Bar Omela Has Opened

Bright, warm, intimate — bar Omela on Pozharsky Lane doesn't just complement Sofia Meladze's restaurant of the same name, opened a year earlier, but sets a new benchmark for Moscow's intimate cocktail bars. It offers a unique experience worth making a special trip for.

A dozen guests and two bartenders beneath the snow-white sphere of a mistletoe chandelier, casting lacy shadows on the light wood walls and marble counter — that's roughly what the bar looks like, occupying a floor-to-ceiling-windowed wing of a small apartment building about fifty meters from Ostozhenka. The architectural and interior design feels more like the club lounge bar of an upscale hotel. The service and the menu only reinforce that impression.

Head bartender Ruslan Mingazov (Folk, Amber, Dry&Wet) bets on classic cocktails. He approaches them like a restorer: dusting off recipes, refreshing them, giving them new energy. No twists that involve swapping ingredients, and no liberties taken with the heritage of mixology in general. The most the bar's team is willing to do is barely noticeable adjustments to texture, balance, and proportion.

"To reveal classic cocktails to people from a modern angle on flavor balance and cocktail-mixing approach. To immerse guests, using accumulated experience, in old, forgotten flavors through modern techniques. And to give guests the best possible place to soak in these drinks in the right atmosphere," is how Ruslan Mingazov puts the bar's concept.

Unusual techniques help clarify classic flavors and make them deeper and fuller. Alcoholic vinegars are made from liqueurs, sherries, gins, and other spirits. Combined with citrus, they create a nuanced, velvety sense of acidity. An example can be found in the Brandy Crusta (1000 r.). This cocktail's recipe has been known since the 1850s, but at Omela the straightforward acidity of lemon juice is softened with a custom vinegar made from curaçao liqueur. Another example is the Negroni (1000 r.), where miso-paste-infused gin and campari vinegar give it an unexpectedly full flavor. Alcoholic vinegars serve as a natural substitute for natural acids, which can create uncomfortable sensations in cocktails.

Ultrasonic homogenization helps "blend" oils into a drink, create rich extracts, and artificially "age" drinks. It's an interesting topic to discuss over a glass of homogenized limoncello: lime juice, green pepper, and cream come together into a lavish, luxuriant drink. The bartenders also have a centrifuge and genuine oak barrels at their disposal, where cocktails age, mutually absorbing the flavors of the ingredients used in them.

The Manhattan (1200 r.), with a couple of drops of absinthe, gains a special expressiveness; the Penicillin (1100 r.) comes with the dense-foam texture of a ginger-lemon curd run through a siphon; the Piña Colada (1000 r.), with white absinthe, sorbets, and a small amount of crémant — at Omela, the classics keep their familiar flavor but appear in a new form. You can even visualize it: for the cocktail list, Ruslan Mingazov depicted each drink as a diagram of flavor waves and impressions. Look at the drawing and compare it to your own sensations.

A special touch is added to the bar's service by a snack menu put together by restaurant Omela's chef. Chicken liver pâté with dried lingonberry and brioche (650 r.), marinated artichokes with goat cheese and parmesan mousse (650 r.), antipasti (1320 r.) — small and elegant, they'll keep you going between drinks.

Address: Pozharsky Ln., 3
Number of seats: 12
Hours:
Wed-Thu 18:00 – 00:00
Fri-Sat 18:00 – until the last guest
Sun 18:00 – 00:00