Before that, it was RJ’s Sports Bar, back when dive bars could survive and before anyone took on Tendernob airs. But that was only the latest iteration. A bar has been at the corner of Geary and Leavenworth pretty much since Repeal.
Since having shuttered Canteen last year — his original Tenderloin beachhead — Leary has become an unlikely bar impresario, taking over House of Shields and opening Cafe Terminus and Natoma Cabana with Eric Passetti, who’s also a partner in Rx. It’s worth noting that each of these projects willfully resists the tendency of late for restaurants to slip on their bar drag. As our bar culture approaches peak nosh, these are places where you come to drink, dammit.
Rx has one big thing going for it: a stellar cocktail menu from Passetti and barman Erick Ochoa, a veteran of the Mina Groupand Natoma Cantina. As the bar’s name indicates, they wanted to pay homage to liquor’s medicinal era during the Prohibition years, when a doctor’s note was the only legal path to hard liquor.
I’m not sure the ghost of Eliot Ness is a great enticement to drink, but the Rx crew found great inspiration in that era of furtive tippling, as the stylized faux-scrip on the menu’s back reveals, filling cocktails with all manner of amari and bitters. It is a very specific and very grown-up concept.
But it is hardly harsh medicine. These flavors have become part of the essential repertoire of today’s informed drinker, and Ochoa’s ability to balance their seemingly dissonant ways is worth a visit alone.
Among the 14 cocktails, or “elixirs,” you’ll find names like Rexall and Bartell — further homages to the druggist theme. The Rexall piles together mezcal, chile tincture and Becherovka liqueur for fiery effect, while the Dietz is all low tones: Averna’s dark bite mixes with espresso-infused rum and curacao.
The Dante’s pulls off a similar balance, in a brighter hue: Gin, genepy and orange bitters tame Fernet’s growl. Ditto the Wolzen, which puts mezcal and the bitter-orange bite of Aperol up against the suave, foresty flavors of Amaro Nonino. (Note the deft hand with mezcal here.)
These are not drinks to woo a Cosmo set. But Leary’s bars are very good at pushing away cocktail foppery. Swigging beer from the bottle is encouraged. You’re still in the Tenderloin, after all.
Rx has one other big thing in its favor: It still feels, if not like a dive, like a Stygian spot for drinking in peace — no rules or ropes, which has arguably held back nearby spots like Tradition. The hues are darker than Trocadero, and new touches telegraph Ochoa’s concept: the stylized caduceus wall stencil, a Rexall-ish neon sign.
But the ancient black slatted bar remains largely unchanged, as do rough glass tiles on the back bar and a handsome lighting dome under which Nucky Thompson would proudly have sat. It’s a somber, welcome spot to come and soothe what ails you.
Original Article and Photos Sourced From: http://www.sfgate.com/restaurants/article/Rx-bar-in-S-F-Well-crafted-cocktails-for-the-5948314.php#photo-7246042
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