The Publican

The Publican has anchored Fulton Market since long before the neighborhood filled with towers, and it still runs on the format it opened with: communal tables under a vaulted ceiling, a raw bar of oysters and shellfish, heritage pork, housemade charcuterie and vegetable plates, and a beer list built partly in collaboration with local brewers. The restaurant describes itself as blending the warmth of a European beer hall with the energy of Fulton Market, and it serves lunch and dinner seven days with weekend brunch from 9am.

Its non-alcoholic drinks are grouped under their own heading, High & Dry, printed with the cocktails rather than buried among the soft drinks. Both current builds use Giffard's spiritless range as a base and both are $12. What's French for "Pineapple" combines the spiritless pineapple with a house lime cordial - short, sharp and made to sit against fatty pork and salt. Fleur de Sangre is the longer of the two, pairing Giffard elderflower with a house lemon cordial and San Pellegrino Aranciata Rossa, so it drinks like a blood-orange spritz. Within the beer list, a Fair State Brewing Cooperative hop water brewed with citrus and galaxy hops is listed at $8 and 0.0% ABV, which gives a non-drinker something to hold in a room whose whole identity is beer. One caveat worth stating plainly: the High & Dry section offers an optional 5mg shot of Nowadays THC spirit as a $7 add-on, and the bar stocks separate THC sodas including a 5mg hemp option. Neither is included unless ordered, but anyone avoiding psychoactives should say so when ordering rather than assume. The restaurant keeps a two-service day, lunch from 11am and dinner from 4pm, with weekend brunch from 9am, so the High & Dry drinks are available at every service rather than only after dark. The beer list is one of the most closely followed in the city and is built partly through collaborations with local brewers, which makes the decision to place a 0.0% hop water inside that list rather than in a separate corner a deliberate piece of menu design. Food is farm-to-table in the original sense - oysters and shellfish from the raw bar, heritage pork, vegetable plates and charcuterie made in house.