Distilled
Monday, November 11, 2013 at 08:08PM 
What exactly is Distilled?
On the website, Distilled claims to be “a New American Public House serving redefined regional dishes and cocktails within an approachable communal setting.”
That’s a sufficiently elastic description to allow practically anything.
I’ve visited twice for cocktails ($10–15, most $14), which are very good. Try the “Age & Nobility.” The bartender sets the glass on fire with green chartreuse, then adds barrel aged Old Forrester, Campari, and Mead. That was the most memorable of the several cocktails I tried, but there wasn’t a dud in the bunch. Mead (an alcoholic mixture of honey and water) is a speciality too.
Wines are disappointing. On the one-page bottle list, there were just two reds under $50, and they were out of one of them. This is at a restaurant where all but two dishes are $23 or less.
The chef and partner here is Shane Lyons, formerly a child actor best known for Nickelodeon’s All That. As his TV career wound down, he went to culinary school, graduating from the CIA at 18. His prior New York gigs included Café Boulud, Craftbar, and Momofuku Noodle Bar, before he landed at Distilled, in the former Centrico space in Tribeca.
The one-page menu is firmly in the comfort food idiom, with share plates ($5–17), salads ($9–13), meat and fish dishes ($13–32; most $17–23) and vegetables ($8–16).
