Meet Your Mixologist: The Dutch's Josh Nadel
We provide our guests with only the finest, artisanal, off-the-beaten-path ingredients in our house cocktails and incorporate high quality, small batch spirits.
Chef Andrew Carmellini's acclaimed New York City restaurant The Dutch opened an outpost at the W South Beach Hotel in November bringing with it a cocktail menu to rival any in the Magic City. "We provide our guests with only the finest, artisanal, off-the-beaten-path ingredients in our house cocktails and incorporate high quality, small batch spirits," says Josh Nadel, Beverage Director for The Dutch in both New York and Miami, as well as at Chef Carmellini's Locanda Verde.
A native New Yorker with James Beard and Wine Spectator Awards under his belt, Nadel is looking forward to getting to know Miami. Working with a spirit selection that is 90% identical to The Dutch in New York, there's no overlap between the two city's cocktail menus. At the W South Beach, the Havana, made with Russian Standard vodka, grape jam, tarragon, lemon, and sparkling wine, has become wildly popular with the Miami audience.
Some of the unique spirits Nadel works with include Flor de Cana clear rum from Nicaragua and Espolon tequila, a 100% pure blue agave spirit from the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. In the Perfect Storm, he utilizes Espolon, ginger liqueur, thyme, housemade jerk bitters, lime, and grapefruit soda.
One of Nadel's favorite drinks on the menu features ingredients that he's not typically a fan of separately, yet mixed together he's created a concoction that's "quite nice." The Bitter Sweet is made with pineapple infused mezcal, Campari, lemon juice, agave nectar, and a dash of Regan's orange bitters garnished with a dehydrated orange.
The mark of quality in a cocktail, for Nadel, is in the details. For instance, drinks made with fresh fruit are always double strained, first through the cocktail shaker's strainer and then through a fine strainer or sieve. The result is a clean glass and a cocktail free of unwanted ice chips.
When formulating cocktails for a restaurant, Nadel is careful to consider what impact the selections will have on the palate. "I shy away from anything too boozy like a nightcap, and instead focus on ripe flavors, texture, and balance," says Nadel. "Our drinks incorporate fresh herbs and citrus."
Nadel cites the recent evolution of the artisanal cocktail in restaurants back to the early days of the Rainbow Room while also noting Milk & Honey, the Lower East Side speakeasy, as a vanguard of the modern day cocktail. "People started taking cocktails more seriously at bars," says Nadel. "It was a natural progression to take them seriously at restaurants too. A cocktail should have no less excellence than the meal being enjoyed."
In Miami, Nadel is impressed with what he's seeing in mixology at Michelle Bernstein and Michael Schwartz's restaurants and is happy to add his footprint with The Dutch. "We want our guests to have a great time and not be intimidated by an overly cerebral product," says Nadel. "But we also offer an experimental cocktail selection with discovery-based opportunities. It's one of the best bars in Miami."
