I’ve gotten some details about the the drinks created at the Columbus Iron Bartender competition that I wrote up before. That post was little long to update with all this, so I’m doing a separate post. Here is what I have:

Brandon Bowsher of Martini Park
Jack Ginger Fresh

I used the pecan and apricot infused jack daniels, then made an infused simple syrup with the ginger root and fresh sliced pears. In addition I used whole fresh pineapple and muddled it to a fine pulp and then added fresh mint leaves into the remaining juice. I used a a little Tuaca and amaretto as well.
I also squeezed two fresh limes to help balance the sweetness.
And for the rim I used agave nectar and Grand Marnier, slightly warmed and placed on the rim of the martini glass to hold on fresh toasted, grated almonds, and an orange twist garnish.

Zak Renzetti-Voit of Black Olive
Pineapple Upside-down Ginger

I made a ginger simple syrup and muddled it with mint & cucumber. I added Hendricks Gin (infused w/ cucumber & rose petals) and dashed with Rhubarb bitters and a splash of soda. The kicker was the glass – I chopped the top off of a pineapple, hollowed it out, turned it upside down and stood it on its spiky top. So, it basically looked like an edible martini glass. It was delicious, but very refreshing.

(By the way, I’ve never seen anyone make a pineapple drinking vessel this way. Is it common in the Tiki world, or did Zak do something special here?)

Mike Vehlber of Hyde Park
Ginger Blood Orange Manhattan
I haven’t heard back from Mike yet. Hopefully this is just a placeholder paragraph until he gets me some information. The drink sounded pretty elegantly simple in construction

Cris Dehlavi of M at Miranova (Winner)

There you go, folks! They were all great. Now all you Columbus folks, go visit these guys and tell them I sent you.

As promised, Maggi and I went to the 2010 Columbus Iron Bartender competition at Cotters on Sunday. It was a fun party, and the competition was entertaining. The crowd was great. We arrived about three minutes after the official start time of the pre-competition cocktail hour, and most of the audience had beaten us there.
After an hour of chatting, people watching, and some great sax music from the band, the Iron Bartenders were introduced. They were (in the order they appeared on the audience ballots):

Iron Bartender M at Miranova, Cris Dehlavi

Iron Bartender Martini Park, Brandon Bowsher

Iron Bartender Hyde Park, Mike Vehlber

Iron Bartender Black Olive, Zak Renzetti-Voit

My abject apologies to our contestants for the photo quality and angles. The event was popular and I couldn’t move… at all.
Once the contestants were announced, the large white cloth covering the center of the bar was ceremoniously whipped away revealing the secret ingredient: Ginger! There was a whole pile of fresh ginger, gorgeous enough to make me want to steal some of the leftovers, several containers of home-made ginger beer, and bottles of Canton ginger liqueur.
The Iron Bartenders fell upon this cornucopia of spicy goodness and carried it back to their stations where they went into a frenzy of grating and blending and juicing. Cotters had supplied the bar with a wide selection of bitters, fruits and other unusual ingredients, the the players had whatever they wanted to work with. (Brave words. I’m sure one of them was wishing for something that wasn’t there.)
For thirty minutes, they made a variety of simple syrups, carved enticing garnishes, and mixed and tasted, and mixed and tasted, and mixed and tasted.
When finished, each produced four portions of a gorgeous-looking concoction to present to the judges, who were a collection of local celebrities and media figures.
Three of the cocktails were in a classic cocktail form, one rimmed attractively, another garnished with flowers, and the last sported a complex construction of blood orange slices. Zak Renzetti-Voit went all Blair Reynolds and got his tiki on with a hollowed out pineapple goblet.
Each Iron Bartender served up the drinks and explained what they had made. Monica Day, the local NBC affiliate reporter was the emcee, and she had a bit of a hard time keeping the crowd quiet enough so that those of us trying to pay attention could hear what was in the drinks. She failed. If I can get a detailed rundown on what was in them, I’ll update the post at the bottom. (UPDATE: I put the info I’ve received in a separate post.) I feel sorry for Monica, she did her best to get things quiet. But I wrangle crowds of drunks for a living, and getting a crowd that size, having that good a time, to quiet down fully is just this side of impossible. To get them to do it four times in the space of twenty minutes is the other side of impossible.
(I apologize for no pictures of Monica, but every pic I took of her trying to quiet the crowd came out really bad. I’m sure she’d thank me for including none of them.)
Once the Iron Bartenders had presented their creations to the judges, they returned behind the bar to make up scores more smaller portions, still elegantly garnished, for we hoi polloi to enjoy.
There were two awards given at the evening’s end, the judges’ prize, and the people’s choice. The winner of both was…

Cris Dehlavi, from M at Miranova!

As I said in my preview post, Cris is a friend, and I have written about her here twice before, so I couldn’t be happier for her. And she deserved to win both awards, but for different reasons.
Her cocktail was classically pretty, and tasted delicious. Had I been a judge, I’d have chosen it too. The hibiscus syrup she made married well with the Canton and other ingredients to make for a balanced cocktail that was slightly sweeter than I usually choose, but then aren’t most drinks? She used the ginger to good effect, giving the cocktail an undertone of exoticism that was further highlighted by the candied hibiscus flower she perched on the rim. It was a good drink that would appeal to a wide range of drinkers, and used the secret ingredient to good but not overpowering effect.
As for why she won the People’s Choice, there were a couple of reasons beyond the quality of the drink. While every bartender there had a crowd of supporters, Cris clearly had the most fans in the room. When the Iron Bartenders were introduced, it was like a home game for her. More importantly, she did one outstanding thing for the crowd. As soon as she finished presenting her drinks to the judges, she went back and got started prepping her made on the spot ingredients and mixing up the big batch of her cocktail to hand out to the crowd. This meant that once all the drinks had been presented to the judges, she had samples ready to go almost immediately for the crowd, well ahead of the other competitors. Now, Cris went first to present her drink, so she had the most time to begin with. But while she had the most time to take a break, she seemed to instead treat the whole process, not just the judges’ drinks, as the competition.
Everyone’s creations were quite good, but her win was well-deserved.
It was a cool event, and well run. I hope Cotters does it again next year, and I’ll close with some suggestions that could make it better. First off, the sound system was set to work for the band. That meant that the mic levels were far too low to be really useful when the bartenders were trying to be heard over the crowd. (See my comments above about Monica’s valiant, doomed struggle) Second, it was hard for most of the crowd to see what was going on during the prep phase. I bet a lot of people who were there still have no idea how much work and creativity and effort all four of these bartenders put into their creations. There are two large TVs overhead of the bar. A roving cameraman behind the bar could feed video to those screens and let the audience see up close how to make a drink cup out of the top of a pineapple, make up a quick infused simple syrup, or rim a glass with something other than salt. Finally, if you fix the sound system, how about stealing one more bit of the Iron Chef schtick, have someone be the equivalent of Alton Brown or Doc Hattori (Hey, I’m available!), and comment a bit on what we were seeing as it happened.
But those thoughts are suggestions, not criticisms. The event was fun and I thought it went well. I hope the organizers, and the sponsor Jack Daniels, think it was a big success and will do it again, next year.

Just a note for local readers here in Columbus.
Cotters Restaurant (in the Arena District) will be hosting the Columbus version of an Iron Bartender competition this Sunday, January 17th, from 6 to 9 PM. Cotters’ regular bartenders will be battling for tips to go to charity, while “Iron Bartenders” from Hyde Park, Martini Park, and Black Olive will compete alongside my friend Cris of M at Miranova, about whose work I have written previously.
Tickets are $25.00, and include hors d’oeuvres, live entertainment, and of course some of each Iron Bartender’s creation. Phone (614) 221-9060 for reservations, or you can download the flyer here.
Maggi and I will be there to observe and report on the festivities. If you see me there (picture here), please grab an elbow and say hello! I really hope to meet some more of my readers here in Ohio.

A good country club bar is many things. It is a place to go to see friends. It is a place for swift, attentive, personalized service from people who know you on sight. It’s a place for reasonable drinks at reasonable prices. At least a good country club bar is all that. If you belong to a country club, and the bar is missing even one of these elements, get a new club. The bar at my club on the north side of Columbus, Ohio, Worthington Hills Country Club, is all of these things in spades.
Country club bars are also usually do not offer certain things. Chief among them is anything like high-end mixology. They aren’t the place to find original drinks, the bitters bottle usually has a splash of dust on it, and an Aviation is something the richer members do in their Cessnas. Over the years, the bar staff at the Hills has made some great strides in breaking out of this mold. Of course, you can safely order and get a Pegu there (I am a member, after all), and you can also get a decent Moscow Mule. And they have real lemon and lime juices to make drinks with, not just an endless supply of Finest Call Sour Mix to use for anything citrusy. My point is that I am lucky in the watering hole I frequent most. They are a cocktailian cut above country clubs just about everywhere.
But this May, they are making me swoon. Every month, they do a promotional cocktail, for which they bring in any needed special ingredients and stock up on fruit or whatever for garnishes that go the extra mile. Most of them haven’t been my cup of tea, but the effort and attention to detail is much appreciated….

Here’s your Mai Tai, Mrs. Calvert.

But this month, the Cocktail of the Month is the MaiTai. A real MaiTai. As in Trader Vic’s original 1940-something masterpiece (minus the original $50,000 a bottle rum). As in not that sweet mess you get virtually everywhere these days, if quixotically order one up. I’m betting the Hills is the only bar in Columbus with a bottle of oregeat behind the mahogany. If I’m wrong, I really want to know where it is! And they garnish it with a luxurious stem of Kentucky Colonel mint that I’ve now discovered really adds more than just pretty to the drink’s enjoyability. Never again will I garnish my MaiTais with lime!
Ditch the straw, people. It just takes away from the fragrance of the mint.
For those of you among my readers who are members, make sure you try a real MaiTai next time you hit the bar. This is a special cocktail, folks. If you live in Columbus and aren’t a member at the Worthington Hills, well, neener, neener. Or give me a call. I’ll get you in long enough to see what you’ve missing ’till now.
Now, it’s true that some of the upgrades in mixology have been in response to prodding from some damn cocktail geek who is there more than is good for him…

Gee.
I wonder who that could be!

Sure, I’ve pushed some recipes into their repertoire by ordering them over and over, and getting others to order them. But I also want to say that a lot of the improvement in available ingredients is due to the fine efforts of our new head bartender, Tony Baker. (For you members, that’s Bald Tony, as opposed to Big Tony. I’m not saying Big Tony isn’t going bald, and Bald Tony isn’t big, just that Tony Myers is bigger than Tony Baker, and Tony Baker is much balder than Tony Myers….) Thanks, Tony! Keep up the good fight!

This is the first post in a new series for me. Columbus, Ohio may be behind (way behind) cities like New York, Portland, or Seattle in the modern bar progression, but we do have a few sparks of light in this vast wasteland of college and alumni bars. I’ve detailed Details to death here already, but as big a fan of that watering hole as I am, the real driver toward a better class of cocktail in Central Ohio is the medium-sized chain of fine restaurants run by Cameron Mitchell. Not so very, very long ago, Cameron got bar religion. The first places in town (and still almost the only places in town) where I actually saw lime and lemons juiced right in front of me were Cameron’s restaurants, or restaurants where he consults. To my regular readership in the cocktailian world, freshly squeezed citrus is so basic as to be akin to Thou Shalt Not Kill. But to the average Central Ohio bartender or patron, explaining the value of fresh lime juice is like explaining the virtues of microwave ovens to an ancient Incan. Now, none of Cameron’s establishments are going to threaten Vessel, or Pegu Club, or the Velvet Tango Room for cocktailian supremacy any time soon, but they are the best I have to choose from around here, especially if I want a full (and damn good) meal to follow my drink.
Therefore, I will be embarking on a series of profiles of the Mitchell’s restaurants, and more to the point their bars, in the coming weeks. It’s hard work, eating in the best restaurants in town and downing good drinks, but I’m willing to do it, for you. I’m going to try to feature a specific drink and/or bartender at each location, as well.
First up in this series is M at Miranova. Located downtown, on the first floor of the Miranova riverfront skyscraper, M is Cameron’s most modern, avant garde establishment. The menu offers sushi, steaks, and other delicate, delicious offerings. I call it hearty haute cuisine. Hear that, Seattle and New York? Come to Columbus, where even the finest food arrives table-side via forklift. (I kid my city, but only a little.)

The bar at M is the central feature of the restaurant, dominating the length of the restaurant with a huge, shifting color, backlit wall. They offer an extensive, well-balanced, and not terribly discounted wine list, as well as a reasonable beer selection, if you must. The cocktail menu actually has a number of original cocktails that are or look to be worth drinking, almost all featuring fresh squeezed or muddled ingredients. I have been eating and drinking at M regularly but infrequently since it opened (it’s a long way from my house). The bartenders have turned over in that time, but everyone behind the sleek plexiglass counter are consistently intelligent, educated, mixologists. Moreover, at M, unlike some of Cameron’s more frantic locations, they usually have time to for a little conversation about booze. This is a major plus for me, of course.
The minuses for the bar at M are the same as those I’ve found at most Mitchell’s joints. Aside from the emphasis on fresh fruits, the ingredients on offer are fairly pedestrian. There are no exotic gins, beyond Hendrick’s, on offer. No absinthe, or Lillet, or orgeat, or falernum peeked their necks out to entice me into a Vesper, Corpse Reviver, or Mai Tai. M’s inventory covers all the basics, and covers them very well. But for the adventurous cocktailian, there is still room for improvement. Of course, they may have a secret stash of Old Raj, Fernet Branca, and homemade cinnamon syrup that I simply didn’t ask the right questions about, but I doubt it.
This last Friday I was at loose ends. I had a babysitter, but I also had a wife in Georgia. Instead of choosing to go out and get into what little trouble Columbus has to offer, I opted for drinks and dinner at the bar at M to kick off this series of posts. My bartender this time was Cris, a mixologist by calling whom I had not encountered before. She and I, and the wine-drinking couple beside me whose date I kept interrupting, had a fine conversation about liquor, cocktails, wine snobbery, and of course the literary phenomenon that is sweeping the nation: The Pegu Blog.
The evening was marred only briefly when Cris revealed to me that she will be attending Tales, the lucky wench. My fellow cocktail bloggers know how much I cheerfully despise them for being able to go when I cannot find the time, so it’s only fair I hate Cris too. I did tell her who I expected her to go pester while there. Consider yourselves forewarned, dudes and dudettes. Oh, and I’ll be interested to see which exotic ingredients that I griped about being missing above show up at M once Cris gets back from Tales.
I went through the cocktail menu and chose a cocktail from the seasonal menu, one it turns out Cris authored herself, the Blood Orange Margarita. It was quite appealing, and although she happily gave me the recipe, I won’t post it here. I won’t because:

• I didn’t ask permission,
• I immediately saw how I wanted to tinker with it, resulting in a cocktail that may appeal more to both me and my regular readership, if not necessarily to M’s usual clientele.

Said tinkering has been accomplished, and it gave me the results I wanted. If you live in Columbus, I suggest you hightail it down to M and try the original, as well as mixing up mine. Let me know which you prefer.

A couple of notes here: I don’t like salted rims that much, as I feel like I either get too little or too much salt with each sip. The salt isn’t really necessary in this Margarita at all, but if you do want some, try mixing it in the drink for a change of pace.

Also, I find it a particularly good application for the Tequila Ocho Plata I specified. I intend to do a full review later on this bottle, but I’ll take the opportunity to talk a bit about it here and now. (It was not what M uses, for what it is worth. Tequila Ocho is not for sale in Ohio, more’s the pity.) The Ocho is very mild, even sweet, and pairs very well with the exotic nectar of the blood orange. In fact, I think this tequila might get a bit lost in a regular Margarita, it is so mild.
As a shot, it is lethally soft. It’s not unflavorfully smooth, mind you, but it is awfully easy to down, especially for an unaged bottle. Beware.
Frankly, for a tequila aficionado, which I am not, I suspect the Plata would be a little bland. For a guy like me who likes to tinker, and also likes the occasional brush with the signature funk of agave, it’s a damn fine bottle to play with. It’s perfect for the drink I just outlined, and I intend to try it very soon with the Mai Tai variant, the Pinky Gonzales, where I think it will shine.

Here’s a complete list of the posts so far in my Meandering Through Mitchell’s series:

• The Blood Orange Margarita: A "Meandering Through Mitchell's" Find
• "Meandering Through Mitchell's": Mitchell's Ocean Club
• The Vanilla Bean Old Fashioned: A Meandering Through Mitchell's Find

In my main review of Details Minibar and Lounge, I mentioned a feature adventure that they offer, The Detailed Experience. Maggi and I went with our friends Carol and Greg on Friday night to experience the Experience.
The Detailed Experience is available for groups of two to six people, and takes place upstairs at the open kitchen. The kitchen is set up like a very modern diner, with six seats at the bar counter, giving you a full view as the food is prepared. They offer seatings at six and nine, and the meal will last at least two hours. Ours took almost two and a half. The meal consists of ten courses from on and off the menu. The chef chooses which ten he’ll make, and in what order, for each Experience, and apparently the group before us at six had five different dishes than we did at nine. If our experience is any indication, they will ask you at least three times between when you make the reservations and when you start eating if you have any food allergies. It was amusing to me, but I suppose if you have any such allergies, this is another detail to appreciate.
Chef Drew Garms presides over the whole thing, preparing and serving each dish for you himself, explaining how it’s done, and also why, if you express interest. How much he talks to your group depends on what you want. If you are working a client, or fighting with your spouse, he’ll leave you alone. If you are full of questions, like we were, he’ll do a great job of answering them in as much depth as you like. He’s a charming and entertaining host.
And oh yeah, and he serves some fascinating and delicious food.
There’s no point in giving you the full menu, since if you go, you won’t have the same things at all. But I will talk about a few of the courses that exemplify the whole thing. Drew started out with a little molecular mixology, serving us a Liquid Nitrogen Margarita:

To freeze the Maragrita, Drew slowly whisks in liquid nitrogen into a classic Margarita until it reaches a perfect, slushy consistency. I was actually surprised at how long this took, but apparently if you do it too fast, you get a giant Margaritacicle on a whisk. I’ve had nitrogen frozen drinks before, but the twist he added was the salt. Rather than rimming the glass, Chef topped it with a dollop of salt air. To make this, you mix salt water and lecithin, then whip it lightly. Spoon up what forms on the surface and you have a relatively stable puff of sea foam. Incidentally, this is more than just a show-off way of doing a Frozen Margarita. Maggi and I both agreed that the foam was a far superior way to deliver the salt. It is smoother and melds better with the drink.
Another dish that I took pictures of as Chef Drew prepared it was this one:

Not sure what it is? I didn’t know what is was at this point either.
It’s a Cobb Salad. Don’t beleive me?
How about now?

For the record, I’m not a big Cobb Salad guy. But I destroyed this.
There were a number of other dishes, including sushi tacos and a chocolate dirt pile for a final course, and they were all winners. Alright, there was a chutney with one dish that was merely OK. Personally, I actually felt reassured by this. It meant I wasn’t just loving the food because of the atmosphere. Chef Drew’s grumpiness that his chutney failed to enrapture me was just another sign, beyond the quality of the food, of his perfectionism.
The Detailed Experience is not a completely unique idea, of course. There are a number of high-end restaurants around the U.S. and the world that offer this kind of hours long, small plate dining experience. But my friend Greg, who’s tried a few others, confirmed several things I had surmised:

• There is enough food here. While, you won’t get stuffed, the combined courses add up to a true, full meal. And really, do you want to be needing White Castle after a meal of this quality? No.
• The food really is outstanding. Period.
• No, Columbus, it isn’t cheap. Not in absolute terms. An evening doing the Detailed Experience will likely run you almost as much as a spread at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. But in comparison to similar offerings in other cities, it is a steal. Try an eating adventure like this in New York or Chicago, and your check will literally be an order of magnitude higher, plus the cost of those sliders you’ll need afterward to fill you up.

The cocktails were as beautifully prepared as I expected, and the bar staff makes sure you don’t forget them while you eat. Though I did not mention it in my bar review, Details offers a nice beer and wine list (PDF) as well. The beers are a pretty esoteric selection of offerings (though The Usual Suspects are available as well). The wine list has mostly european offerings. Though it isn’t long, there’s something there to float the boat of most wine drinkers.
Details really is an apt name for this restaurant. Go there and it will be as apparent to you as it is to me that this is both a labor of love and product of great skill.
Details is located on North High Street in the Short North District of Columbus, next door to Rosendale’s. Valet parking out front. 614-298-1301 for reservations for the Detailed Experience. You need to call at least 24 hours in advance. For my review of the cocktail bar area downstairs, go here.

Last night, Maggi and I went for the first time to Details Minibar & Lounge in Columbus’s Short North. Details, which just opened in December, is the sister establishment to its next door neighbor Rosendale’s, which I wrote about earlier. So as not to bury the lede, Details is the first real, new-era cocktail lounge to appear in Columbus. With a drink menu consisting of properly made classics, as well as a few interesting originals, and a bottle inventory that warms the heart of folks like me, Details finally provides Columbus, Ohio with a bar where even the most obnoxious, persnickety, nerdish, cocktail snobs on the planet would feel happy to have a drink. And Details, while not a full restaurant, offers eats on a similarly high level.
I’m dancing a little cocktail-geek dance right now. You can’t see it, but it is true.
Hopefully this will be interesting both to readers from Central Ohio, and those in the greater Cocktail Nation. For locals, if you like fine cocktails, your ship has come in and you need to go meet it. For those outside the Greater Central-Buckeye Co-Prosperity Sphere, understand that Columbus is America’s Test Market. We often get trends here later than in the avant-gard, coastal markets, but when those things do take hold here, you can expect to them spreading into mainstream America in short order. New York may be the place where “if you can make there, you can make it anywhere,” but with Columbus, if you can make it there, you can make it everywhere. Craft bartenders, cross your fingers. If Details works here, it likely indicates that there will be an explosion of need for your skills in lots of new markets where housing costs a lot less than San Francisco or Seattle….
I am quite serious when I say that Details is designed and executed to be a top shelf cocktail lounge, in the class of Pegu Club, Velvet Tango Room, or Vessel. Foremost, the cocktail menu (pdf) includes an array of serious cocktailian favorites, such as the Moscow Mule, Pimm’s Cup, Old-Fashioned, Daiquiri and Margarita (this post does not apply at Details), and mama mia, the Aviation. They also have a number of cocktails that the Beverage Manager, Chris Dillman has created that seem well worth the drinking. The wall of bottles offers a breadth of ingredients not found elsewhere in our fair city, with the Aviation-required Creme de Violette, St. Germaine, Maraschino Liqueur, Lillet (Blanc and Rouge) and a host of high-end bourbons and cognacs.
I started out with an Aviation (pictured above, with my stylish hat). When I started writing about cocktails, I quickly realized that knowledge of the Aviation is like the secret handshake of cocktail geeks. The Aviation I had here had a nice firm grip and looked you straight in the eye. I never before bothered with the careful layer of Creme de Violette on the bottom of the glass like an expensive garnish, but it looks just so darn nice, I will from now on. Maggi started with her standard bartender test, the Sidecar (not on the menu). The bartender (Matt, I believe), took the time to find out what exactly she wanted under that name and delivered an excellent result.
For a second drink, I had a Singapore Sling. I had just spent time crafting one of these myself the night before, and unfortunately there was a distinct quality difference. This one was better than mine! I hate it when that happens.
Maggi rounded out her drinks with one of Detail’s original concoctions, a Mojito 183. This is a Mojito modified with the addition of Licor 43 and Green Chartreuse, and a lessening of the mint. The result is a much more complex, more herbaceous drink than its progenitor. I doubt it is for everyone, but if your tastes run that way, it is definitely worth the try.
I’l round out the discussion of the menu, and its appeal to the cocktail snob with a quote from the first item on the menu:

Martini
We are unabashed purists.
Your choice of Gin and a healthy pour of dry vermouth.
On the rocks if you must. Optional Olive or Twist.
Not available in Vodka.
(emphasis mine)

The architecture is very clean and modern, with an open design, metal bar top, and bar stools that are surprisingly comfortable, if perhaps two inches too high. The bar itself isn’t very big, with perhaps twelve seats. There are a couple of tables downstairs by the bar, with more to be found up the prominent, glass-railed stairs, along with some couches in a secluded area in back. The whole look is slightly more sterile than meets my taste, but it is a very attractive, cohesive design that makes this small space seem as big as possible.
If the top-notch cocktails aren’t enough of a draw for you, then let’s discuss the food. Chef Drew Garms came up under some impressive tutors, especially Richard Rosendale, who presides over the mothership restaurant next door. The menu at Details is fairly small, featuring seriously foodie versions of traditional pub food, but no major entrées. We saw Tuna Tar Tar Tacos and Angus Beef Sliders being utterly destroyed by the folks just down the bar from us, and they certainly looked to be worth destroying. We went with a couple of items from the Bar Bites section of the menu: The Smoked Paprika Potato Chips and the Red Hot Pork Rinds.

Pork Rinds?!?
Seriously? Pork Rinds?
Isn’t that kinda redneck, if the joint is as swanky as you say?

Yes, porkrinds are kind of a redneck delicacy. I was raised among rednecks, I know. But as I said, foodie versions of pub food. If you live in Columbus, drive, drive now, as swiftly as you can reasonably get away with, to Details. Order the pork rinds. Enjoy. I’ll wait. By the way, they serve them in little metal baskets that look like deep fryer baskets. They are very cool and a much better choice than the presentation in the picture to the right that I stole from their website.

OK, yeah.
Those are good.

Told you. The chips were great too, but not as yummy as the pork rinds.
And yes, I can’t believe I’m rapturing on about pork rinds either.

One last wonderful feature of Details, one that we couldn’t enjoy this trip but will soon, is the Detailed Experience. On the second floor, there is a second, smaller bar with only six seats, that is used only for the Detailed Experience. There are two available seatings each evening, at 6:00 and 9:00, for two to six people, with reservations twenty-four hours in advance being virtually mandatory. For two hours, you and your party sit at the Minibar and are served a series of ten small plates, none or almost none from the menu. The offerings change constantly, but the price is a constant fifty five dollars. Your chef prepares each dish at the bar while you watch, explaining the methods and taking your questions. As with the cocktails, the theme is attention to detail (Get it? Details?) and the offerings seem to be pretty elaborate. I absolutely love to watch any sort of craftsman show off, and when I get to enjoy the results, so much the better. When I get a chance to try the Detailed Experience, I’ll post a follow up. UPDATE—You can read my review of the Detailed Experience here.
Simply put, Details is a gem. If you live in Columbus, or visit here, drop in and enjoy. And if you are a cocktailian who lives elsewhere, be excited that a place like this is showing up in a city like Columbus.