Moe Aljaff, one of the founders of the cocktail bar Two Schmucks in Barcelona, and a co-owner of the highly anticipated Schmuck, which will open in Manhattan in mid-January, has lived all over the world. But when it came time to open a new bar, he chose New York City.

“I love it here,” says Aljaff, who now lives in New York. “I’d visited a couple times. Every time I visited, I liked it more. In New York, it didn’t feel temporary. I would see myself in people on that streets and say, ‘That will be me one day.’”

Alijaff’s business partner, Juliette Larrouy, loves the city as well. So, they started laying the groundwork for Schmuck, which shares a partial name with the famous Barcelona cocktail bar, but nothing else. They selected the city as their new business home even though conventional wisdom holds that New York is the most difficult metropolis in the world in which to open a bar or restaurant.

“I think you’re told by everyone that it is incredibly hard to open in New York,” Aljaff says. “But it seems to be all green lights. We got a little suspicious. Where is the thing that is going to get in the way?”

Aljaff and Larrouy are part of a small invasion of European cocktail luminaries who have decided to begin the latest chapter of their careers in Gotham. The team behind the Paris-born Experimental Cocktail Bar, which has locations in London, Venice, and Switzerland, opened a location in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood this fall. And Iain Griffiths, a bar director long associated with the sprawling, London-based Mr. Lyan family of bars (Silver Lyan in D.C., Lyaness in London, Super Lyan in Amsterdam), unveiled Bar Snack in the East Village in November.

“New city, new business partner, new kind of bar than what I’ve usually been known for.” That is how Griffiths — who parted ways with Mr. Lyan in 2020 — describes their new venture. Lyan locations always gave off the vibe of being high-concept, special-occasion cocktail destinations. Griffiths and their partner, Oliver Cleary, want Bar Snack to be a neighborhood joint.

“I do truly believe business itself is a creative outlet,” says Griffiths. “Each one of the bars I’ve helped open has had a different personality, because they’re a result of the creative process.”

Griffiths and Cleary didn’t want to bandy about the term “neighborhood bar” and not back it up with the appropriate hospitality. Bar Snack opens at 2 p.m., allowing for day drinking, and doesn’t require reservations, as is the case with so many new cocktail bars today. Also, you can bring your mom and dad there.

“We want the bar to be that place you bring your parents at the beginning of an evening, or at the end,” they say, “and the next day, they’d say, ‘You know, what I really liked was Bar Snack.’ We want to be the one that your mom and dad love a little bit more than the rest of the bars.”

“Schmuck is not as defining. It could be anything. We love New York for its creativity, and if this goes well, we’re interested in other creative endeavors where we could take Schmuck.”

As for the drinks, Griffiths calls the menu “dressed-up classics for dressed-down people.” There’s a dirty Martini made with chicken seasoning, a spicy Margarita made with apricot and Rancho Gordo hot sauce, and a “Salad Negroni” composed of nectarine, basil, and a touch of acid.

Like Griffiths, Aljaff and Larrouy don’t want the public to confuse their new venture with their past triumphs, the name notwithstanding. (Aljaff owns the U.S. trademark to the Schmuck name.)

“There won’t be any similarities,” says Aljaff. “They will be completely different.”

But he paused and then added: “The one similarity is, when we did Two Schmucks [with partners AJ White and James Bligh in 2017], we set out to do a reflection of ourselves in the bar. With this bar, creatively I’m doing it with Juliette. But we’re in a different place in our lives. It’s more where Juliette and I are today. We like different things, cocktail-wise and food-wise.”

The key to the personality of the new place, he says, is in the name, which downsizes the bar’s handle from dual to singular status.

“Schmuck is not as defining” a name as Two Schmucks, he says. “It could be anything. We love New York for its creativity, and if this goes well, we’re interested in other creative endeavors where we could take Schmuck,” such as branded products and clothing.

For the Experimental Cocktail Club — which was founded in Paris in 2007 — this was not their first New York rodeo. The group made its first charge at the market in 2012. That branch, on Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side, lasted until 2016. To the consumers’ and media’s eyes, that was that. But the ECC team long had other plans in mind.

“The one thing I’ve heard many times is, ‘Oh, you guys are back! ECC is back!’ I was not expecting that. I didn’t think that the people who came to the ECC on the Lower East Side would come in. It’s a big plus.”

“It’s always been in the works,” ECC partner Xavier Padovani says of the new bi-level space on West 24th Street. “Since the first bar we opened and we closed, it’s always been the idea to come back; we were always looking for the way back in.”

The team found the Flatiron location two years ago and decided to put the newest extension of their wine bar brand, La Compagnie, on the ground floor, and tuck ECC in the snug basement space, which seats 35 to 40 people.

“The first bar, we realized, was way too big,” says Padovani. “We wanted something more cozy and personal. This is perfect for us.”

For the initial cocktail menu, the group drafted its old compatriot, Nico de Soto, who got his start at the Paris ECC and was bar manager of the original New York iteration. De Soto has since opened his own bars, including Mace in New York and Danico in Paris. For the head bartender, they tapped Nathalie Durrieu.

The bar began operations in late summer. In a city where past bars are forgotten in a New York minute, Padovani has been surprised by the response.

“The one thing I’ve heard many times is, ‘Oh, you guys are back! ECC is back!’ I was not expecting that. I didn’t think that the people who came to the ECC on the Lower East Side would come in. It’s a big plus. It’s not that I don’t understand it. I get it. But that level of engagement?”

Now that ECC is back in Gotham, all that remains is to make this bar stick.

“The competition is fierce,” he says. “There is a new restaurant every two minutes. There’s always something. The level is so high. You get one chance in New York.”

Or, in this case, maybe two.

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