photograph by bruce vanwyngarden
Harold Cook with all the ingredients needed for a “Scarface.”
There are two ways to enter Belle Tavern. You can come in from Barboro Alley, which makes the place seem a bit exotic, like a back-street joint in a Dashiell Hammett novel. Or you can go through the unadorned, anonymous front door on Union, which makes you feel like you’re in the know about some secret hideaway.
Either way you enter, Belle Tavern is a dark, cozy spot, just downstairs from its posh steakhouse sister, 117 Prime, with which it shares a kitchen. And you’ll soon encounter bartender Harold Cook, a charmingly loquacious fellow who was a Midtown mainstay for more than 30 years before moving Downtown to Belle Tavern in June 2022.
photograph by bruce vanwyngarden
Cook grew up in Midtown and got his first restaurant job at the tender age of 15, while still a student at Central High School. He worked as a barback at the now-defunct Number One Beale, making drinks for the servers.
“Things like age requirements were a little looser back then, I guess,” Cook says with a grin.
His first real grownup job came at age 22, when he began bartending at the Half Shell in East Memphis. After a couple of years, he landed a gig at In Limbo, a short-lived Caribbean restaurant in Cooper-Young that later became Chef Ben Smith’s Tsunami. Cook stayed on, running the intimate little bar for a loyal clientele for 15 years.
“Tsunami was the first time I worked at a small bar, which turned on a light for me,” says Cook. “You’re not there all night. There are no late-night fights. You get home at a reasonable hour. I liked it.”
He then got an offer to move across the street to work for Ryan Trimm at the newly opened Sweetgrass, where he bartended for 10 years before Trimm closed the restaurant over a lease dispute and asked him to work Downtown at Belle Tavern. (Belle Tavern is affiliated with 117 Prime, which is owned by the Across the Board restaurant group fronted by Trimm, Craig Blondis, and Roger Sapp.)
“It’s been a really fun bar,” says Cook. “You have regulars, but you also have to constantly remake your clientele. The Peabody is one of our main sources of new customers. They send people over all the time. We even have a regular group of women who come over from Glasgow, Scotland. People who live in the neighborhood love walking up the alley. Those who drive Downtown from other parts of the city mostly just use valet parking at the front door.”
Cook says he makes a lot of traditional drinks. “We do a lot of Old Fashioneds, Manhattans, and Whiskey Sours, but I like to give traditional drinks an original twist, like our Barboro Alley Sour.”
“That sounds great,” I say. “So, what kind of drink would you make for a new customer like, say, me?”
Cook’s been prepped, and has been thinking about what to make. “I wanted to do something that’s originally me,” he says. “When I was in San Francisco a few years ago, I noticed every bartender had a Fernet-Branca drink, so I decided I needed one. Mine is called the ‘Scarface.’” (For the uninitiated, Fernet-Branca is an Italian bitters made from an original 1845 recipe of 27 herbs. The exact formula is a trade secret.)
Cook’s “Scarface” is basically a Manhattan made with Fernet-Branca instead of the traditional vermouth. He first rubs the cocktail glass’s interior with an orange peel. After that? “It’s pretty simple,” he says. “I use two shots of 100 percent Michter’s Rye Whiskey, then add Fernet, like you would vermouth, only using half the amount. The drink tastes a little like mint or menthol, different than a straight Manhattan.”
It’s a real whiskey drink, the kind a detective in a Dashiell Hammett novel would sip slowly at a backstreet bar in San Francisco while chatting up a dame who’s got something to hide. Yeah. Just like that.
The flavors in the “Scarface” get gentler, fruitier, and more subtle as the ice melts, but this is a very sturdy — and very tasty — cocktail. I recommend it to you highly, followed by an Uber chaser. Or maybe stay awhile and try one of the great Belle Tavern cheeseburgers that comes straight from the steakhouse kitchen upstairs.
Bottom line? This place is well worth a visit, no matter which door you use.
Belle Tavern is located at 117 Union Avenue.
