That Old Black Magic

Brush up on your chemistry with cocktails and cuisine from The Alchemists’ Garden

A couple of years ago, the five owners of a new bar and restaurant in downtown Paso Robles started a text chain to brainstorm names for the business. The criteria? It had to invoke the mystery and transcendent quality of an apothecary: the overlap of nature and nurture, ancient and modern, the earth and the heavens.

“We were throwing out lots of ideas,” says Quin Cody, one of the owners. “Then Andrew spat out, ‘The Alchemists’ Garden’ right as I was texting him the exact same name.” She smiles ear-to-ear at the kismet. “We were like, ‘No way! That’s it!’”

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Cody and fellow owner Andrew Brune shared a brain on this occasion. After all, they were friends who had worked together several years at The Allegretto Vineyard Resort— she as wine director, he as bar director. Brune’s wife Alexandra Pellot also came from The Allegretto as food and beverage director, and mixologist Tony Bennett had launched the bar program at the 1122

BY JAIME LEWIS PHOTOGRAPHY BY LILY WOLFE

Speakeasy. Together, the four of them had worked, traveled, eaten, and imbibed enough to fantasize about opening their own place.

“We started joking around, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we owned a bar together?’” says Brune. When they discovered the bar and restaurant at the corner of 12th and Pine Streets was for sale, they crossed their fingers and signed the papers in February of 2020. Yes, February of 2020.

It speaks to the nature of alchemy that Bennett, Cody, Brune, and Pellot were able to weather the Covid pandemic and turn an empty building into the thriving, bustling place it is today. On a Wednesday evening at 5:30, the bar is packed, and the dining room is energetic. Music bumps from the speakers, and cocktail shakers jangle brightly. An army of houseplants cascade from the windows and walls to the floor, enriching the room’s oxygen. A sign above a doorway reads, in green neon, “What you imagine you create.” >>

The vaguely woo-woo aesthetic of the place seems to stem from the origins of the cocktail itself: a concoction of herbs, tinctures, tonics, and spirits.

“We’re all bartenders at heart,” says Brune, whose resume of developing bar programs is long and varied, with stints at La Cosecha, Ember, and The Hatch. “The cocktails come first here, and the food complements it.”

To emphasize the point, he opens the menu, whose first four pages feature lists of signature cocktails and spirits, followed by three pages of food offerings. Fan favorites include the Alchemists’ Gold cocktail: a play on an Old Fashioned, with cacao nib-infused bourbon, banana liqueur, bitters, sugar, smoke, and a few flecks of real gold.

“Alchemists were always known to turn something from ordinary to extraordinary,” he says, using a platter of deviled eggs as an example. He explains that while “a deviled egg is a deviled egg,” the kitchen at The Alchemists’ Garden elevates the dish by pickling the eggs with turmeric and blending the yolks with cumin, curry, chives, and pickled mustard seeds for the filling. The result is a neon-yellow bite-sized snack with serious flair, capable of accompanying any number of cocktails made at the bar. Other dishes on the menu are similarly eclectic, from the decadent duck chalupa and harissa-marinated prawns to jerk chicken wings and an Argentine skirt steak.

While the food is an apropos accompaniment to the cocktails, the cocktails themselves are what really set The Alchemists’ Garden apart—particularly in its new member spirits lounge, The Remedy. Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on an unused banquet room, Brune, Pellot, Cody, and Bennett used their dark arts to turn it into a sort of bar-within-a-bar, including its own dedicated mixologist and a menu of outrageously gastronomic cocktails. Accessible only by a separate entrance and with advance booking, The Remedy is decorated to evoke something like a very chic secret chemistry lab.

“Our cocktails at The Remedy are next-level,” says Brune. He describes using foams in drinks, and making caviar beads with calcium waterbaths and sodium alginate. The “Soil & Snow” martini is garnished with something he calls “olive oil snow.” And a frozen Manhattan is made with Averna amaro that mixologists freeze tableside with liquid nitrogen.

“Craft cocktails are the trend,” Brune says with a smile, looking through the front windows of the restaurant, onto The Alchemists’ Garden patio and tree-shaded City Park. Indeed, he is right: Paso Robles seems to be waking up to a demand for more than just wine. And the result is a greater diversity of beverage options, with the cuisine to match.

“It’s very hard to go to any bar [in Paso Robles] and not get a great cocktail here,” he says. “And that’s good for everybody.” SLO LIFE