The Compass Bar, despite its name, is not easy to find. Compared to a regular bar, The Compass Bar is more like a high-end clubhouse or private wine cellar. Located on the 40th floor of the Wongtee V Hotel, this high-altitude bar is hard to find, and you need to swipe your card to take the elevator, and then follow the music to push open the doors to find it.
Originally only available to "gentlemen" in the 40-60 age group and by invitation only, The Compass Bar pays homage to traditional New York speakeasies, from the location to the overall atmosphere. Not long ago, The Compass Bar was officially opened to the public, and it has followed the strong Speakeasy atmosphere and elegant club environment, attracting many young white-collar workers in the city. This small bar with no independent website and no special promotion has made a lot of fame by word of mouth among drinkers. Sitting in it, the social atmosphere of New York in the "Roaring Twenties" comes to you against time and space.
The founder of the bar is a wine trader, so the number and variety of alcohol in the store are naturally not a problem. The Compass Bar is not only retro in its décor, but also old-fashioned in terms of raw materials, mixology and production. Rather than chasing the popularity of molecular cocktails or ionizers, The Compass Bar is betting on classic cocktails and adapting the traditional recipe to the tastes of local guests and the personal inspiration of the mixologists. The store is dominated by old-fashioned cocktails in gin, téchira, rum and rye whiskey versions, and the owner even spares a lot of money to buy fresh ingredients from the production area and fly them back to Shenzhen.
Compared to most cocktail bars in Guangzhou, The Compass Bar adopts a more calm and elegant British style of mixology, and foreign bartenders can always make a satisfying cocktail without fancy gestures for people to admire. The hotel's travel-themed wine list is an interesting one of 40 cocktails with different flavours in the four directions, with the "North" being more lively and the "East" being made with Asian ingredients. Most of the long drinks in the store use large columnar ice cubes to cool down to prevent the crushed ice from melting and affecting the taste, which is not a manifestation of a short catty or two.
The Compass Bar is priced at around 100 yuan for a single cocktail, with a complimentary potato chips and a 15% service charge. The cocktails and meals in the store are of good quality, but people are criticized for the uneven service attitude, and occasionally the service staff are not familiar with the business.
