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On a recent trip to the West Village we were stopped dead in our tracks. Whoa. What on God’s green earth do we have here? The bar standing in front of us was truly Immaculate. We couldn’t look away. There was some kind of Daniel Faraday/Lost island style frequency sucking us inside even though our lives were supposed to go down a different path that night. We couldn’t resist it. We bailed on our plans and hit the Highlands.
As we suspected, Highlands is an Infatuation kind of joint. Rows of whiskey and bourbon line the exposed brick walls behind the bar. A packed house of put together, good looking locals sip on dark drinks, specialty cocktails and international beers with high alcohol content. Everyone is feelin’ it and having a grand ol’ time. Although we haven’t been on the weekend, we hear it’s slammed shoulder to shoulder, Spotted Pig style.
Traditionally Scottish, this gastropub brings the likes of cullen skink (fish and potato soup) and haggis (sheep’s ‘pluck’, heart, liver & lungs) to the Big Apple. It’s certainly the only place in the West Village that actually has faggot listed on the menu. Although it may be PC where they come from, we’re more comfortable pointing to it on the menu than actually saying it out loud. In typical Scottish fashion, the food was just ok, but if you pick and choose your dishes carefully, you can have a good meal. The meat plate, cockles, haggis and lamb shank are the way to go. Keep in mind, this is absolutely a bar first, restaurant second and we took that into consideration when judging the place.