Upon entering Nostrana, I had filed past its impressively towering bar and noticed, without knowing what I was looking at, a number of huge, covered glass urns with odd muslin hammocks hanging within, suspended above a few inches of liquid.
Carmen Quagliata, the executive chef since 2007, has a penchant for elevated comfort food that befits the restaurant's polished good vibes, and his cooking gets a grand showcase in the new multilevel space, spiffed up with dramatically lit booths, cozy nooks, and a gorgeous, towering front bar in the model of Gramercy Tavern.
Instead of short climbing walls, there should be towering monkey bars.
But this is the North as it was, all post-industrial decay and dilapidated modernity, not the "landscape of sheen over substance, thrusting shiny new towers, coffee bars and confident media empires", as John Robb compares and contrasts in his excellent review of Dissemble, which he describes as "a celebration of the beauty of sadness and the daring to be emotional in these irony-laced times".
The manmade marina is a whole cohesive district, complete with its own beach, towers, hotels, bars and restaurants.
The convent of Immaculate Conception Church is jailed from 31st Street by towering black bars.
Rather than the massive beams or heavy framings that serve as horizontal floor supports in virtually every large steel office tower, Robertson chose bar-joist trusses -- airy, weblike networks of thin steel bars and angle irons topped with corrugated decking.
When asked about the ten-foot carved-wood totem towering over the bar, the bartender proclaimed, "That's a dodo bird.
It has a buffalo towering over one bar and a retired horse trailer plastered with bumper stickers like "The Continental Club: Rockin' South Austin since 1957" serving as a bar in the back.
