Bar of the Week: The Clover Club

The Clover Club is the newest addition to Brooklyn's slew of sophisticated drinkeries, which includes Williamsburg's Hotel Delmano and Prospect Heights's Weather Up, and with Flatiron Lounge mixologist Julie Reiner at the helm, this Boerum Hill boîte holds its own against the competition. The Clover Club is decked out with turn-of-the-century décor accents like mahogany claw-foot bar stools, crystal chandeliers, marble floors and upholstered walls, recalling the late Victorian men's club it takes from which it takes its name. The space had only been opened a few days when we visited last Saturday, but the tables and booths lining a front room were already snatched up by eager cocktail snobs when we arrived early in the evening. A curtained off back room, complete with a marble tiled fireplace and a mirrored ceiling, was host to a T-shirt and jeans-clad crew at the bar and girls in cocktail dresses perched on the room's velvet settees. For the rubes, ourselves included, too bashful to ask what exactly a mule or a swizzle is, the monogrammed leather–bound drink menu doubles as a sort of family tree, with sections divvied up by classic cocktail types and their forgotten ancestry, ie. "Sours & Daisies" (a daisy is a sour diluted with a dash of soda water) and "Juleps & Smashes" (a smash is a julep with extra muddled citrus). Taking the excellent recommendation of our server (who was wearing a decidedly un Victorian getup of leather pants and platform heels) we ordered the tangy Bermuda Swizzle, a tangy concoction of dark rum, pineapple, lime, sugar cane liqueur Velvet Falernum and sugar ($10), which came complete with chunks of fresh pineapple and the Champagne Cobbler, a bright mix of rose champagne, citrus zest and berries ($11). The food menu offers simple, classic small plates like molasses glazed chicken drumettes and deviled eggs garnished with salsa cruda, mushroom duxelles, tapenade, and bacon ($7). All and all, the Clover Club adds a little good-natured swank to the Smith Street bar scene. It’s the perfect place for cocktail aficionados and novices alike to pull up a settee and sip away.

The Clover Club
210 Smith St., Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
(718) 855-7939

Photo from Bergen Carroll