Daniel Humm’s Clemente Bar Opens Above Eleven Madison Park

Cocktails can be just as complex as food and have certainly earned a lofty place in today’s drinks culture — as evidenced by outside-the-box bars, trends like learning to clarify drinks at home, and people’s growing penchant for luxury spirits. But can a drink be as nuanced as a piece of art?

Clemente Bar, the latest venture from Swiss-born chef and restaurateur Daniel Humm, will open on October 10 in the space above his three-Michelin-starred, plant-based fine dining restaurant Eleven Madison Park. Alongside its focus — a carefully developed cocktail menu — the bar will serve upscale finger foods like tempura fries and sake pickles.

The name of Humm’s new spot isn’t random. Clemente Bar is named after and inspired by Francesco Clemente, a contemporary Italian artist whose work often evokes bright colors, anthropomorphic figures, and whimsical, dream-like scenes. Art by Mr. Clemente, including two large murals, will be featured prominently inside the 701-square-foot bar space. (The venue also has an additional 81-square-foot area for a chef’s tasting counter, where a multi-course menu with cocktail pairings will be served.)

It’s not just the name and decor that will be filtered through an artistic lens at the 46-seat bar. The drinks menu here uses premium spirits as a base canvas, subtle brushstrokes of flavor that are built on top of one another, and — more literally — beautifully designed presentations to channel the spirit of Mr. Clemente’s work.

Eleven Madison Park’s beverage director, Sebastian Tollius, has been working on Clemente Bar’s menu for about eight months. Tollius tells me that “unlike the Eleven Madison Park cocktail menu, the selection for Clemente is not strictly driven by the seasons,” but it will be plant-based. The available offerings will start with about 15 cocktails, but Tollius plans to add more over time — some drinks will remain staples at the establishment while others rotate through.

To give the menu an overarching structure, drinks are divided into categories that hint at their composition or tasting notes, like “fresh,” low ABV, carbonated drinks, clarified concoctions, spirit-forward tipples, and whipped beverages (those created in the style of an egg white cocktail). As Tollius notes, among these varied sections “one through-line is that each cocktail is quite simple and refined in its presentation, but highly technical in its composition and complex in flavor.”

The 5th Leaf, a pisco- and vodka-based beverage from the fresh section of the lineup, shows the level of detail that Tollius has infused into each seemingly simple drink. It’s bright and refreshing — as you’d expect something dubbed “fresh” to be — and tastes like crisp pears, thanks to pear brandy and aromas from a delicate circle of punched-out pear resting on top. 

But there are layers beyond that initial fresh, fruity flavor; the pisco is infused with shiso for subtle herbal notes, and a smoked sunchoke spirit from Matchbook Distilling gives the cocktail an unexpected earthy backbone. This is the kind of light and thought-provoking drink I’d want to start the evening with.

As you sip your way through the creative, nuanced options that Tollius has crafted, you’ll notice a few clear themes appearing throughout all of the categories. Time is referenced in more ways than one; ingredients are fermented and aged in-house, like a pistachio miso that’s used in one of Clemente Bar’s highball cocktails (Tollius seems to have perfected the art of making miso out of anything). 

Another offering from the fresh section of the menu, the Apples to Oranges, will immediately make you nostalgic for an orange creamsicle with its rich, citrusy flavor. That’s exactly what the beverage director is hoping for, saying “We want these drinks to transport you somewhere — maybe to a childhood memory, a familiar place, or a favorite meal.”

Despite this reference, it’s not overly sweet: Reposado tequila, yuzu, and blood orange amaro keep the drink tart with a touch of bitterness, while Calvados adds a trace of apple (hence the name), making the beverage taste nuanced enough to feel fitting among the other cocktails at Clemente Bar. A splash of finely ground dehydrated orange and sarsaparilla salt looks like it’s almost been spray-painted onto the outside of the glass — adding a pop of salinity while referencing the bar’s artistic inspiration.

Among all the tipples that I tasted, my favorite was the Negroni Colada. This smartly developed drink literally changes over time; it starts out as a play on a combination of a White Negroni and a Piña Colada, made with coconut and pineapple rums, and bitter bianco vermouth, before being fat-washed with coconut milk. Nestled atop a large cube of clear ice is a small, deep red disk of ice: the frozen components of a traditional Negroni. As the ice melts, your beverage takes on a slight pink hue and becomes more reminiscent of the classic cocktail — while still retaining its tropical notes. If you (like me) love both bitter flavors and coconut, then this is what you should order.

To align with the plant-based ethos that Eleven Madison Park famously adopted in 2021, you won’t find any animal products on the ingredient list for Clemente Bar. Tollius explains that the establishment makes many of its vegan components in-house, like creams created with chickpeas or koji. 

For any item that might call for an egg white — which whips up into a delicate white foam that gives body to and sits on top of a drink — the bar simply subs in aquafaba, the viscous cooking liquid from a can of chickpeas. Aquafaba is a common replacement for eggs in vegan cooking, and Tollius notes that he thinks it actually froths more effectively than an egg white. 

I tasted one of the aquafaba drinks, a sour-style cocktail titled the Doctor’s Orders, and can confirm it’s not lacking the silky smooth and fluffy texture you’d expect. (Dark rum and peated scotch add aged, smoky elements to this tart tipple — and it’s finished with a vivid spritz of orange bitters that gets an extra-intense hue from annatto seeds. It does look like a work of art.)

One of the boldest and most creative cocktails among the Clemente Bar lineup is La Tomatina. This light and fizzy offering features white chocolate-washed blanco tequila, along with a shio koji marinated tomato water, olive sake, and clarified white chocolate amazake. Somehow each of these ingredients manages to subtly come through — you do indeed taste both tomato and olives, while the white chocolate is the most predominant tasting note. The result is a slightly sweet and refreshing drink that would be ideal for after dinner. The very white-chocolate-forward flavor might clash with a savory dish, but it’s perfect for ending a meal; and the acidic, herbal tomato water is a nice palate cleanser.

Surprisingly, it turns out white chocolate and tomatoes do go together — and it’s this kind of avant-garde thinking that reflects the artistic inspiration at the core of Clemente Bar. Garnishes that look like they’re painted on, an evolving Negroni, and the ability to convince me I like either white chocolate or tomatoes (let alone both in one glass), are a few of the reasons I’ll be returning.