Inside The Abbot's Cellar Media Preview Party [Updated]

Grid View

• The host stand up front
• more seating
• Open kitchen in the foreground, left. Bar in the back, left.
• The bar area
• 24 taps
• seating along the right-hand side of the dining room
• GM Hal Russek chats to the staff prior to the media party
• Staff looks on
• The open hearth in the open kitchen
• Dulye sends out pea shots.
• A little beer taste
• The beer-bottle-shaped sink well!
• Owner and beer maestro Christian Albertson dishes to a reporter.
• Dulye plates the albacore bite.
• bison-draped corn fritter
• The menu of bites served last night
• hop sugared donuts with caramelized peach dipping sauce
• 20 taps total. Two cask engines will be installed today.
• Cookbooks lined up at the open kitchen
• Adam Dulye

Last night, members of the press got a preview of Abbot's Cellar, the much-anticipated "high-end," craft beer-centric restaurant from Monk's Kettle's owners, Christian Albertson and Nat Cutler. Chef Adam Dulye oversaw an impressive array of bites for an opening party. Several of them were even paired with tastes of the appropriate beer. Attendees also got a nice, hearty peek at the interior, which is sort of like a country barn on steroids, with an open hearth in the kitchen and a gorgeous beer glass-lined back bar. Read more notes from the party below, and be sure to peruse the captions in the above gallery for additional detail. Abbot's Cellar should open to the public some time next week. 1) Prior to last night, news had spread that this was going to be a huge and dramatic Olle Lundberg design in a former auto garage: a 3000-square-foot space, including 24-foot ceilings, exposed brick walls, exposed floor-to-ceiling wooden beams, and skylights overhead. But nobody knew about the very cool beer bottle-shaped sink well in the shared gender-style restrooms until last night.

2) As you can see above, the front of the dining room is long and narrow, opening up to another semi-private dining area in the back. The chefs counter sits closer to the door on the left, bleeding into bar seating towards the back. Regular seating lines the right-hand side of the room.

3) The bar is dramatic, lined with classic clear glassware for a monochromatic, unified look in lieu of the usual rows of branded, colorful bottles.

5) An impressive two-story stone beer cellar will be filled with beer over the weekend. Currently, all Abbot's beers are over in the cellar at Monk's. The cellar at Abbot's will hold all the beer needed to back up the inventory, as well as all beer they are cellaring for the vintage list, events, future use, etc. That room is held at 55 degrees.

6) Favorite bites from the night included a corn fritter blanketed in a rosy, thin slab of bison meat; a shot of pea soup flavored with ham hock, and pickled albacore pieces piled with cucumber, radish and pea tendrils, paired to The Brooklyn Brewery's Sorachi Ace beer.

7) Since none of the bites served will be on the opening menu, Eater leaves you with a few items that probably will:

· Carrot soup, puffed quinoa, carrot salad

· Chilled Turnip, hot smoked salmon, blackberries and coriander

· Braised white sea bass, poached potato, snap peas, carrot broth and clams

· Roasted quail green garlic sausage, apricots, spelt granola

· Beef bone marrow, house pastrami, spicy greens, pickled mustard seed, rye

· Braised goat ragu, gnocchi, pecorino

· Dry aged strip loin, spring onions, pardon peppers, crispy hen of the woods

· Ricotta agnolotti, peas, pea tendrils, smoked lemon butter

· All Abbot's Cellar Coverage [~ ESF ~]