In the House

We paid a visit to Belly Timber Saturday night to see what Bradley Dawson has been cooking up. On offer was the Vesuvius, an intriguing concoction of smoked jasmine tea vodka and blood orange soda, an 1870 Sazerac with three types of bitters, and my favorite, the deliciously earthy beet margarita, made with fresh red beet juice with a golden beet salt rim. We hear there will be a new cocktail menu in the next couple of weeks, so stop in soon to be sure to try one of these.

We also sampled some snacks from the kitchen: sumptuous salmon mousse on cute toasts with beet chips, and a grilled peach with balsamic vinegar. Marvelous.

What's extra neat about the BT is that it's in an old Victorian house. The beautifully restored interior (left over from the building's previous tenants) makes one feel really old-fashioned and decadent, and Bradley with his atomizers and eye droppers evokes the era's ambitious inventors and scientists. It kind of makes me want to wear spats.