Cocktail Mary, Anoche, and A&C Grocery at Night

I went out last Friday night to visit several new Washington Avenue businesses. A friend who moved away in August was visiting for the holiday and since we both used to live on Munjoy Hill, we wanted to see what's new in the old neighborhood. On our agenda: drinks at Cocktail Mary, a new cocktail bar on Congress Street, drinks at Anoche, a cider and tapas bar, and dinner at A&C Grocery, a former market turned diner. 

The first stop, Cocktail Mary, was a huge success. This space used to be Ramen Suzukiya and has been transformed by former Izakaya Minato bartender Isaac MacDougal with a hand-painted mural, pastel colors and a bar running the length of the space. Despite there not being any soft materials in the decor, it never got too loud in here.

The menu is short and sweet: 7 specialty cocktails, sodas, beer, and wine. We enjoyed the Marty Washington with Hardshore gin, grapefruit kombucha, Aperol, maple, and Luxardo ($14), while G. had The Orchard Rye with Jim Beam rye, Melletti, Fernet Michaud, and fresh apple juice. 

A. showed up after a while and enjoyed the tropical Scurvy Snack, made with rum, caraway, pineapple gum syrup, and lime ($10). We snacked on some delightfully over seasoned ranch-flavored oyster crackers, which is the only food available. 

Next up: Anoche. This cider and tapas bar is from Erika Colby, former bar manager of Novare Res. She has completely transformed the former Coffee By Design space, with dark walls, natural wood, and lots of houseplants (this picture came out kind of crazy, but I think it channels the vibe well!).

There's an extensive cider menu, but I'd been hearing about the gin and tonics, served in giant goblet-esque wine glasses, so I went with one of those. We intended to try out the some of the tapas menu, but were approaching closing time at A&C Grocery, and I was a little afraid of what Joe would do to us if we rolled in at 8:50pm.

So I'll be back to try out Anoche's tapas menu—the whole leg of jamon iberico was calling my name. 

Down the block we went to A&C Grocery, at the corner of Washington Ave. and Walnut St. Owners Joe Fournier and Ben Slattery have just started serving a French brasserie dinner menu from 6 to 9pm. The menu is small and they were out of an item, so we were able to order nearly everything: French onion soup, a frisee and 7-minute duck egg salad, and steak frites. The mussels and frites were out for the evening and we skipped the duck wings and sausage served with beans. 

Everything we had was so good—the French onion soup sweet and salty, the frisee salad mustardy and rich, and the steak and frites both perfectly cooked. I would repeat this meal in a second. 

We had a great time bar/diner crawling down Washington Ave. and judging from friends' Instagram stories, we weren't the only ones spending a Friday night checking out the new businesses that have opened in Portland's East End. Inner Washington Ave. is quickly becoming (has become?) a better place to spend a weeknight evening than the Old Port.