More Secret, Sexy Cocktail Bars in Boston, Please!

Extra Dirty Cocktail Club. / Photo by Assembly Design Studio

Inside a nondescript office building on the far edge of the North End, down a carpeted flight of stairs, through a swanky basement bar with gleaming wood paneling and cherry-red furniture, and behind a heavy curtain, I’m perched on a tasseled, upholstered seat sipping a martini that tastes like a perfect plate of pasta with everything but the pasta.

Fresh basil, raw garlic, and a pasta cheese blend are distilled—seemingly through sorcery—into a sophisticated cocktail at Extra Dirty Cocktail Club, a hidden bar within another hidden bar, Boston’s newest entry in a class of transportive venues that play up the secretive vibes. Some call themselves speakeasies; others are anointed with the descriptor by social media posts and reviews. There’s plenty to quibble about with the overused moniker: No one’s making bathtub gin, police raids aren’t a worry, and perhaps most hilariously, pretty much every bar dubbed a “speakeasy” has a web presence, directions to get into its cheekily hidden entrance, and, of course, proper licensing.

The exterior of Downtown Crossing cocktail bar the Wig Shop looks like, well, a wig shop (and it used to be one!) / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Whether we’re calling them speakeasies or not, these sorta-hidden spots with sexy vibes are serving serious cocktails—sometimes bordering on gimmicky, but in the best way—and we love them. This is not a new movement by any means. Cities large and small saw a burst of these opening in the early aughts: see the gone-but-not-forgotten Drink here in Boston, PDT in New York, etc. But lately, it seems like most bar openings aspire to some version of a hidden aesthetic, and we’re here to say: Don’t stop.

Give me the fake freezer door in the back of a taco shop that leads to extra-large margaritas. Show me a bar in a former wig shop whose front window makes it look like it’s still a wig shop, and serve me a coffee cocktail so caffeinated that you’ll only allow me one. Lead me down a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hallway off a back parking lot into a den of top-level cocktails and nods to Star Wars. Entice me to descend several flights into a lively tropical subterranean bar—and wait, it even has a high-end omakase restaurant hidden deeper within? Sure, give me a “secret” door that requires a password, and reward me with theatrics—drinks on fire, bubbles of smoked, locked treasure chests. Hide an otherworldly space with witchy cocktails behind a discreet alley door. Disguise the entrance to an am-I-cool-enough-for-this bar and restaurant through a faux hair salon. Tempt me with old-timey maritime vibes and “oceanic glassware” inside a seafood restaurant in a casino. Make me figure out how to get into a hotel bar with nods to Boston history and a password-on-a-scroll entry system. And don’t stop seducing me with all these new “listening lounges” too: a basement hideaway playing vinyl and serving fizzy highballs? I’m there.

The lower level of Desnuda Cocina & Bar which, like Extra Dirty, was designed by Assembly Design Studio. / Photo by Michael Diskin

Extra Dirty Cocktail Club is a thrilling addition to the genre. In an appropriate parallel to its tucked-away locale inside its hard-to-find big sibling the Red Fox, it very quietly opened in late December, testing out the waters with regulars from another of its siblings, Farmacia, before announcing more of a grand opening in February. Like Farmacia, Extra Dirty requires a prepaid reservation and offers a multi-course cocktail journey with a theme that rotates several times throughout the year. Farmacia’s experience includes some very light bites and generally works best as a bookend to a meal elsewhere, says bar director Phillip Rolfe, while Extra Dirty is more like a main event. The opening food menu, subject to change, includes a shaved Brussels sprouts Caesar salad; a big, beefy meatball; rigatoni with pistachio pesto; and a rotating gelato flavor—such as tiramisu—from Malden-based Giovanna. You might have a bit of room for a snack or dessert elsewhere, says Rolfe, but unlike the aftermath of a Farmacia adventure, you probably won’t find yourself at, say, the Daily Catch downing a giant pan of squid-ink linguini.

Extra Dirty’s first menu, which runs through the end of April, is an ode to Italy—a nice nod to the North End location, says Rolfe, and the hospitality group’s focus on Italian at several of its venues, including Tony & Elaine’s, Ciao Roma, and the Red Fox. For $90 per person, which includes the drinks as well as the food, you’ll start with an aperitivo, a daily rotating Porthole infusion. Next up, a choice from the main section of cocktails, and then a second. You might drink, for example, the Uva e Parmigiano—gin with mixed citrus olio, green grape soda, thyme tincture, and a thick Parm-based foam—before diving into the Rum Baba e Bourbon, which combines Woodford Reserve Double Oaked with rum syrup, vanilla-infused Campari, apricot, and nutritional yeast. Last, a more dessert-y beverage: perhaps a spin on an espresso martini, or a coffee-infused scotch concoction with blueberry foam.

A cocktail at Farmacia. / Photo by Chris Vela

You’ll drink all of this ensconced in a basement hideaway—designed by the prolific local firm Assembly Design Studio—full of tiger-striped and paisley upholstery, exposed granite that dates back to the American Revolution, and a rippling pattern of brick archways and mirrors overhead. Secluded and intimate, it’ll make you feel like you know something everyone else doesn’t while you tip back the surprising cocktails by Rolfe, bar lead Suzie Kim, and the rest of the team.

It’s quirky, it’s intimate, it’s a little bit weird. Take, for instance, the mushroom-infused sherry drink with roasted tomato syrup. Most importantly, though, Extra Dirty and all the other bars with wink-wink entrances and hush-hush vibes are fun excuses to escape the day-to-day drudge, and that’s what drinking cocktails should be. Pair high technique with playful aesthetics: It’s a combo that never gets old. Some of the details change over time—we’ve moved on, perhaps, from suspender–wearing 2008 bartenders serving off-menu drinks over artisanal ice. Call them speakeasies or roll your eyes at the designation, but the modern secretive bars of 2025 are making Boston a more interesting place, and we can’t wait to see what opens next.

Hecate in Back Bay. / Photo by Adam DeTour

326B Commercial St., North End, Boston, extradirtynorthend.com.