- Julia Thiel
- The bar at the Brixton
The space that used to house In Fine Spirits has seemed slightly doomed since the neighborhood favorite closed two years ago (the lounge, that is; the liquor store next door is still going strong). It was replaced by Premise, a pricey fine-dining establishment that lasted just four months before abruptly shutting down in August 2012. Brasserie 54 by LM quickly took its place, but didn’t fare much better. Last summer Tim Casey, owner of the Little Italy bar the Drum and Monkey, bought the space and in December opened a gastropub named the Brixton.
A sort of deconstructed potato soup was less successful. Bits of bacon, cipollini onion, and little chunks of cheddar arrived in a bowl over which the server poured potato soup that was more like a puree. Aside from being slightly undersalted it wasn’t bad, but the thickness of the soup made it impossible to tell which of the add-ins you were getting, and biting into a piece of aged cheddar when I was expecting onion was startling and not particularly pleasant.
