Booker and Dax

Broadbent country ham is a great dish to share with a group. Interesting flavor combo, the red eye gravy s very unique like a nutty coffee cream. Pork buns were a no brainier, all the reviews about them are right. As for drinks, they are small, made with love, felt a good after one and cost $ 14, aside from a couple of expectations costing more. It’s a nice tailored bar, the staff is so sweet and informative. Easy to have a genuine conversation about the drinks, food or whatever. Great place to slow down a bit, have a yummy bite and sip a drink.

A friend recommended me to come here since they share a kitchen with Momofuku Ssam Bar, so I decided to stop by and try some of the much raved around pork buns along with some drinks. It was late in the afternoon when we came, so the place was still quite empty.
The buns themselves did not disappoint. There was lots of fatty flavor from the pork and I loved the pickled cucumber, I wished there was actually a bit more of it as I would’ve liked a little more acidity and texture to balance out the pork. The sauce that comes with the bun is quite tasty. If you’re looking to add some more heat, the momofuku sauce on the table has a nice kick.
The cocktails here are solid. I don’t really remember what each of us ordered, but all the drinks we had were quite good. If you’re looking to just get your hands on some Momofuku pork buns and there’s a long wait for Ssam Bar, come here instead and grab some drinks while you’re at it.

Great bar, great drinks, great ambiance. Be sure to visit the dining areas in the back — easily missed if not looking carefully.

Booker and Dax is without question the best cocktail bar I’ve ever been to. During the Thanksgiving holiday a group of friends and I walked in at 8PM with absolutely no wait in line. The bar is dark, yet the small size lends itself to an intimate fun atmosphere.
They take their time preparing your cocktail order, so expect to wait long enough to heighten your anticipation. When it finally arrives, the buildup is relieved as you’re certain to be greeted by the most refreshing elixir that’s ever hit your lips and lapped your tongue.
Dave Arnold is not a bartender, nor a (molecular) mixologist – he is an artist and a magician; the man coxes flavors and textures out of thin air! My Pink Panther a heavenly libation sent down from the heavens above as was everything else my party ordered that night. Go here.

Dave Arnold is my hero. We walked in at like 8 PM on a Saturday night and had no wait. The atmosphere was intimate and dark. These cocktails were phenomenal, easily the best cocktails I’ve ever had. I am huge fan of Dave Arnold’s books and loved seeing the techniques that I’ve read about come to fruition. The cocktails are unique both in the way they are made and in the flavor combinations. This is truly a gem of a bar. Do yourself a favor and go to Momofuku Ssam and Milk Bar after a drink or two for a great evening.

Wow awesome cocktails! Certainly not your ordinary flavors and combinations. Came with two friends and since it was my friend’s birthday, we got free Berserkers. Delicious and refreshing. I had the Banana Justino, very good. I like the use of the fire, very cool. Very romantic setting, good for a date or close friends/​family. Good place for a nightcap. A little pricey for a drink, but I will return someday for sure.

Pricey but worth it! Loved their pork buns. The drinks are amazing and fun but I mostly loved the pork bun. You have to try this place and come here at least once! TRY THE PORK BUN! Lol sorry it’s just THAT AMAZING!!! Sadly I only took a picture of the bun because everything else was so amazing that I ate it or drank all of it lol but the octopus is also amazing ! Guys … Just try it here ! It’s great!

I’m giving it four stars because the atmosphere was nothing special and the drinks were expense, but the drinks were tasty and it is convenient when you are waiting for a table at momofuku.
Got a drink here while waiting for a table at Ssam Bar. The two are connected, so a waiter will come get you when your table is ready, which is how they can get away with charging so much for drinks.
Well that plus the cool techniques they use…
I tried the bees sneeze, which was tasty! I recommend it for people who don’t like really strong alcohol flavors. The pepper went surprisingly well with the mellow flavor, and the drink came across as sweet.
I also tried the son of a peach, but the tequila was too much for me since it had a smoky flavor.

Cozy atmosphere coupled with unique beverage concoctions. Handmade liquors carefully prepared with precision by the one and only Joey.
If you’re in East Village you must stop in for a life altering cocktail. Personally, I found the Tea-​Time cocktail particularly delightful.

Booker & Dax is the Momofuku bar so the prices are on par with what you would get there. The atmosphere was nice before it got too crowded but nothing in particular stood out to me. It was just a typical bar. The place isn’t too big and I can see it being crowded on weekends.

If you are a science nerd who likes to drink, this is the place for you.
The nerdy looking bartender plays with nitrogen, cylinders, and some interesting looking machine to concoct a drink for you.
I stumbled in around 1230am and was told they were having last calls for drinks as they closed at one. I sat the bar and ordered a son of peac: mezcal, tequila, canned peach, lime, umeboshi plum vinegar. Don’t worry, you won’t taste the vinegar.
The drinks were pretty strong. Most are $ 14.

Some very fine cocktails being served here. But I am not sure they have their atmosphere quite figures out. I believe it would be a good plan to arrive on the early side of the evening and sit at the bar.

Cocktails are very much the forte here and the time effort and pride that goes into them are very much worthwhile. As an awesome bonus you can get bar food from the Momofuku kitchen while you enjoy them.
It was a busy Thursday night with a lovely and enjoyable atmosphere.

Good cocktails and very interesting but I wasn’t blown away so 3.5 stars
It’s behind momofuku so make a turn onto 13^th street to access the entrance
—hatchback: a fizzy refreshing drink
NOTE: All high table top seating inside this small bar

I spent a summer living in the East Village back when this space was occupied by Milk Bar, and as a Momofuku enthusiast/​completionist, I’d been curious about Booker and Dax ever since it opened. Unfortunately (for this one thing, anyway), I live in Los Angeles, so it took me a while to make it over here. I managed to find a free hour in a packed trip to New York to grab a drink and a bite with my husband and an old friend.
We met up at 5:45 on a Sunday, and the place was alive but not super busy. We were able to seat ourselves easily at one of the high communal tables. The space looked about the same as it did in its bakery days – the distinctive graffitied exterior, the cool, open, David Chang modern upscale/​casual vibe. It felt a bit more like a bar than before, I guess, but Milk Bar always seemed like it could turn into a Booze Bar at any moment. Service was good. Our server came to help us right away, and did a good job acquainting us first-​timers with the menu. We were able to get snacks and two rounds of drinks in an hour, largely due to his attentions.
I’m always a huge fan of David Chang’s food, and try to get a taste of it whenever I’m in New York. Booker and Dax was my pork bun fix for the trip, and we supplemented that with some octopus escabeche and a plate of country hams. The food was excellent, and I had the pleasure of watching my friend try the pork bun that launched a thousand inferior pork buns for the first time. I’ve now had the Momofuku steamed pork buns at least twenty times, and they never lose their luster. My bun was perfect – the slab of pork thick and luxurious, dripping with fat, balanced with cucumber, scallion, and some hoisin and sriracha, all on a pillowy white bun. The other stuff was also great. The octopus escabeche was a mason jar of tender octopus, swimming in a flavorful brine with fingerling potatoes, red onion, parsley, and paprika, served with thin crusty slices of toasted baguette. Addictively flavorful, a really wonderful bar snack. The Benton’s country ham came layered on a giant plate with some red eye gravy and toasted baguette. The ham was luscious, silky and toothsome, with plenty of savor. I had to google the red eye gravy, but apparently it’s ham drippings with coffee and sugar – delightful, with an assertive flavor.
The cocktails were phenomenal, at least as delicious and memorable as the food. The menu was long, split into several different categories (stirred, on the rock, shaken, etc.), and it was hard to decide what to order. We ended up getting five drinks in two rounds and passing them around. All of them were fantastic. The Bee Sneeze is apparently Booker and Dax’s flagship drink, and it might have been my favorite of the bunch. It came with milk-​washed gin, honey, lemon, and cracked black pepper, but you have to try it to understand why it works. I don’t generally prefer gin, but this drink was sheer genius. The Stirred Bird was a close second, a Momofuku take on a tiki drink, made with dark rum, Jamaican rum, Campari, and pineapple. It was boozy and impeccably balanced, the Campari a nice bitter element amid the rum punch sweetness. I loved the other three drinks, too. The Banana Justino is one of the most popular drinks on the menu, and it’s pretty great, a mix of rum and bananas over a giant ice cube, with a true, pronounced banana flavor. The Son of a Peach was another neat fruit-​centric cocktail, made with mezcal, tequila, canned peach, lime, and umeboshi plum vinegar – a very tasty, intriguing combination. On the boozy end, I enjoyed the Pistol Peat, a smooth, smokey scotch cocktail with yellow chartreuse, clarified lime, and spicy hellfire bitters.
I wanted to try the whole menu, and maybe I’ll succeed over time, even if I can only visit like once a year if I’m lucky. Booker and Dax is at the top of my list of places to drink in New York, and I’ll do all I can to stop in again whenever I’m in town.

This place is amazing! Hirojito, tea time and cosbro are hands down one of the best cocktails I’ve ever had. You can’t go wrong with any milk washed alcohol surprisingly since the cosbro sounded strong I was afraid to try it but I end up really liking it, it’s citrusy and similar to grapefruit juice while tea time taste like Thai ice tea, hirojito is a show it itself the bar tender comes up to your table with a little cup that has ice flakes in it and pours it over with the yummy concoction he has prepared and you watch the ice flakes melt before your eyes into this amazingly perfect blend of a mojito with sake. (I felt like I could drink that forever) this place is bomb with their drinks and the prices are fair we ordered about 5 drinks and the bill came up to 75 $?
Don’t get me wrong while the cocktail taste amazing it definitely had alcohol in it. Which is exactly how I like my drink. I don’t like the taste of alcohol and if you can make me a drink where I don’t taste it but it’s still strong enough to make me buzzed after two and a half drink then I will definitely be coming back. They also have seasonal drinks so if you come in the winter you might get to see a show

If you’re a cocktail nut like me, don’t be deterred by the deceivingly simple menu. No, you’re not going to see liquors infused with three different flavors paired with a bunch of ingredients that you can’t pronounce. You will instead see only recognizable flavors – which, for someone who is wary of trying drinks with more «alien» ingredients, would be far more digestible (no pun intended). It’s interesting that I’m mentioning this dichotomy, because I came here right after spending a good 2 hours at Angel’s Share – the two bars couldn’t be more different, but they’re both absolutely masterful at what they do.
I came here with someone who had been dying to try this place since reading David Arnold’s book, Liquid Intelligence. We’re both fascinated by cocktails – it’s truly an art. But, as Booker and Dax proved, it’s also clearly science. This place uses technologies from liquid nitrogen to centrifuges to purify each flavor until they reach an immaculate level. So when you see «lime» or «honey» on the menu, they’re not just squeezing a lime into a cocktail shaker. They’re separating the lime’s particles based on density and extracting the purest essence of the fruit. This s*** is WILD. When I heard centrifuge, all I could think about was separating saliva particles to isolate hormone levels for a neuroscience project. This … is not that. It is so, so much better.
So, now that I’ve bored everyone with my science lesson, I’ll jump into the actual experience. We sat at the bar because we were two kids in a candy store at this point and needed to have a full-​on intellectual discussion with a few different bartenders about the various techniques that they use here. The bartenders are willing and eager to do this – points for that. They seemed as excited about the technology as we did and even showed us some of the various steps they took to extract these godly flavors. And while it’s all well and good that they do all this cool tricks, the important part is the taste. Other than the mushroom concoction – which we tried purely out of curiosity – the drinks were incredibly tasty. My date remarked that the liquid was frighteningly clear – if that doesn’t say purified, I don’t know what does. Have I used enough derivations of pure yet?
So, cocktails I tried and would recommend:
–the Solitaire — rum, aged genever, strega, clarified lime (Solid A — this is coming from someone who doesn’t like rum too much)
–the Bee Sneeze — milk-​washed gin, honey, lemon, cracked black pepper (milk-​washed??? This stuff is unreal. Oh, and A+ for this one. The pepper MAKES IT).
Quick note on ambiance: Kick-​ass music in the background, very sleek/​clean looking. I mean, it’s basically a science lab, so that’s not surprising. Not sterile though – the candles and dim lighting still make the place warm/​inviting despite the stainless steel and crazy distillation equipment.

My husband is obsessed with Dave Arnold’s book Liquid Intelligence and told me that the only thing that he wanted to do in NYC was go to Booker and Dax. Needless to say, I made sure to make Booker and Dax one of our first destinations after arriving in NYC.
The bar area is tiny and was absolutely packed when we arrived. We were lucky enough to find two chairs at the end of the bar, which was a great location since many of the bar seats were so crammed that you couldn’t even get out of your seat without forcing three other people to move. Plus, sitting at the bar and watching these incredible bartenders was an experience in and of itself.
I am wishing that I had written this review immediately after returning from NYC two months ago… but unfortunately, I did not. So I will do my best to remember! I believe that I started with the Tropical Thunder (milk-​washed rum, pineapple, orange), then The Solitaire (rum, aged genever, strega, clarified lime), and finally the Bee Sneeze (milk-​washed gin, honey, lemon, cracked black pepper). All of the drinks were delicious, but my favorite was the Tropical Thunder. I loved the simplicity and sweetness of the pineapple and orange paired with the innovative, smooth, milk-​washed rum. Plus, our bartender (also the creator of the Tropical Thunder) was a lot of fun to chat with throughout the evening. While we drank, we snacked on a ham platter and bread and butter. It was all made from quality ingredients but was nothing particularly outstanding.
Overall, our Booker and Dax experience was a lot of fun, and I would love to come back again next time that we’re in NYC.

I would have not known about this cocktail bar without Matt, my brother-​in-​law, who is a Dave Arnold Super Fan. He made this spot a MUST on the list of places to go on our trip to NYC. The aura was warm and the staff was friendly. While at Booker and Dax I sipped some of the most imaginative libations in my life. I got the Bangkok daquiri which was a shaken white rum, lime, & Thai basil drank. It was vibrantly green… It was GD delicious. The taste of the basil was completely unsullied. The Bee sneeze (milk-​washed gin, honey, lemon, & cracked black pepper) was another one of my favorites there. Though it was my sister who ordered it, I don’t know a gin fan who wouldn’t appreciate this drink. B&D’s cocktails are drinkable art.
Extra bonus: We got to meet Dave Arnold! He was a down to earth guy and happily shared his knowledge with our group. Honestly, Matt was so overjoyed with this experience I thought he was going to jump out of his pants.

Yes and yes. I was a bit nervous to come here solo but the bartenders took very good care of me, and I was able to get a seat at the bar around 11 pm on a Friday. I had the Corsair and the Hatchback, both of which are slightly bitter citrus-​based cocktails with tequila. The Hatchback was lightly carbonated and the Corsair was slightly salty, capturing the essence of Vietnamese salty lemonade perfectly. The Corsair also came with a Miller High Life chaser, which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to.
Superb taste in background music, by the way (e.g., Future Islands, Todd Terje).