The World’s Most Influential Bartender Just Opened a Bar in NYC
For the leader of an international cocktail bar dynasty, Ryan Chetiyawardana comes off as kind of teddy bear-ish. He's soft spoken and unfailingly polite in conversation. He’s just the sort of person you’d expect New York City to chew up and spit out.
But that won’t happen if his track record is any yardstick. Chetiyawardana has opened cocktail bars under his Mr. Lyan umbrella in London, Amsterdam, and Washington, D.C. They've all flourished and won him countless accolades.
Now, a dozen years after he first gained acclaim for his first bar, White Lyan, in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London, he’s finally dipping his toe in the city that's arguably the cocktail capital of the world, Manhattan. His second branch of Seed Library—the original is in London—opened in a subterranean space under the Hotel Park Avenue on Park Avenue South in early November.
Courtesy Image
He chose the location well. The Flatiron and Nomad neighborhoods have seen an explosion of new cocktail bars in the past two years. Also, bars opened by cocktail pros from other countries (Experimental Cocktail Club, Bar Snack, Schmuck) have been flourishing in Manhattan lately.
Though Chetiyawardana is presently living a kind of pinch-me fantasy of finally working and living in the greatest city in the world, he knows life in Gotham can be stressful. He wants Seed Library, which is accessed through an anonymous side door on E. 30th Street, to feel like a sanctuary.
“It’s a busy space. People are living busy lives,” he said. “Having something that feels a bit like a retreat I think is a sentiment that people need at the moment.”
The snug bar, done up in soothing shades of blonde wood and orange, can seat 55, including eight stools at the bar. He’s been partly inspired by the swanky and much-missed Nomad bar, which dominated the area until it closed during Covid.
“We’re excited to marry some of that old-school timelessness of New York with a little bit of that playful inventiveness,” he said. “I think there’s been a bit of a divergence of those two camps in the city. We’re excited to say, they’re not opposing points of view. We want to be grounded in those classic drinks, but we want to bring a whimsy as well.”
Only one Seed Library cocktail will be carried over from the London location. It’s the Coriander Seed Gimlet, and it’s a typical simplicity through complexity Mr. Lyan creation. It’s made of gin and a coriander cordial, which is composed of seeds, water, sugar, and citric, malic, and lactic acids. There will also be a Beeswax Old-Fashioned, a nod to a drink from his early days, but this one will source beeswax from New York State.
Courtesy Image
You don’t have to go to Manhattan to get a taste of Chetiyawardana’s world these days. While he's already turned out bottled cocktails, books, and online cocktail classes, he recently launched a video series called “Mr. Lyan’s Taste Trips” that have taken him to Tokyo, Scotland, London, and Mexico. It’s an idea he’s had for some time.
“We couldn’t get any TV people to agree,” he said. “They were very averse to alcohol consumption. But we sold it as about culture and history. Nothing has been telling our side of the industry and there’s so much going on.”
Related: The $245 Trademark That Revived Michter’s Into One of America’s Greatest Whiskey Brands
As usual, Chetiyawardana is thinking big picture, a viewpoint that's set him apart from many of the other leaders in the cocktail industry.
“The breadth of where our industry operates needs to be thought of in a wider sense,” he says. “Food and drink touches so much. Why can’t we interact with fashion or luxury spaces or music? You think about the career path when I was a young bartender: You might grow up to own your own bar. You might become a brand ambassador. It was limited.” That will and must change, he insists.
For now, however, his attention is trained on Seed Library, which opened in time to dive headfirst into New York’s hectic holiday season. But he’s still in the honeymoon phase for now.
“I’ve been here a week and I’ve had so many giddy moments,” he says. “This is like dream stuff. My sister used to live here and I'd go around and visit these bars. I remember sitting down and having a drink and a hot dog at PDT. My sister looked at me and said, ‘You’re having a moment, aren’t you?’”