Raines Law Room
48 W 17th, between 5th and 6th; no phone
A patron's relationship with bar staff swings between the desire for chummy and/or flirtatious companionship, and the desire to be left to take care of business, whether that's amorously nuzzling a date, or amorously nuzzling yourself. Offering both options to the maximum degree, Raines Law Room.
Serving perfectly prepared, fresh-juiced, hand-stirred or shaken classic cocktails and punches designed by a Milk & Honey vet, Raines is a sultrily lit, tin-ceiling subterranean sleeve marked only by a small plaque and doorbell -- which, like a freckled Girl Scout hawking Do-Si-Dos, you must ring to be admitted. Once inside, you're met with an anteroom flush with velvet armchairs, followed by a procession of gauzily curtained booths fit for booze-sucking vampires; each booth's equipped with a chain buzzer, so the waitress only pops in when you need another drink, or need to tell someone how awesome the buzzers are. Beyond the booths is a gilded, black-tiled kitchen, where Belgian wallpaper depicts silhouetted acts of sexual congress, and only a counter island separates three or four lucky patrons from sexual congress with the bartender.
Come spring, Raines will open up a decently sizeable backyard courtyard, giving you the opportunity to peer amorously through the windows of strangers, until a pigeon takes care of business on you.
