The Velvet Tango Room

The story

Before craft cocktail bars swept the country, Paulius Nasvytis opened the Velvet Tango Room in 1996 along a dim, post-industrial strip of Columbus Road in Duck Island. The brick building had long roots: it housed a barber shop in front, a blacksmith shop in back, and an actual Prohibition speakeasy in between. Nasvytis hung brass plates at the door demanding proper attire and good manners, banned blenders, and insisted on shaking classic drinks in three-piece suits long before it was trendy. When he passed the bar to regular patron Ron Leonhardt Jr. in 2021, it was under a strict handshake agreement over vodka drinks that nothing about the formula would change.

The obsession with craft here is meticulous and physical. Bartenders muddle fresh fruit by hand, brew their own ginger ale and bitters, make their own maraschino cherries, and crack raw eggs into shakers to build velvety foam. Order an India Lime Fizz and you will watch them hand-shake a whole egg into gin and citrus until their arms burn. Behind the main lounge, a coatroom wall conceals a secret mirrored door—push through it with an advance reservation and you enter the Back Room, a secluded hideaway anchored by leather seating, a fireplace, and a live piano player.