Let’s get the eye-roll out of the way first. Another hotel. Another waterfront build. If you’ve lived here longer than a weekend, you’ve earned the right to sigh.
But The Crossing at The Cooper — the new restaurant inside The Cooper hotel — landed in a spot that’s hard to argue with: tucked between Waterfront Park and Fleet Landing, right on the water, on what the Post and Courier’s Kalyn Oyer affectionately calls “the tourist side” of town.
“This one in particular may actually provide an opportunity for a one-off happy hour adventure,” she wrote in the Post and Courier — and as a fellow skeptic, that’s a sentence worth sitting with.
Here’s the pitch. You walk the waterfront path from the Waterfront Park fountain, climb a set of stairs, and you’re in: patio seating outside, a wraparound bar inside, and window views that turn a barstool swivel into an ocean panorama.
The martini menu is the move.
Beverage Director Cameron Nadler spent his last few years in New York, where the martini revival has been in full, theatrical swing. He brought it home with him. There’s a whole page of them. Build your own — vodka or gin, dry or dirty, up or rocks, olives or a twist. Or order off the “Classic” and “Adventurous” lists: The Cooper with gin and a house brine, the 0-0-7 with gin, vodka, Lillet Blanc and grapefruit bitters, the Caliente No. 5 with serrano-infused vodka and harissa for the brave. Nadler says a roaming martini cart is coming to the dining room soon. Of course it is.
This isn’t really about the martinis, though.
What’s interesting is the restraint. Nadler isn’t chasing gimmicks — he’s tweaking classics with one or two ingredients. Hibiscus and rose on a margarita. A Jungle Bird stripped of pineapple, rebuilt with lemon, cherry preserve and amaro. The Oracle of Delos, with chamomile-infused gin, lavender and honey, sounds like something you’d want on a porch in May.
“Coming from the New York bar scene, it got crazy,” Nadler said. “Here, I want to do the classics really well with maybe a few ingredients changed.”
A word of warning: most cocktails run $20 or more. This is not your Tuesday spot. It’s the splurge you book when a friend’s in town and you want to remember why people pay to visit your city. Order the spread tasting — pick three from hummus, htipiti, muhammara and baba ganoush — and let the view do the rest.
And yes, Nadler has a beagle named Bagel. It has nothing to do with anything. We just thought you should know.
This is a summary of an article published in the Post and Courier. Click here if you’d like to read that article.
