We are not the kind that wear their nationality on their sleeve, so to speak, but there’s a certain obscure corner in New York – South of Canal Street, as you make your way to Tribeca – that resonates with Argentines of a certain age, as it was portrayed in the cover of Clics Modernos – a seminal record by iconic auteur Charly García. A few steps away, in the basement of the Walker Hotel, you will find Saint Tuesday, a wonder of a bar that navigates the precise balance between being hip and being underground with pristine and natural elegance.
The space, designed by Johnny McCormick (the visionary behind Brooklyn haunts like Maison Premiere), embodies that rare mix of Parisian jazz cave and New York swagger – all brass accents and candlelight dancing off copper details. But it’s the nightly rotation of live music that truly sets the soul of the place. While other venues might lean into obvious jazz-age nostalgia, Saint Tuesday pulls from a deeper well, channeling the raw energy of Titanic-era working-class gatherings through reclaimed barn wood floors and that remarkable 19th-century ice box behind the bar.
Our playlist mirrors this thoughtful layering of time and place. Opening with Warhaus’s “Love’s a Stranger,” we set the mood with the kind of smoky vocals that feel at home among the bar’s gold starburst stage design. The selection weaves through contemporary takes on vintage sounds – notice how Sidsel Endresen and Bugge Wesseltoft’s electronic remix of “You Might Say” feels perfectly at place next to Melody Gardot’s jazz traditionalism in “Preacherman.” Just as Saint Tuesday’s cocktail program (headed by Milk & Honey alum Christopher Covey) pays homage to classics while pushing boundaries, our musical curation balances respect for the past with modern edge.
We close the playlist with a nod to that timeless quality Saint Tuesday achieves – Federico Aubele and Melody Gardot’s “Somewhere Else” captures that same sense of being “unstuck from time and space” that Covey aims for with every carefully crafted drink. It won’t substitute for the real thing, but it will remind you to get your ass to the Walker Hotel asap – if only to discover how perfectly Barry Adamson’s “Hollywood Sunset” sounds when filtered through those vintage walls and that essential New York City basement air.