Poor Hendrix

Poor Hendrix knows exactly what it is: a bar built for eating well without ceremony. The food menu reads like a drinking companion's wish list, charcuterie boards, meat skewers, a grilled cheese finished with tomato jam, and none of it apologizes for being bar food. It's built to go with a drink in hand, not to compete with it.

The separate bar menu is the sharper move. Salmon tartare with potato chips, priced like a snack, shows a kitchen willing to do something more precise without pretending it's fine dining. That range, from grilled cheese to tartare, is the whole argument: comfort and craft on the same menu, neither one performing for the other.

Get the back patio if you can. The whole place reads better outside, loose and unhurried, exactly the register this food wants.

Two consecutive Michelin selections confirm what the menu already proves: a neighborhood bar can hold a real kitchen without losing what makes it a neighborhood bar. Poor Hendrix hasn't lost that.