQ bonus

CITYLIFE.co.uk is very excited about this new arrival to the Northern Quarter. The sexy sister bar to new pizza joint Dough, Apotheca ticked all of our boxes. Which, being a professional barfly and cynic, doesn’t happen very often. Let us tell you how it did it…

It started at the front door. No branding, which seemed to bode well. When you’re good you don’t need to shout about it: it’s a sign of confidence. And it wasn’t misplaced.  

The venue is dark, slick and characterful. Behind the bar, the apothecary theme plays out in a floor-to-ceiling wooden cupboard with tiny drawers, half of which are pulled open and loaded with premium spirits. Innovative design and serious about spirits? This was getting good.  

The drinks offer, we can confirm, is pure quality. Plenty of taps on the bar are evidence of a down to earth mentality appropriate for the NQ circuit (cocktail bars traditionally ditch draught and go the bottled route).  

Options? On-trend world lagers, including the new Stella 4 per cent.  

Perfectly balanced  

Then to the cocktails, which is where CityLife got most excited. The staff – friendly, helpful – made some suggestions based on our favourite spirits that resulted in a Bald Eagle for me (a gorgeous tequila, pink grapefruit and cranberry juice number); a Cucumber Collins (Hendrick’s, cucumber, lemon and soda) and an Espresso Martini (espresso coffee, Grey Goose vodka, Kahlua and a touch of sugar syrup).  

Every drink was competently built, perfectly balanced and beautifully garnished by the spot-on staff.  

By the time we went downstairs to the basement lounge – industrial columns, bare brick feature walls, hotel-standard finishes in the toilets – we were won over.  

The Dough/Apotheca set-up occupies the corner plot opposite Bluu: the place that’s been aching for some action since the Northern Quarter evolved into the best place to drink in town.  

Fantastically apprpriate  

Now this surprisingly large landmark space has a fantastically appropriate occupant.

The only problem with bars this good is that they encourage people to leave their usual circuits.  

Perma tans the wrong side of amber; cash-flashing and label loving doesn’t go down well in this part of town.

The battle between snobbery and reverse snobbery may well have a new front line.