The Drawing Room

Loved this bar. It’s only open on Friday and Saturday nights, and if you don’t spot the small sign on the front door you might not ever think to go upstairs in the Henry House to find it.
It’s plush, overstuffed chairs and dark wood booths, little nook rooms to hide away in, and a very dark, character-​filled atmosphere.
They serve beer and wine and a pretty interesting list of cocktails. I was most intrigued by the list of smoked cocktails, and really wanted to try a Smoked Negroni, but unfortunately their smoker had broken. I hope it’s fixed soon.
Service was top-​notch, the bartender was meticulous and professional. The crowd (though it was not very busy) was relaxed. If you want to impress someone with a weekend cocktail bar in Halifax, this is the spot.

This place really is as good as it gets. You walk into the Henry House and there are no signs to lead you in the direction of this hidden upstair gem. Either go through the front door and keep going up or walk through the main dining room and go to the left to the staircase and go to the top and you are there.
The room is dark, atmospheric and filled with exposed beams, dark leather chairs, a cozy fireplace and a menu inspired by different time periods. The bar staff is friendly and know their drinks. My favourite is a Negroni, a delicious blend of campari, gin and vermouth. A perfect place for a date night or a few drinks with some close friends.

Haven’t been to the Drawing Room yet? Do you have a date you want to impress? Good gosh take them here. This place is my go to weekend spot (when I have money). Warning: this place is pricey. I usually stop in here on my way home from another bar or dinner, for one last drink. It’s so classy, like rich person study/​library classy. It might be out of me league, but they don’t hold it against me. Dark wood, even darker lighting, rich leather, huge fire place, candles, old world charm. It’s like you’re being transported out of Halifax and back 100 years, but in a good way. The drinks are pretty expensive like I mentioned, but they are all doubles, and they are so finely crafted, they are worth it. The drink menu is categorized by era and served in glass ware of the time period. In the summer they bring out a seasonal lemonade that is to die for, some kind of liquor, mint and raspberries. My personal favourite. You can order food that’s made and brought up form the Henry House downstairs.
The staff is beyond. Our waitress always remembers us when we stop in, even if it’s been months and always remembers our drink order. She chats us up but is very genuine. Something I value in individuals who are in the food and beverage industry.

Visited recently for a friend’s birthday and had a lovely time. The drinks are wonderful and the snacks very decent also. We had a lobster cheese dip and nachos to share. The staff went out of their way to get our large-​ish group seated together even though we knew ahead of time that we probably wouldn’t be able to make the space suit our size. We got so well situated that we stayed all night instead of heading to another fancy cocktail place to keep the party going! The atmosphere is fantastic.

Let me say right away. I was completely blown away by the Drawing Room. I had no idea this place even existed until last November when I took my boyfriend out for a few birthday drinks after hearing about this hidden treasure from a friend. Okay. So, I love this place, but I must warn you straight up. If you are looking for a quick, cheap drink, steer clear of the Drawing Room.
Now, on the other hand, if you’re looking for a nice, cozy, wood laden nook, complete with comfy, classy seating, wooden beams, brick walls, and a fireplace cracking in the background… BINGO. This place reminds me of the den in your rich Great Uncle’s mansion (what?)…Anyways! This is such a classy, yet comfortable space to sit and have a few (delicious, fancy, extremely well-​made) drinks.
They aren’t receptive to big crowds, so this is a place to go with a few (6 tops) friends. The most I’ve had with me is 6 – 7 people and that was okay with staff! This might seem strange to people, but they do this to keep the ambiance intact. They don’t want people pushing tables together and carrying on loudly and whatnot. They don’t want to disturb the atmosphere for others. And I completely agree with that notion. This is not the place for that kind of a gathering. This is an intimate setting, and is to be enjoyed that way! They close around midnight, and are only open on Friday and Saturday, so this leaves lots of time to go slam a few tables together with 10 pals and get rowdy (if that’s what you’re into…)
The drink menu is divided up by era (pre, post prohibition etc), and as Paul B. mentioned in his review, the attention is in the details. From the glassware, to the shaved ice (they literally chip ice from a huge block at the bar) — the drinks take time to get to you, because they are the real deal! Pricier than most bars, the drinks are impeccably crafted, and they don’t skimp on the booze in any of them! I’ve left here feeling warm and fuzzy more than once!
This isn’t the kind of place you go every weekend (unless you can afford it — in which case — we should totally do drinks?) But more, for a special occasion, or to have a nice drink or two. They create a seasonal menu every few months, with neat offerings around Christmas (they had some kick-​ass egg nog and mimosas last year if I remember correctly.)
I tried the Mojito and it was far too sweet for my liking but some might enjoy that. I really like the Amaretto Sour they offer. I can’t go there without having one (or 4). An Amaretto Sour combines amaretto, bourbon, lemon juice, simple syrup, and it’s topped with whipped egg white. This drink is pleasing to both the palatte and to the eye! My boyfriend usually orders a Negroni cocktail right off the bat. For those who don’t know, a Negroni is made of one part gin, one part vermouth (usually red, semi– sweet), and one part bitters, traditionally Campari. Not for the faint of heart, let me tell you! I’ve tried a number of things here and the drinks are generally well made, tasty, and strong (just how I like em.)
As for food, they have a small menu with some apps and things for sharing. The goat cheese flatbread is amazing — I usually get one of those and some olives if I’m hungry when I get there.
Holy Negroni Batman! I almost finished this review without mentioning my favourite part! If you find yourself at the DR for drinks, you HAVE to try the aromatic diffuser (it’s only 2 $ with a cocktail.) As if they needed anything to add to the ambiance this place oozes, you can order your very own mini dry-​ice diffuser for the table. Essentially, choose a scent (comes in stick form I believe), and it’s presented in a stainless steel mug/​bowl, which then gets dry ice poured over it to produce ‘smoke’ which engulfs the table. I’ve tried the lemon (fave), the beach inspired one, and the pomegranate. The waitstaff can recommend a scent to compliment your cocktail and enhance the flavours of your drink! This is so neat and different so I urge you to try this out — it’s not to be missed!
To me, this is the perfect place to go for a date, a drink with a friend or a few couples. Intimate and classic, with a drink menu to match! A great place for a pre-​dinner cocktail, or a post-​dinner nightcap! I’m heading for a nice family dinner on the weekend, and we’ll definitely be making a stop here after we eat!

Swanky, I was pleasantly surprised how beautiful the space is. It’s nothing like the basement or main floor Henry House I don’t know how long it has been open but the sumptuous décor looks like it’s always been there. The drinks are hand-​crafted but pricey.

After a hard day off (wink), I picked up my husband as he got off work and we ventured downtown for a drink and appetizer.
After much debate, we decided to try the Drawing Room and I am very glad that we did.
Up the stairs in the Henry House, this room is classy, cozy, elegantly decorated and not over crowded. There are dark exposed rafter beams, wainscotting all around, Leather banquettes, dark wooden chairs and tables that have an old fashion more rich feel to them. There were windows all around with a nice view of the surroundings. The place looks well kept.
We ordered the Warm Spincach Artichoke dip which I am quite certain is the best I’ve ever had! We also had a serving of their hand cut fries that were perfect with malt vinegar. I had mistakenly asked for balsamic, but the server was keen enough to catch my error and bring me Malt. We were very pleased with the service here!
My drink of choice was Pimm’s Cup. Gin with muddled strawberry and ginger syrup. It was garnished with a fresh strawberry half, a sliver of cucumber and sprig of mint. The straw was stainless steel with a stir disc on the end. I love a metal straw (no plastic waste). My husband enjoyed a 15yr Glenfiddich on the rocks and a Granite Brewery Peculiar. No complaints there.
The music was old style, jazzy. The bartenders seemed to know what they were doing and took pride in their artistry.
We would gladly go back again. Just the two of us, or as a small group, it is a great little hidden gem.
They are open limited days/​hours.

Need a place for a special occasion drink? Check. Perfect for after-​theatre, after-​nice-​dinner, hell, even after-​a-​night-​on-​the-​bottom-​floor-​when-​you-​want-​to-​class-​it-​up. I love the cocktails here. They’re real and strong and they don’t taste like fruit juice. At first, the drink prices might make you balk a little. Then you realize it’s not really a bad deal when you’re drinking something twice as strong as you’d get elsewhere, and expertly made.
Going to the Drawing Room is like stepping into another world. It’s just so unique, classy and atmospheric. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you climb the reportedly haunted staircase in order to get to it. OoooOooo.
Much like the other floors, service can be slow. At least in the Drawing Room, they have an excuse. Hand-​crafting a fine cocktail takes longer than drawing a pint. And for the most part, it’s worth the wait.

The Drawing Room absolutely nails the atmosphere they’re going for. It’s cozy, super classy, and it makes you feel extra special being there. The drinks are good, and very reasonably priced.
I have the same problem with the Drawing Room that I do the Henry House, though: the service. The staff are very pleasant, and they know their stuff, but it usually takes a long, long time to be served.

I wanted to celebrate my birthday in style and I knew I had to go to the drawing room. This is a beautiful place to hang out with your friends that has quality bartenders and classy drinks. They do a proper absinthe drink with a sugar cube and dry ice which is neat but a little pricey at $ 14. You can get other cocktails like mojitos and manhattans that pack a punch. Don’t be afraid to ask the bartenders to make something up for you — I am a rum girl and not too many of the cocktails had rum but he made something on the fly that was delicious. With the higher prices, you do get stronger and well made drinks. I highly recommend this place — and can vouch that the cheesecake is really good!

They know what they are doing, and honestly, i don’t know why it isn’t full (I suppose it might have something to do with the price of the cocktails). The barstaff are friendly and knowledgeable, and the drinks are really well made. The décor is dark wood paneling and a fireplace, the lights are low, and it is the perfect place for a date or to catch up with friends.

The drinks make this place. From the menu arranged in chronological order to the attention to not only the appropriate glass for the drink, but also the ice. The other reviews capture many of the excellent features of the place that is a blessing to the Halifax drink scene. My only addition that I would emphatically make is: absinthe! I have never seen this mysterious and deeply suspect drink until The Drawing Room. With a reputation to turn French artists crazy (or crazier depending on your point of view) I couldn’t pass up this incredible opportunity in my home town. From the moment that the word absinthe passed my lips to the waitress to the moment that the last drop of absinthe passed my lips from the bottom of my glass — I felt special. Being a person who at home hand cranks my personal ice crusher for the perfect martini ice, I thoroughly enjoyed the display of setting up the drip fountain, the use of the dry ice scent and the placing the liquor on the table in front of me. One can see, smell and taste the Drawing Room’s commitment to preparing excellent drinks.
Take my advice that if your doctor ever restricts you to one drink a day for medical reasons — make it a great one — head to The Drawing Room and start working your way through the menu. Life will continue to have meaning.

Wow, guys. Wow.
This place is super duper, to be sure. Everything about the place screams «awesome», and I’m disappointed in myself for not checking it out sooner (the reviews have had you all raving). I love the amazing cocktails, the menu’s focus on authenticity by decade, the music, the smell, the wood paneling.
Definitely pricier than other locales, but trust me one or two drinks will do ya — if you choose something traditional, like a Manhattan (yum!), you’ll be a-​sipping, not a-​chugging. Keep it classy, folks.
I didn’t try any food, but that can wait till my next visit.
I have read about some of the rules /​quirks (seating for large groups etc), but not experienced them. However, I would say that this place definitely takes you out of Halifax and makes you feel as if your experiencing both another time period and another place. Very, very cool, and worth a look.

The Drawing Room is one of those places that I kept meaning to check out, and once I finally paid it a visit I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been there earlier.
The atmosphere here is what makes the bar. It’s cozy, intimate and sophisticated without feeling pretentious or intimidating. It’s the perfect spot for drinks and conversation with a small group of friends, or for a date.
The drinks are pricey, but worth it. They all feel special and out of the ordinary, so I feel good about spending $ 13 on a drink and really savoring it instead of knocking back a bunch of sugary Alabama Slammers at the Shoe Shop or something. Plus they have these neat aromatherapy smoking dry ice things that set the mood even more than the ambiance.

The Drawing Room is Henry House’s older, more sophisticated sister. It is located upstairs from the restaurant, and only open on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays.
The room is dark and cozy, and I love the drink menu, it’s broken down into different sections, which helps narrow down all of the good sounding options. The cocktails are fancy, and some of the drinks can me upgraded with a dry ice smoking concoction, which is pretty cool.
Unfortunately the Drawing Room suffers from the same problems as down below” slow, sometimes unfriendly service. They also have a weird rule of no more than 8 people to a group and no moving chairs around. We were a quiet, group of nine, and they refused to serve us as nine, saying the integrity of the drinks would suffer. We mentioned we were happy to wait a little longer for drinks, but they still said no. So we broke up into 2 smaller groups… Bottom line, drinks still took the same amount of time, and it didn’t shed a positive light on the place, so I don’t know what the servers thought they were accomplishing…

I love a lot of things about the Drawing Room. The music (last night it was Frank Sinatra — win!), the décor, the wine, the tapas menu, *my* booth, and — the best part — the fact that it’s stumbling distance from my apartment. But there is definite room for improvement. For instance, it closes at midnight — even on Saturdays — and the staff, while lovely, lovely people, are either stretched too thin or not paying close enough attention to their tables. (I’ve been there at least a dozen times, probably more, and never once has my drink been refreshed without me having to wave down a server or get it myself from the bar.)
Will I go back to the Drawing Room? For certain. Would I recommend you go? Definitely. But if you can, go in pairs and sit at the bar — your chances of keeping a full glass are much more likely that way.

The Drawing Room has become almost a regular piece of conversation and an assumed destination for me lately, thanks to the discovery of this secret bar on Unilocal a month ago.
Not yet is known about the upstairs-​from-​the-​Henry-​House bar yet other than it’s wonderful décor and fancy drink menu. This isn’t a beer-​drinking spot, folks. This is where you go to feel important, share some drinks with a few friends and enjoy a couple hours of elegancy without feeling out of place. The Drawing Room has a timeless feel to it. You could be having a flashback to any period over the last hundred years and know that no matter what year you’re in, you’re enjoying it like royalty.
The drink menu offers martinis, wines, and drinks of all sorts. I ordered a Burie’d Mojito, which was white rum, an assortment of berry juices and mint leaves. It was fantastic! My second drink was a vodka-​based green lime drink that was just as delicious. Mind you, the drinks are $ 10+ so unless your wallet is loaded, don’t come here to join it. Of course, the Drawing Room isn’t the type of environment to get drunk but the drinks are made strong so be wary of your perception because you may be surprised once you stand up.

I am in love with this bar.
I was dying to go to the basement of The Henry House, pretty much since I moved here two years ago, but I had no idea that there was a little slice of heaven right here on Barrington.
Some friends had been whispering in my ear over the past week about a mythical place above the Henry House with a dark wood bar, lime green chairs and an atmosphere of a time gone by. So, by the time last night rolled saying I was feverishly excited for the Drawing Room would have been an understatement…
We entered from the side door, ascended a on old staircase, and entered the Drawing Room, where I was shocked.
I couldn’t really put a finger on where I was. Was I going to turn the corner and run into Oscar Wilde and Bosie Douglas drinking absinthe together, or Coco Chanel and Charlie Chaplin having martinis. Or was it just halloween with all the smoke and candles? Who can say, and who really cares?
An absinthe fountain, dark wood, well dressed waiters, well dressed cocktails, and of course those pillars of my heart, the green velveteen chairs by the fireplace.
It was already a great experience, even before the drinks were ordered.
The first that I ordered was the whiskey sour (10 $.) When it arrived, I couldn’t help but exclaim that it looked exactly like those tumblers I had seen in my cocktail guides even with the artful swizzle suspended above the drink with a maraschino cherry.
The second drink was a classic martini (10 $), with vodka, and an olive. The olive was quite bland, but the drink was quite wonderful.
These drinks were both flavourful and strong, so if you felt that you had not gotten your money’s worth in the atmosphere (and if you didn’t shame on you), you get your money’s worth in the drink strength.
Then comes the aromatic diffuser (2 $ with cocktail)… Two sticks of fragrance suspended in a bowl that dry ice is poured over, to give off billowing scented «smoke» (ours was pomegranate.) Please, please, get this because it gives that little extra something.
However, if this weren’t enough, appetisers are also served. We ordered the hummus and french fries. I could not decide which was better, the crispy french fries in the tangy chili mayo or the lemony and full bodied hummus.
So please come on down to The Drawing Room for a trip back in time, but be quiet about it, this is a secret almost too good to share…
Shhhhhhh…

Um… wow! Friends had told me about the new bar on the top floor of the Henry House a few weeks after it opened but I really wasn’t prepared for how cool this place actually is. I couldn’t really imagine how it could be much different from either of the two lower levels of the popular Halifax watering hole. But guys? It has me more excited about drinking than when I discovered Bacardi Breezers in eleventh grade.
The space is phenomenal. It’s small, cozy, refined, and classy without even coming close to toeing the line of pretension. Original support beams of the old homestead have been refinished, custom hand-​cut wall details have been created and painstakingly installed, tall wing-​backed chairs are tucked into the corners, two candlelit fireplaces bring warmth into the room, and the beautiful bar plays host to alcohol icons including an Absinthe fountain. The pictures I tried to grab are pretty lousy given the low-​light so you really have to see it for yourself to get an idea of how much time you could actually spend here.
I can’t comment too much on the service since I coincidentally and entirely by accident ended up knowing the folks working that evening, but of course they are lovely, knowledgeable, much more attentive than the basement pub. They were quick to point out that «we don’t move furniture here» which made me smirk when we tried to grab an extra chair, but given that their solution was to move us into the private room called ‘the snug’ in the back corner, I really can’t complain!
There’s a great selection of beers both familiar and more adventurous, a classic cocktail selection is expertly made with hand-​carved ice for each glass, and drinks turn out to be much cheaper than expected. A dark rum and coke was $ 4.50 while the Old Fashioned cocktail was $ 9 (usually $ 13+ for anything with custom shaved ice…).
We didn’t get to try the food but that’s our excuse to come back next time. Hopefully we’ll get to hear some more of the building’s haunting ghost stories from the owner!

If you love cocktails, you will be in heaven when you visit Hali’s newest bar, The Drawing Room. Hidden away on the second floor of the Henry House, this elegant lounge has a sophisticated yet cozy vibe with one of the most extensive cocktail menus in the city.
I was there with a group of friends and we fit comfortably in the main room without being crowded. There is a tiny alcove with a few tables and chairs tucked around the corner, perfect for romantic dates or for a quieter conversation.
Although it’s a brand new space it seems to be a throwback to the 1920’s with a beautifully crafted bar. The night I visited the bartender reminded me of a junior version of Mad Men’s Don Draper. You certainly get the sense you’re in different era.
The cocktail list includes the standard martinis and mojitos but also classics like Rob Roy and Brandy Alexander. I enjoyed several intoxicatingly smooth Brandy Alexanders. For non-​cocktail lovers, there is also a fine selection of Scotch, wine and beer.
The food menu is appetizers. It includes the de facto nachos but with the surprise topping of pineapple. The more sophisticated apps of mushroom crostini and goat cheese pizza were delicious, but not necessarily over the top. The standout app for me was the roast beef sliders, shaved roast beef on very fresh buns. Heavenly.
The only irksome point of the evening was the indifferent service. We were a group of five and only one of two or three tables in the place. Even though we were obviously there for the evening and seated directly across from the bar and our waitress, she rarely came over to see if we needed anything. At one point, my friend had to go to the bar to get another drink. At $ 10 a drink, I’d expect table service rather than self service.
In its infancy, The Drawing Room is only open Thursday to Sunday evenings. I’m sure it won’t be long before the word gets out and it’s a seven night a week operation.