The Null Pointer

The Null Pointer sits behind the lobby, through a single oxblood-curtained doorway that we keep deliberately hard to find. Twenty-two seats, a long brass-topped bar, a banquette in the back, and a sound system that defaults to side-A jazz and works up from there. Head mixologist Tomáš Reuter ran the bar at Truffle Pig (Prague) for six years and at Buck and Breck (Berlin) for two before joining us.

The list is short on purpose: ten classics done correctly, six house signatures done with conviction, and one nightly invention chalked above the bar that is never written down.

The signatures

• Buffer Overflow — Plymouth Navy Strength gin, cold-brew Bonanza coffee, demerara, a rim of smoked Halen Môn sea salt. Served in a small glass over a single rock; topped slowly, and deliberately allowed to spill onto a small pewter saucer beneath. €16.
• Rainbow Table — a flight of seven 15 mL pours, one per base spirit, mixed identically (3:1:1, spirit:lemon:honey) so you can taste the spirit. €24, no substitutions, drink left to right.
• Zero Day — chalked nightly above the bar by Tomáš or whoever is closing. The recipe is not written down anywhere; if you order one and like it, the bar will repeat it for you next time, provided you are in the building before midnight on a Thursday. €15.
• Cache Miss — what happens when we run out of a key ingredient for a classic. The bartender will improvise, tell you what they did, and ask whether it earned its name. €14.
• Race Condition — Aquavit, dry vermouth, celery shrub, a single drop of Islay malt floated on the surface so that the drink tastes different depending on which side of the glass you sip from. €17.
• Off-by-Two — a Manhattan made with two kinds of rye and two kinds of vermouth, stirred with an extra two seconds of dilution. Bitter, focused, smaller than you'd expect. €18.

Wine, beer, the rest

A tight list — five Rieslings, three skin-contact, two reds, one orange, three sherries, one madeira (always the same), Augustiner Helles on tap, Berliner Berg unfiltered Pilsner in bottle, and a small bay of non-alcoholic options (Seedlip Garden 108, Æcorn Aromatic, a house-made shrub of the week).

Thursday: Open Workshop

Half-price classics from 17:00 to 19:00 every Thursday, no list and no tricks. A good time to learn what a Bobby Burns actually tastes like.

Friday: Vinyl Night

Resident DJ Otto Lorenz (Berlin) plays a four-hour, all-vinyl set from 22:00 every Friday. Mostly Blue Note, occasionally tropicalia, never anything we would have to apologise for. No cover. Capacity hard at 30 (we close the door for fire-code reasons; don't take it personally).