With Bangkok’s newest speakeasy it’s a matter of who you know.
New York’s best-known speakeasy, PDT, is approached through a phone box in an East Village hotdog shop. In Singapore, a password is needed for admission to The Library bar, set behind a bookcase. In Bangkok, patrons enter Maggie Choo’s through a Chinese restaurant. Though these so-called underground bars are hard to find, their locations are an open secret.
This isn’t the case yet for Bangkok’s newest speakeasy. Although J Boroski Mixology opened last June to rave reviews, the bar and hospitality school is hidden in a dingy lane in Bangkok’s hippest neighbourhood, Thonglor. Unless you have someone in the know, you’ll need to sign up for one of Joseph Boroski’s cocktail classes to get the address.
A former New Yorker, Boroski is Thailand’s star mixologist. He’s known for his work in Bangkok behind the bars of Maggie Choo’s, Clouds and The Iron Fairies, as a bar trainer and for guest appearances abroad, including at W Paris-Opéra and the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong.
There’s no menu and the drinks have no names at Boroski’s bar. After enquiring about your tastes, preferences and mood, he uses fresh local ingredients, exotic infusions and premium spirits that are otherwise hard to find in Bangkok to concoct a bespoke cocktail, just for you. If you like what you’re drinking, he’ll make a note for next time. The diminutive and dimly lit bar has a dramatic interior by the Australian designer, blacksmith and children’s book author Ashley Sutton, including a feature wall pinned with scarab beetles to reflect Boroski’s passion for entomology.
Boroski runs fun one-off classes for amateurs to intensive courses for professionals (prices on application).
The Joseph Boroski Bar and Hospitality School, aka J Boroski Mixology, in a lane off Sukhumvit Soi 55, Thonglor, Bangkok.