The Montford Rooftop Bar

Black dome lights hang low over the bar, copper on the underside. The bar sits apart from the dining room, darker, lit by the domes rather than the glass wall next door. Behind the bar, two walls of wine sit caged in wood and wire. Raw ductwork runs the length of the ceiling above it. A terrace runs off the west side, mountains unbroken the width of it. The room opened in August 2016 at 199 Haywood Street, in what was then a Hyatt Place and is a DoubleTree by Hilton now, with fifty-three seats on the eighth floor. Paul Peffer, the opening beverage director, built the first list around tiki influence, something lighter for the height. Philip Bollhoefer ran the kitchen at the start, over from the Edison at Grove Park Inn, working shared plates instead of a full dinner. The drinks list has moved on from the one Peffer opened with: twelve cocktails now, fourteen to seventeen dollars apiece, up from eleven to fourteen at the start — the Pandan Daiquiri, the Chingon, the Bitter Tooth Spritz. The Spritz runs on Bitter Tooth, an amaro from the Asheville distillery Eda Rhyne. The terrace faces west with nothing in front of it, which is the argument for the eighth floor over the dining room next door — the ridge changes colour for an hour and the bar does not have to do anything about it. The room turns ten this month, on the same floor, over the same view, with live music booked for the anniversary on August 27.