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Entering Stephen Curry’s bourbon bar, The Eighth Rule, you find yourself in a dim, elegant space with glints of gold and deep brown. It might take a minute for your eyes to adjust, and then you can see that the walls are paneled in dark wood and the ceiling is vaulted. You might feel a little like you’re in a Prohibition-era speakeasy, which is not an outrageous thought since the bar is housed inside the Westin St. Francis, a beautiful historic hotel that continued to serve alcohol even when it was outlawed in the early part of the last century.
Here, four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry has partnered with chef Michael Mina to create a luxe two-room saloon with bourbon and bites. It’s not the first time Mina has worked with a sports star; he partnered with tennis champion Andre Agassi to form The Mina Group in the early 2000s. Currently, the group operates roughly 40 restaurants or bars around the world. I’m personally a fan of Wit & Wisdom in the Lodge at Sonoma Resort, Autograph Collection, and there are five other Mina Group locations in San Francisco, including Bourbon Steak, which is also inside the Westin St. Francis, Bar Sprezzatura, the Bourbon Pub at SFO, Pabu Izakaya, and associated Pabu-Chan. Sadly, International Smoke, which Mina formed with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ayesha Curry (married to Stephen), founder of Sweet July and co-founder with him of the incredible Eat.Learn.Play, closed in May.
Getting back to The Eighth Rule, it seats only 40 people in comfortable sofas flanking golden tables. I was there with a friend who loves old-fashioneds, so she was especially on board to try Stephen Curry’s special Nashville-made Gentleman’s Cut bourbon (on the website, you can see a short video of Curry drilling a hole into a barrel to taste it, as well as spray-painting the logo stencil onto the barrel and autographing it). She ordered the “Gentleman’s Cut Experience,” which lets you try three different cocktails made with Curry’s bourbon. She chose the sour with yellow chartreuse, yuzu, raspberry, and egg whites; the barrel-aged old-fashioned with maple, popcorn, walnut, and orange; and the barrel-aged Manhattan with Amaro Montenegro, blackberry, and lemon thyme. Our biggest surprise of the night came from realizing that the ice cube in her Manhattan was not just round; it was a basketball. We were so excited our server brought us a separate one in its own glass so we could better admire its etched markings.
From the menu: “The Eighth Rule is born from bourbon’s beautiful rebellion, a lineage that runs from Washington’s first whiskey tax through Prohibition’s whispered back rooms, all the way to Stephen Curry’s Gentleman’s Cut…. These are cocktails with tension, rooted, rebellious, and designed to linger long after the last sip.”
I can’t say my friend got tense, rooted and rebellious, but given we had pregamed at The Pagan Idol tiki bar, she was fairly well behaved. I tried two less serious, sweeter cocktails: Underrated and On a Yacht, which together sound like a Hollywood rom-com.
The bites were just exquisite. We ordered off the One of a Kind Eighth Rule Tasting Experience, a new offering back in August when we were there. It includes hot and cold plates and desserts, served in individual portions for the table. A standout was the caviar parfait served on a glass plate, a tower of layered smoked salmon, egg mimosa and crème fraiche. The Maine lobster and melons were perhaps more beautiful than delicious, but just look at it!
Since it’s named for the hero of the evening, we ordered Stephen’s Chicken Bites even though they were not part of the tasting experience. They were incredibly delicious: fried chicken with lemon pepper ranch crème fraiche dipping sauce. We devoured! Another detour onto the side bites menu was the sesame lobster toast with jalapeno, avocado and cilantro, which was a textural delight.
Dessert was a creamsicle shaved ice with lychee, raspberry and coconut whip dotted with little gold flecks. So good!
So why is the speakeasy named The Eighth Rule? There are seven rules used in the production of bourbon, and then the “eighth rule” is up to you—you can individualize your savoring of the whiskey. Our eighth rule was that Steph and Ayesha must join us, but they broke that rule.
It made for a fun night, and we appreciated the slow pacing of the strong cocktails. We walked down Powell to BART, glad that neither of us was tasked with operating a vehicle. We had to ask ourselves: if this is what Stephen Curry’s drinking... how is he able to do the full-court star drill?
