Cocktail chat: Schmuck, New York
After finding success in Barcelona, the team behind the acclaimed Schmuck have taken their food-forward cocktails to New York.
*This feature was originally published in the April issue of The Spirits Business magazine.
In New York, you are as defined by where you came from as much as where you’re going, and such is the case for Moe Aljaff and Juliette Larrouy. The two opened the doors to Schmuck this past January, serving food-inspired cocktails in a dual-concept setting modelled after a house party.
On the surface, all of that is communicated, but so too is a sense of travel and perspective. Toss in the turbulent circumstances that led them here and each sip takes on added significance. “We have worked together for a long time now, and so much crazy stuff has happened to us,” Larrouy says. “This is almost like a marriage because you go through so many beautiful moments, but so many difficult ones also.”
Aljaff was born in Iraq and raised in Sweden, while Larrouy is from the south of France. They crossed paths in 2018, when Aljaff, who had opened Two Schmucks in Barcelona the previous year, visited Le Syndicat in Paris, where Larrouy was working. They stayed in touch, collaborating on events. When Aljaff’s business partner stepped away in 2020, he brought in Larrouy as manager and beverage director.
Lessons learned
The bar’s profile continued to rise, but in October 2022, the pair left. Aljaff cites a difference in viewpoint with a new investor taken on during the pandemic. “The biggest lesson we learned is how to pick your partners, what questions to ask, how to be clear about our point of view, our non-negotiables, and how to ensure that we’re on the same page,” he says.
The Schmuck team held a residency in Miami in early 2023 where they met their current business partner Dan Binkiewicz, co-owner of Sweet Liberty and Medium Cool in Miami and Old Glory in Nashville. Together, they were set on a permanent location in New York, and found one in the East Village, on the corner of 6th Street and 1st Avenue.
The space was meticulously filled by Aljaff and Larrouy, who describes it as what their apartment would look like if money weren’t an object. The house-party concept adds to a sense of decor as self, the way a person’s home would have details about their life. “You can feel it in the bar that it’s real,” Larrouy says. “It’s basically a reflection of who we are.”
That extends to the cocktail menus, where drinks are constructed around familiar flavours, specifically ones that evoke an emotion or sense of place. The main Living Room area offers up the Larb Gai, made with Cognac, peanuts, herbs, and chilli oil. It was inspired by a dish that Aljaff ate frequently while living in Thailand. In the back room, or Kitchen Table, there is the Melon Cheese Pepper, made with Fords Gin, dry vermouth with cantaloupe melon and mozzarella cheese foam. It is Larrouy’s way of capturing a taste of home. The Bread with Tomatoes, meanwhile, isn’t a reference to the popular Spanish dish pan con tomate, but rather the act of soaking up tomato juices with bread after eating a summer salad. In the Mediterranean, she notes, you eat tomatoes all summer long.
“There’s a lot of influence from southern Europe, for sure,” she says. “A lot of it is our background, and we never go away from it, because there’s so much to explore. We’re taking stuff we really know about. It makes way more sense to open this type of bar in New York than in Europe. We feel like we bring something to the city.”
A New York residency in winter 2024 allowed them to understand the differences in customers, with Larrouy saying that New York drinkers are more likely to pick up some of the finer details, while in Barcelona, people are more concerned with atmosphere.
“The mentality and culture [in Barcelona] is to go out with your friends, and you don’t really care about where you go and what you drink,” she says. “In New York, people come to try your stuff and check your venue. If you do something wrong with a New Yorker, they’re going to let you know. But when they like it, they are really thankful.”
A bigger occasion
There have been other cultural adjustments as well. Larrouy says that in Barcelona, guests go out late every night of the week, while in New York, drinkers prefer an earlier start and treat the weekend as a bigger occasion. She also notes that American guests drink and pay quicker, though she wants them to feel comfortable so they stay and relax.
“It’s more interesting than problematic,” she says. In March, the bar began opening at 4pm. Larrouy says in summer she hopes to open the windows fully so that guest can smoke outside and still have conversations. “We’re trying to bring some European culture to the cocktail bar scene of New York,” she says. “You don’t see the difference between the inside and the outside. This is what we wanted, Mediterranean and European cultures, in America.”
Larrouy speaks highly of other New York cocktail bars like Superbueno, Martiny’s, Overstory, and Double Chicken Please, all of which showcase a specific point of view. In this way, Schmuck is on its way to joining New York’s buzziest bars, delivering a portrait of its creators, a snapshot of their interests, lives, and tastes.
“Sometimes you want something classic and sometimes you want to be surprised,” Larrouy says. For those looking for a surprise, Schmuck serves as a European oasis, a New York bar playing UK grime, serving drinks with elements of melon and cheese. Aljaff says it is a reflection of the pair at this moment, what they like to drink and how they enjoy themselves. “If you come to our bar, I want you to have something that you will never have in your home or someplace else,” Larrouy says. Thus far, patrons are lining up to get their passports stamped.
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