The Drinks You’ll Want to Order at Monkey Thief, Now Open in Hell’s Kitchen
Depending on your nightlife vibe, chances are that you either go out in Hell’s Kitchen almost exclusively, or you hardly set foot in the western half of midtown Manhattan at all. So, when the team behind Greenpoint’s Sama Street began looking for a space for their new project, Hell’s Kitchen definitely wasn’t their first thought.
“I think we saw every place below 14th Street, maybe twice, and things weren’t clicking. And then this place kind of fell into our laps,” says David Muhs, one of the three co-owners of Monkey Thief, alongside Avi Singh and Rishi Rajpal. Like Sama Street, the new place, Monkey Thief, which opened on Oct. 8, is described as “pan Asian,” featuring flavors inspired by the trio’s experiences living in and traveling throughout various parts of Asia, from Singapore to New Delhi. The menu leans heavily toward the savory, which happens to be on-trend right now, but a culinary approach to cocktail-making has long been their signature.
Next time you find yourself in the Theater District, consider swinging by for an aprés-show (or just aprés-work) cocktail and some chaat masala fries or Sichuan peppercorn-spiced fried chicken. The team spoke to us about some of the beverages they’re getting ready to shake up and their original approach to building recipes.
The Resy Rundown
Monkey Thief
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Why We Like It
Flavors hailing from Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese cuisines are reinvented in the form of cocktails at this refreshing new addition to Hell’s Kitchen. Get your (and your grid’s) savory cocktail fix with one of their stylish, culinarily inspired drinks. -
Essential Dishes
Monkey Thief serves small bites like a fried chicken bao, dumplings, and a grilled coconut salad. Beef tartare fans will want to try their version, which is seasoned with Thai chile sauce. Or keep it casual and get an order of fries dusted with chaat masala spice. -
Must-Order Drinks
The Major Tom is essentially tom kha soup in cocktail form, which you’ve got to try at least once. Or grab a Soba Sally and skip the booze without risking FOMO — this alcohol-free drink is just as well-considered as the alcoholic ones.
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Who and What It’s For
Pre- or post-show bites and drinks, midtown office workers looking for a cool, slightly upscale place to unwind at the end of the day, foodies, trendy cocktail drinkers, mixed drinking/non-drinking friend groups -
How to Get In
There’s plenty of potential space for walk-ins, but this being a busy neighborhood, you’d be wise to book a reservation — especially if you’re hoping to visit during peak dinner hours (about 7 to 9 p.m.). Reservations drop on Resy one week in advance. -
Fun Fact
The Seven Long Years was named by Muhs’ wife, in reference to the amount of time he’s been asking her to come up with names for his creations.
1. 7 Long Years
Sama Street’s flagship drink is set to make its Manhattan debut with the opening of Monkey Thief. 7 Long Years, a sort of play on a spicy margarita, is actually the drink that started it all.
“I actually made this cocktail for Avi and Rishi when I had a tasting to get the head bartender position almost six years ago, and so it got me the job, and it’s kept us going at Sama Street,” Muhs said.
“So, we’re infusing the tequila with green chiles. And then we’re using fresh pineapple juice, fresh lime juice, agave, and then sesame. The sesame is really what sort of surprises people, sort of makes it interesting. It adds a little sort of savory twist to it, and it’s been a hit for us, so we’re bringing it here as well. It’s served in a little ceramic, sort of miso soup bowl, with an ice cube and sesame seeds on top.”
2. Major Tom
While it’s generally not a good idea to have drinks instead of dinner, an exception could be made for Monkey Thief’s Major Tom, the flavors of which are more than just a nod to tom kha soup. (Just kidding — please don’t drink on an empty stomach. Fortunately, Monkey Thief serves food as well.)
“This is gin with lemongrass shochu, lemongrass syrup, ginger, coconut cream, chile, a pickled fish sauce, pickled tomato, like cherry tomato and lime juice,” Muhs says. “So I made this drink, and it kind of just needed a little bit of that funk and umami from fish sauce, but I didn’t want to just dump a bunch of fish sauce in there. We make a little pickled cherry tomato, where we use the fish sauce as the salt component. One of those just goes in the shaker, and it adds another level of acidity and a little bit of umami. It’s in another ceramic mug — we like our ceramics — with a big ice cube and then a makrut lime on top.”
3. Keepin’ It Kosho
While the team is bringing some of their tried-and-true signature cocktails to Monkey Thief from Sama Street, one big difference is that about a third of Monkey Thief’s menu comes on draft.
“I know some people love it, some people hate it, and it’s going to be a new project for me to figure out,” Muhs said. “We do some carbonation stuff at Sama Street with the two-liter bottles and the carbonation rig there. But here we’re doing full on keg cocktails.”
One such drink is going to be the Keepin’ It Kosho, featuring gin, tomato water, an acid mix, and then the spicy, fermented condiment yuzu kosho.
“The yuzu kosho gives a little spice, a little like fermenty funk, but this one drinks like a hot summer day. You can just sling these down, with that little bit of salinity in there and the MSG from the tomatoes. It’s garnished with Thai basil leaf, and we put it in a vintage glass, which is kind of cool. Hopefully we don’t break too many.”
4. Lychee, No Lychee
“This is our version of a lychee martini, but there’s no lychee in it,” Muhs starts to explain. “We’re using a blend here of vodka, white rum, and then a shochu, a really cool shochu. It’s fairly new to the market. It literally tastes like lychee, and smells like lychee, but it’s just straight up shochu,” made from sweet potato and koji rice. An excessively rainy sweet potato season can result in a shochu having some lychee-esque notes, but in this case, apparently the resemblance in flavor and aroma is shocking.
“We’re also making a jasmine and grapefruit cordial, then a little lime juice, a little absinthe, and then some Thai basil seeds that we’ve soaked in jasmine tea as well. It adds a little bit of texture,” Muhs said.
5. Soba Sally
Despite non-alcoholic cocktails being virtually ubiquitous nowadays, it’s something that many bars are still trying to figure out, often missing the mark with unbalanced, saccharine, and juice-heavy drinks — or those that overcorrect and end up overpoweringly bitter. Non-alcoholic wine is, arguably, even further behind.
“I like Champagne,” Muhs said, “but a lot of the non-alcoholic ones I’ve tried have been sort of watery on the palate, or, you know, it was not quite there. And I wondered if I could somehow do better with whatever I could come up with. One thing I really missed in them was that toastiness you get from Champagne, so we added the buckwheat tea. We’re clarifying lychee, which is a big component of it. It gives it a little bit of that fruitiness that you need. And then clarified tomato water here as well to add, again, that MSG, savory note. And then some acids, and a little verjus for that grapiness that you want.”
Monkey Thief is open daily from 5 p.m. to midnight.
Ariana DiValentino is a writer, filmmaker, and actor based in Brooklyn. Follow her on Instagram, X, and TikTok. Follow Resy, too.
Must be 21 years of age or older to consume alcoholic beverages. Please drink responsibly.
