Shotski’s Alpine Lodge Permanent Vacation cocktail. Photo by Virginia Miller. Six San Francisco cocktail bars or restaurants serving cocktails — and good vibes — that should be more well known than they are. But lucky for us, these are “just between you and me” (wink, wink). Olde Fashioned. Photo by Virginia Miller. What a Neighborhood Cocktail Bar Should Be: Olde… Read more →
10 Top Bars in Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia Read more →
Hamburguesa Bar. Photo by Virginia Miller. These 10 new(ish) restaurants — plus two bonus takeout/delivery spots — offer affordable, sometimes fun and delicious casual eats. These 12 cover the gamut: burger bar, Korean-Japanese katsu and udon, Yucatacen Mexican, hoagies, vegan Filipino, Chinese, Middle-Eastern, Indian and Tunisian-influenced wraps. Coffee shop tip: my favorite new neighborhood cafe is Yardsale Equipment Company in… Read more →
Published in the Fall 2024 print issue of Distiller Magazine:
— 10 of Chicago’s best bars Read more →
Summer is at its apex in August with a wealth of notable new and longtime bars around San Francisco. Here are six under-the-radar bars to visit now, ranging from a reborn dive bar to craft Peruvian cocktails. Read more →
Published in American Whiskey Magazine Spring 2024 in the print issue, a glimpse of the article: Read more →
Stookey’s Blue Room cocktail. Photo by Virginia Miller. Weaned on films of the 1930–1960s as a child, I was a martinis and jazz girl long before I could drink. I dreamed of the kind of 1930s bars and 1940s supperclubs I saw in those movies, teeming with icy martinis, jazz and a beautifully-dressed clientele. When Tim Stookey, his wife Leslie Cole… Read more →
Starlite pre-sunset. Photo by Virginia Miller. Since 1928, San Francisco has sparkled and shimmered from the 21st floor of Starlite, an iconic San Francisco bar reborn February 2, 2024, atop The Beacon Grand. Formerly the historic Sir Francis Drake, the hotel got a massive remodel and rebrand in 2022. Its shining star until 2011 was the legendary Harry Denton’s Starlight Room.… Read more →
Many a happy night was spent at Broken Record over a decade ago with my friends and family, playing pool, sipping a dram from their affordable whiskey list, and filling up on excellent bar food. After closing in September 2022, I couldn’t have predicted that friends Ethan Terry and Greg Quinn would end up taking over the space and opening The Halfway Club, their dream long in the making. Read more →
Movida Lounge’s prettiest cocktail, the Chilosa: green chile-infused gin, cilantro, lime, coconut, gol gav zaban borage blue flowers. Photo by Virginia Miller. San Francisco has long been rife with world’s best cocktail bars: it was one of three cities, alongside New York and New Orleans, that introduced the world to cocktails in the 1800s, after all. Then SF and NYC led… Read more →