Layla – Eatery & Bar’s cocktails-on-tap program features Chivas Highballs and Altos Margaritas. And raspberry air foam and ant salt. Plus, some of the ingredients are recycled between Layla – Eatery & Bar, and their botanical-concept-bar Summer Experiment, and brunch spot WKND. All of this has the co-founder and ‘Alcohol Pharmacist’ Jay Moir and the team pumped.
Đọc bài viết bằng Tiếng Việt
The Saigon cocktail bar, Layla – Eatery & Bar, seems to get bigger each visit. It’s been slowly stretching out across the ramshackle late colonial-era block at the intersection of Dong Du Street and Dong Khoi.
Growing Old (Dis)Gracefully
But this 240-seat bar has expanded almost as hungrily as its guests have been downing their drinks. And the service has kept pace. Layla – Eatery & Bar is all energy as the eight bartenders on shift behind the legendary, 11-meter long bar, offer an endless line of inventive cocktails and abundant bar snacks with well-drilled ease. That’s partly because ‘Tipsy Mentor’ Grace Zhang is keeping a watchful eye on things.
Originally a spacious, warehouse-like single-room Saigon cocktail bar, Layla – Eatery & Bar has evolved over the years since it opened in 2016. They acquired the adjacent apartments, one-by-one, culminating in a leisurely lounge area behind the bar adorned with plush sofas, a pool table, and an expansive terrace outdoors.
“Layla, I’m Begging, Darling, Please”
But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before the bar had opened almost eight years ago, it needed a name. Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’ had played on the stereo, Jay remembers, right when he and the co-founders were brainstorming ideas over drinks.
It was a perfect match. The lyrics “Layla, I’m begging, darling, please, Layla darling, won’t you ease my worried mind?” embodied a captivating female persona that would beckon guests back time and again.
Bringing that to life at Layla – Eatery & Bar meant offering an extensive page-turner of a menu. One that included drinks that were light-hearted enough to appeal to the uninitiated but savvy enough and with enough soul to satisfy the connoisseur.
A Martini Menu, Flavored Mules And More
So, there’s a section solely dedicated to Martinis (with 14 variations besides the classic with gin or vodka). And local craft beers on tap, like Beglo Session IPA on tap, and bottles and local canned craft beers in the fridge from Heart Of Darkness and Mixtape.
There’s a build-your-own gin and vodka mixer menu with the choice of 20 gins and 18 vodkas. And there’s a ‘nothing but old school’ selection of classics like Japanese Slippers and Jungle Birds. There’s classic cocktails with a twist, and flavored classics like Margaritas and Moscow Mules, and even sharing batch punch bowls. And lots more.
Added to that, with an accessible price point – including 99K Happy Hour Cocktails – the slightly disorientating expedition up the stairs to Layla is quickly dispelled by the time the first (of many) rounds of shots are upturned.
Interestingly, Jay adds that in Arabic, ‘Layla’ means ‘night.’ That also resonated with the team. Layla opens from 4PM and goes until late (1-2AM) every day except Sundays, when things begin at 1PM.
Some Eclectic Clientele
There’s just a small unassuming sign at the entrance downstairs. “Could Saigon’s busiest cocktail bar really be up here?” you wonder as the stairs double back on themselves.
By the second flight, you can hear the gregarious, good times echoing down the hall.
“You forget,” Jay reminds us, “that back in 2016, in Saigon, you couldn’t open a bar or restaurant in a hidden space like this, away from the street.” Layla – Eatery & Bar wasn’t imagined as a speakeasy exactly. “But we wanted to offer some adventure,” Jay smiles.
And then you’re into the heart of the building. And across the hall with its vintage floor tiles. Then, you’re up the steps to Layla – Eatery & Bar to find the kind of eclectic clientele only this bar could gather together. There are flash packers from the hostel upstairs crushing Salted Caramel Espresso Martinis, an itinerant salesperson decompressing from a day of meetings with a dirty Martini before going back to The Sheraton across the road, a couple finishing their drinks far too quickly to take the awkward edge off their first date, and a production team who just wrapped their shoot raising the first of many beers.
Layla Is Loco For The Coco
Summer Experiment, the team’s second bar, which opened in late 2019, allowed them to get botanical. Over there, there are watering cans full of bright colored liquids. And copper pots billowing smoke. But while that bar took some of the attention, Layla – Eatery & Bar kept up its relentless hours of service – 7-days a week and open during holidays – and cycles of research and development.
One of the latest innovations that has helped them go from serving 166 seats to 240 – plus the additional guests content to congregate around the bar – is their cocktails-on-tap program.
The four cocktails-on-tap are also a good summation of Layla – Eatery & Bar’s carefree but cocktail-forward inclinations. They haveh cheeky names like Pop My Cherry that belie their serious commitment to creativity and sustainability.
They’ve created a circular eco-system between Summer Experiment and Layla, and their latest venue, the Thao Dien brunch spot, WKND.
So, the coconuts, slurped down by recuperating daytime guests of WNKD, provide the shells that become the cups for their Loco For The Coco. Likewise for the pineapples. The skins of which go into the drink’s pineapple cordial. And even the pineapple fibers become a pineapple-leather garnish.
Popping Guests’ Cherries
There’s a Pop My Cherry too, with cherry soju, Beefeater London Dry Gin, citric acid, grenadine, and raspberry air foam. And there’s a highball, called Highballin.’ It’s made with Chivas Regal 12. Added to that, to give it some tartness is green apple, which matches some of the fruit notes in the Speyside whisky, and some oolong tea, and Peychaud Bitters too.
And Layla’s Ant No Harm With This Margarita, is made from a base of Altos Plata, with orange curaçao, overripe mango cordial, roasted bell pepper oil, and a line of spicy ant salt around the rim of the glass.
Layla – Eatery & Bar Beckoning Guests Back Time And Again
With those alone, Jay reckons, they can serve over 400 cocktails a night. Each 19-liter tank can produce around 115 drinks. And the little touches – the coconut cup and pineapple garnish, or the raspberry air foam and the ant salt – turn them into such well-rounded cocktails that no one cares whether they came from a tap or a cocktail shaker.
They’re the kind of drinks that are already beckoning guests back to Layla time and again.
All photos exclusively for The Dot Magazine by Nghia Ngo.
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