Downtown Bar Garage Expands With Food From Philip Speer

Chef Philip Speer continues to hustle with a new gig developing downtown cocktail bar Garage’s first-ever food menu, which debuts today, Monday, May 16. The bar’s beverage director and industry vet, Chauncy James, also left his position last week to pursue other ventures.

The focus of the bar’s new menu are bites that work well as finger food. Spoons, forks, and knives won’t be handed out. Speer’s take means dishes with Asian twists, like the Garage Taiyaki, where the Japanese fish-shaped cakes form sandwiches with chicken salad, poke on tempura nori chips, and skewered Thai-style cakes meant to be dipped in romesco sauce with hints of kimchi. Desserts, his speciality, will include orange creamsicles and chocolate chip cookies

Garage Taiyaki and lobster wrap. [Photos: Garage/Official]

Helping Speer is chef Jared Ferguson; they met during their Uchi days. Ferguson also previously worked at Lazy Bear and Sons and Daughters out in San Francisco. The new food menu debuts today, Monday, May 16. The bar is adding a new happy hour featuring the dishes from 5 to 7 p.m.

Speer is also working on Bonhomie, a neighborhood restaurant in Allandale, opening in the fall.