NYC Hitmaker Danny Meyer Is Bringing Navy Yard a Rooftop Bar With Year-Round Spritzes

Prolific NYC restaurateur Danny Meyer announced details today for a massive rooftop bar that his Union Square Hospitality Group expects to open later this year in the 225-room Thompson Hotel rising in Navy Yard.

Anchovy Social will sling snacks featuring local seafood along with modern twists on Italian antipasti over 8,000 square feet. The 12th-story space will boast floor-to-ceiling windows offering 360-degree views of the city and waterfront. As the name suggests, the salty Mediterranean delicacy will make an appearance on the menu, along with seafood towers and cacio e pepe-flavored potato chips.

Meyer tells Food & Wine that he felt anchovies were an appropriate mascot for the new waterfront watering hole.

“Anchovies are one of those divisive foods––you either love them or hate them,” he tells the magazine. “We just felt like using them to tell people to relax and have fun, especially in a time where we could really use a little fun.”

The cocktail program will reportedly pull from menus at other USHG bars like Manhatta and Vini e Fritti, which includes lots of spritzes and sharable drinks.

The rooftop bar is the second USHG venue to land in the hotel. Maialino Mare, a seafood-heavy offshoot of NYC Italian darling Maialino, is setting up in the first floor of the Thompson. The bar and restaurant pieces are expected to debut simultaneously sometime this winter. Maialino Mare — Meyer’s first full-service restaurant in D.C. — is billed as an all-day Roman trattoria that’s big on pastas and grilled whole fish. The original Maialino has endured for a decade inside the Gramercy Park Hotel,

This year, another hot waterfront neighborhood got a scenic 12th story bar atop a hotel, also from a respected NYC hospitality team. In Southwest, 12 Stories takes up the roof at the Intercontinental hotel. That bar comes from Gerber Group — the brand behind NYC’s trendy hotel bar Mr. Purple and Grand Central’s reinvigorated Campbell Bar.

• Danny Meyer Is Opening a Whimsical New Bar in D.C. [F&W]
• Danny Meyer Says He’s Putting a Restaurant in Navy Yard’s New Hotel [EDC]
• Restaurant Magnate Danny Meyer Is Bringing a Roman Seafood Spot to D.C. [EDC]
• The Wharf’s Stylish New Rooftop Bar Opens Tonight [EDC]