Cloakroom Bar — Restaurant in Montreal

Quirky Speakeasy Vibe, Variable Mixed Drink Experience at Cloakroom Bar

During my recent visit to Cloakroom Bar, a popular speakeasy in Montreal, I encountered a mixed bag of experiences. While the quirky interior and cozy ambiance added charm to the place, the drink offerings left something to be desired.

Let's start with the positive aspects. The interior of Cloakroom Bar exudes an intimate and cozy atmosphere, perfect for a unique night out. The small space adds to the speakeasy vibe, creating an exclusive feel. However, it's worth noting that due to limited seating, it's advisable to arrive early to secure a comfortable spot. The bench seating is better suited for a couple or a small group, so keep that in mind when planning your visit.

Moving on to the drinks, I found them to be a bit hit-or-miss. The bartenders at Cloakroom Bar will ask for your preferences and create a concoction based on your input. Unfortunately, my experience with this approach was underwhelming. When I requested a gin and dry, the resulting drink tasted unlike a typical gin and leaned towards the sweeter side, which was not to my liking. Even when I asked for a twist on a gin and tonic, I was disappointed by the outcome, finding it rather unappealing.

It's important to note that taste preferences can vary, and my experience might not necessarily reflect the overall quality of the drinks at Cloakroom Bar. However, based on my personal encounter, I found the beverage offerings to be lacking consistency and falling short of my expectations.

In conclusion, Cloakroom Bar offers a quirky speakeasy atmosphere with its small and cozy interior, but the drink experience left much to be desired during my visit. The bartenders' attempts to tailor drinks to individual preferences didn't quite hit the mark for me. If you do plan to visit, I would recommend going early to secure a suitable seating arrangement and keeping an open mind when it comes to the...

Our first experience with this place was amazing, but has been overshadowed by our second.

Bad one:

The person at the door was the most wild customer service experience I’ve ever had. That’s fine if you have a “no more than 6” policy, but no one in our group was rude to him and he was awful and aggressive right away. That’s fine if you turn us away, it happens, but at least treat us with some decency.

We brought a large group, hoping to split off in small groups in any way they would allow. No issue if we needed to sit completely apart, if some had to wait in the lobby because the space is so small. We were even making jokes that we would go in 3/3/2 and pretend we didn’t know each other. We also came right when they opened to make sure we didn’t bother them at rush hour.

Ultimately, he just wanted us to leave and would not communicate with us about alternatives.

4 of us ended up leaving, and the 4 newbies went inside. They said it was fine, but they were upset as to how the rest of us were treated and it clouded their experience as well. Also, there was plenty of room for us the entire time they were there apparently.

Policy is policy, but at least treat people better when you have to use it. That conversation could have gone 100 different ways that would have resulted in us wanting to come back another time.

Good one, 5 stars:

For small groups, it really is a lot of fun. Our first bartender was amazing and we loved all the questions he asked us to get us the perfect cocktails. He really made us want to come back again, obviously. 10/10

I would recommend just answering the questions as they ask them, rather than bring up your favorite cocktail and try to get a spin on it. The creations my friends had were delicious and nothing I would have thought of before. Really a one of a kind...

The cocktails here are objectively great and I understand exactly why this place made the “best bar” lists—the no menu shtick, clean minimalist vibe of the space and cocktails, and polished service lend themselves naturally to those kind of upper crust rankings. The bartenders who discuss your preferences in order to select cocktails are efficient, almost to a fault, to the point that I felt a little boxed in. I appreciate the difficulty of the no menu concept and that you have to distill folks’ tastes down into convenient boxes, but “spirit forward gin” doesn’t inherently mean Negroni or martini, so I was a little surprised by the rigidity of the drink planning conversation. I can’t help but compare it to another small but well known “no menu” bar in town, where my drink-planning conversation was much more organic. Yes, that bartender talked about his own personal favorites and ingredients he was experimenting with and thus placed himself into the conversation more, but it felt much more intimate and personal that way and I’ve got to say that I preferred that experience to Cloakroom’s more sanitized one. That being said, I did end up with 2 delicious drinks at Cloakroom (plus the welcome drink—a really nice touch), but there was nothing else particularly memorable about the experience. The drinks are so balanced (again, objectively great), but there’s nothing to make you say “wow”—no surprising moment in the drink, no charming garnish, and those small moments are what make a drink truly memorable in my eyes, and that’s missing here. Sometimes I think this is a fault of being a part of the elite list of “the best”—is some bit of character (maybe even some...