BAR REVIEW: Diversión
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Until a recent major surge in Memorial openings, the region on the west side of Houston between The Galleria and CityCentre was something of a desert when it came to great food and drink. However, one very peculiarly located restaurant/bar duo on Long Point in Spring Branch tried to buck that trend, before it was fashionable. Degust was an omakase-style Spanish/Mexican restaurant at the forefront of the tasting menu trend, and its sister bar, Diversión, was something of a mad scientist's lab-meets upscale cocktail lounge that was one of Esquire's Best Bars in America in 2022. Unfortunately, both closed quietly last year before I got a chance to check them out, to my utmost consternation.
But soft! What bar through yonder Harlow District breaks? (Shakespeare.) A reincarnation of my white whale watering hole opened in everyone's favorite collection of dining establishments surrounding a large parking lot this past summer, to my considerable jubilation. It goes without saying that I wasted little time in making a pilgrimage.
Diversión shares one of the two little bungalows that make up Emma Jane (a teahouse that I have not yet frequented) by day. It's a moody and romantic yet playful environment with just a handful of tables and a well-stocked bar. The lighting is very dim (curse the iPhone low-light camera for the photos below not being representative) and electronic music pulses through the speakers, including a house version of Radiohead's Everything In Its Right Place (!!). It was surprisingly empty at half past eight in the evening, but started to fill up a bit as the night wore on.
The quirky backlit menu had about a dozen house cocktails, as well as a few other sections that we'll get to later, and some pretty yummy-sounding food (including charcuterie and KFC - Korean fried chicken), though I did not partake in the latter due to a prior tortilla chip engorgement. Very informative and polished service staff help talk you through the different options, and are often involved in the mixology as well.
My first choice was the "Timepiece", with Ilegal mezcal, Darjeeling tea, Cocchi di Torino (an Italian sweet vermouth), lemon, Ceylon, and agave served in a rocks glass. Real ones know how much I love the smokiness of mezcal, and here it played so nicely against the floral notes of the "champagne of teas" and the more botanical vermouth, and was balanced with acidity, sweetness, and some spicy warmth of the cinnamon. I'm a world-renowned HUGE cuppa guy, so any time there is a tea-based cocktail on the menu I'll almost always order it, though this was the first one I can recall having with mezcal. A brilliant combination, and something I would absolutely drink again.
Where Diversión really shines is their creativity and unusual presentations... best exemplified by the Lab Shots section of the menu. These were not actually shots at all, but alcoholic concoctions molecular-gastronomically (?) fashioned into bites resembling pieces of food. Unfortunately the rum-based "Colada", which mimicked a deviled egg, was not available while we were there, so we instead were served a complimentary "Cosmopolitan". These bite-sized ice cream cone clones (see photo below) had Chopin vodka, cranberry, lime acid, and Cointreau, and I'll be damned if it didn't taste just like a cosmo, but obviously with a totally different mouthfeel and texture. So much fun! I'll absolutely be trying the other options next time.
I saved the best part of the menu for last... the Playful section. These drinks are prepared tableside (or on the table in at least one case), and I'm nothing if not a sucker for some pomp and circumstance. The "Ottoman Fashion" was their take on a boozy Turkish coffee, with Old Forester 1920 bourbon, scotch, coffee liqueur, fig, angostura, cardamom, and anise. For this one the server (who doubled as a bartender) wheeled out a cart and set fire to the alcohol, transferring the flambéed mixture back and forth between two copper Turkish coffee pots before serving it with a dehydrated orange wheel. The show was spectacular, but the drink was even better: an impeccably smooth old fashioned variant that started out potently boozy, but transformed and softened as the ice melted into a more easy-sipping beverage with complex spiced and fruity flavors. This would have been the highlight of the night even without any pyrotechnics.
Just one Playful selection was not enough, so we ended with the "Vilanova Ritual" (gin, madeira, jasmine green tea, honey, herbs, and citrus), which is made for two. This entailed what was essentially a piece of laboratory equipment – I believe it's called a glass evaporator, see photo below and let me know if that's incorrect – being placed on the table with an open flame underneath, causing the liquid to scientifically teleport (I majored in biology, ok, not chemistry) into the upper section where it blended with the tea and spices. Then, when the heat source was removed, the fully formed cocktail dramatically dropped back down into the bottom portion, which doubled as a glass teapot. Finally, the server poured it into two gorgeous porcelain Emma Jane tea cups, complete with saucer and spoon. Compared to the earlier tea-based cocktail, this really felt just like having a nice cuppa, except with alcohol. Apologies if my description of the process didn't meet my usual journalistic standards, but I'm not an engineer, and also I clearly had had a few by that point.
So there you have it. A vociferous recommendation on my part, and I can't wait to go back to try some of the other Lab Shots and Playful experiences, and maybe even some KFC.
RANKING UPDATE: A very strong showing, debuting as the #5 best cocktail bar on my Houston Drinking Guide, and #3 in the fancy/sophisticated cocktail bar subsection (I couldn't decide which descriptor was more pretentious, so I decided to just go with both), which is unveiled for the very first time below:
Best Fancy/Sophisticated Cocktail Bars:
- Bandista
- Refuge
- Diversión
- Permission
- Clarkwood
- Aye Candy
- Santé
- Bar Doko
- Sidebar
- Melrose
NEXT UP: Peruvian-Vietnamese fusion?!? Only in Houston.