The Coachman (CLOSED)

Though the Coachman may look like any number of contemporary, classy restaurants—long and dimly lit with casual tables gathered in the back—the bar program is anything but run-of-the-mill. Bar manager Johnny Codd brings energy and passion with creative riffs on obscure drinks from the early 1900s. The bar is forging fresh approaches to San Francisco's mature mixology culture, reducing Negroni cocktails to a syrup to use as an ingredient (a cocktail within a cocktail?), using wine ice shards to change the flavor of a drink gradually, serving cocktails in hunting flasks, and spotlighting an inventive flight of classic citrus-gin cocktails that are clarified until they are silky smooth. The bar itself is a sight to behold: Made from a single, 20-foot-long piece of wood, it stretches the length of the space, offering a comfortable place to imbibe and nosh on Charles Phan's modern British pub fare (steak pie, potted crab and a juicy prime rib).