Herbs Taverne opens tonight: here’s what to expect (and a look inside)

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Today’s a big day. There’s an election on, of course, but more importantly, tonight’s the night that Herbs Taverne opens its doors.

Herbs Taverne is the sixth bar to open from the Sydney based Mucho group (Tio’s, The Cliff Dive, Cantina OK!, Bar Planet, Centro 86). It’s billed as a Negroni bar, and will open in the basement of 213 Clarence Street — right around the corner from Cantina OK! — from 4pm tonight.

We got a sneak peek at the place during their soft open last night, and it looks great: black and blood orange is the colour scheme here, with dark brick walls broken up with mirrored panels, 70s style light fixtures hang from a checkerboard ceiling; vinyl stools at the bar and tables and chars all befitting a Euro espresso bar from the 1980s. It’s a unique addition to Clarence Street.

There were two standouts from the drinks we tasted off the 12-strong cocktail list (I’ll be back to finish the menu): the Gold Negroni, made with gin, Lillet Blanc, Cocchi, gentian, and Chinola, is a beautiful White Negroni style of drink which, if you’re a fan of gentian as I am, you’re going to love.

And the Americana — which Mucho group creative director Jeremy Blackmore talks in more detail about below — is a smart riff on the Americano that does all the things an Americano does but with a good whack of flavour and refreshment to it, and is capped with a lemon granita. Delicious.

Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, I spoke to Jeremy about the idea behind Herbs Taverne, the design aesthetic, how the drinks came about, and why the next Mucho group bar will depend on the sock colours available at Uniqlo.

Sam Bygrave: So what’s the big idea behind Herbs?

Jeremy Blackmore: Look, no big ideas. We wanted to open a bar that was for everybody. We really felt like the next drink from Mucho was the Negroni, really. We’re slowly making our way through the classics.

What’s after that?

Amaretto Sour? We’ve done the Margarita and the Martini. I’m pretty sure the number three [most popular cocktail] in the world is the Negroni. So...

The team were on the train one day and we were chatting about what was next and yeah, the Negroni was next. We were happy to bring it to everybody.

And so this space before, this, someone said it was storage or something?

Yeah, it had a sheet music printing machine, basically storage for maybe 25 years. There’s a rumour that it was a bottle shop before that from about the 70s. It’s been nothing for a long time. There’s no romantic story about getting it. We looked at a couple of sites on the street and this one was available.

And so, Clarence Street, you’ve got one here — Cantina OK! — already. Why Clarence Street again?

Clarence Street is a hub. I think bars thrive on community and on proximity. People want to pop between bars. We’re not pioneers in that way. We look for places that are already ready and already have it. We’re able to stamp our little mark on it.

I loved the Americana drink, by the way. How’d you guys go about developing the drinks for the menu?

Just the usual way. Lots of tasting, lots of thinking. I don’t know, something like the Americana, again, it’s kind of weirdly like the Scorpino at Bar Planet. It was like an Americano that we pronounced wrong so we could kind of do what we wanted to.

Okay, you’ve got flexibility. So will the Americana change a bit over time?

Nah, I think the Americana is going to stay as it is. Everything else might change, but I feel like the Americana, weirdly enough, is kind of weirdly perfect with the lemon granita on the top. I can’t actually believe that nobody’s [done that] — I’m sure somebody in a dive bar in Sicily has done that. Part of the idea was we kept thinking about what would it be like if you’d taken over an old Italian or euro diner and then turned it into a cocktail bar. What would they have and what would change? And part of that was granita or ice cream — all the candle holders are ice cream cups, and obviously there’s a lot of funny diner elements to it as well in there as well.

Describe the design aesthetic — what was the brief?

The brief, don’t know, we don’t really write it up. The idea was like a European in Chicago opened a diner in the 70s and then in 2004 their groover grandson opened a bar in it. All the music’s from about 2005, and it’s got a bit of peak 2007 Brooklyn energy to it as well. Maybe that dates me as a weird groover.

Nostalgia is coming right back. And that’s funniest thing about it — we’re at a point now where we’re being nostalgic about our own early 20s. It’s just fucking petrifying and fun at the same time.

What are the hours — are you open seven days?

Seven days, 4pm to 2am, same as Cantina OK!.

Why do you want that consistency, staying open throughout the week?

For small bars, when it comes down to it, if you can do it, you should do it. That’s it. It’s not even commercial, it’s about having as many people through the doors as we possibly can. People that come in on a Monday are just as important as people that come in on Saturday.

What about the name — where does that come from?

Nowhere. Just like all the other ones. They come from nowhere.

And the colour scheme here — what’s that? Because you guys always have a colour scheme that identifies your bars.

Orange neon, orange socks.

Like Cantina OK! and Centro 86, are the uniform socks from Uniqlo?

Yeah, very important. That’s the thing that people care about. Uniqlo orange socks is the first thing we looked up. What socks do we have left? You can definitely pick what’s coming up next. We’re running out of socks. So we’re gonna have to just like olive green and brown and black for the next few. It’s been fun.

Who’s running the bar here?

Jacob D’Esposito is running the bar, Jacob has worked for us for the last two years at Cantina OK!. But before that he was running a fantastic bar down in Wollongong. So he came with like a wealth of small bar knowledge. He’s a great guy, he’s gonna do a great job.

And who’s behind the drinks on the menu?

Like the rest of Mucho, I write all the menus. The drinks always start off as mine. But then they get a life of their own. They always start off from here and then they find their way into other places eventually. But we’re happy. We think they’re different enough to what we’ve done before but also it’s got a bit of that Mucho, something familiar but also something kind of different energy to everything that we do.

For the Herbs Negroni, what do you do to make it your own Negroni?

Honestly, not much — that’s the whole point about the Negroni. We have a few Negronis, definitely the Gold Negroni and the Green are different.

I really liked the Gold Negroni.

You really like gold? I really like it too — they’re different. But to be honest, a Negroni really is such an important part of people’s drinking experience, like you can’t really mess with it too much. So the Herbs Negroni is a pretty straight up and down Negroni. We blend the vermouths, but it’s got Campari and it’s got gin in it. I don’t want to mess around with it too much. So the main thing is to get it in the right freezing cold glass, pour it out of a silly pour spout.

You here pouring with a bit of height on it right?

Yeah, we’re pouring it out with a particular pourer that’s made for Spanish cider, and for —I can’t pronounce this but — wine from Txakoli. It’s got an X in it, my Basque friends are gonna kill me for that. I don’t have any Basque friends. I’m fine. The idea is that not only is it cool to pour, but it aerates as it’s coming out. It gives a bit of a life to it as well. And it gives a little bit of that Mucho working for a cocktail theatre as well. That’s a pretty important part of what we do. You know, it’s silly as well. You gotta have some fun, right? Why are those guys pouring it sideways? Who knows? I was saying that actually the best version of it may end up being the Kikkoman sauce bottle.