Cocktails at the Broadway Bar in downtown Los Angeles

October 21, 4:34 AMLA Cocktails ExaminerAaron Vanek

One of the dusty gems in Cedd Moses’s downtown cocktail lounge crown is the Broadway Bar. Not everyone can afford the dainty liquid ambrosias doled from Cole’s, Varnish, or the Seven Grand. For the rest of us, wait in line for the privilege to bum rush the Broadway’s bar-in-the-round and wave your hard-earned twenty at the ‘tenders who look and move like track and field bronze medalists.

The Broadway mimics an immobile M*A*S*H unit for barely-legal street prowlers looking to souse their charred throats after an evening of screaming through a cigarette haze built on the back of an exclusive movie screening or concert. Nicotine addicts are welcome to encourage lung cancer on the bar’s neat Parisian patio or the balcony of the upstairs private lounge (with additional bar), which invites proletariat comportment for those well-off enough to reserve it for any occasion.

Despite the plebian make up of patrons like moi, the Broadway offers elegance through its placement between the Titanic, Duesenberg J, and Graf Zeppelin of movie palaces (the Los Angeles, Million Dollar, and Orpheum) plus its drink menu specializing in sparkling wine cocktails.

Champagne cocktails are a great way to enjoy liquid sophistication on a budget; most mixes feature cheap champagne and a modicum of rarefied liqueur. The result is a refreshing, classy bracer to tipple while the nightly DJ creates atmospheric disturbances through sonic attack.

I tried two standards:
The Bellini - Italian sparkling wine and Mathilde peach liqueur
The Poinsettia – Champagne, Cointreau, splash of cranberry juice

I preferred the Bellini, but they both fortified against the inevitable homeless man serenade on the patio. Truth be told, the singing wasn’t any worse than mid-season American Idol.

Besides the champagne cocktails, the Broadway Bar also offers classics such as the Mimosa, Martini, Dark & Stormy, Caipirinha, i.e., two or three ingredient drinks that are quick to make but more palatable than most clubs’ plastic cup of ice, distilled spirit, and flavored high fructose corn syrup extruded from a soda gun.

The Broadway Bar’s attendance peaks around eleven-ish, so unless you like smelling a stranger’s sweat, get here early.

For more info: Los Angeles Broadway Theater District, Cedd Moses's 213 Corporation

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