Tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. at the Market Garden Brewery, 1947 West 25^th St., local publisher Belt Books will launch its Cleveland Neighborhood Guidebook with readings by Janice Lowe, Sally Errico and Sam McNulty. Several contributors and sponsors will be at this free event.  

As a preview, the publishers have shared the following "Editors' Pick" from the volume, an "homage to The Velvet Tango Room."

Visiting Cleveland for the first time? Have an event to celebrate? Go to the Velvet Tango Room.

Paulius Nasvytis was early to the cocktail trend when he opened this inimitable, only-in-Cleveland bar in 1996. Nasvytis’s staff mix Pisco Sours and French 75s for loyal patrons, suits, local politicos, and out-of-towners who make it a destination spot. Finding it is part of the experience, as the VTR is located on a desolate stretch of a post-industrial street that is always neither here nor there.

Signs outside are off-putting, warning “no big hair” and “no golf shoes,” but everything inside is inviting. Somehow the VTR manages to be pretentious and down- to-earth at once.

Nasvytis is a first-generation Lithuanian immigrant who opened the bar after working for years at Cleveland’s upscale French hotel restaurant, Classics. Many nights he floats throughout the bar, dressed in a three-piece suit, sometimes presenting women with long-stemmed roses. VIPs are ushered into the hidden “members only” back room where, because everything is surprising at the VTR, busts of Lenin, Mussolini and Mao—“deposed dictators doomed to live in this capitalist hell,” Paulius explains — line the shelves.

The backstory, location, and atmosphere of the VTR mix Cleveland ambitions, failures, and distinctiveness, and the drinks are no less complex and delightful. The staff make their own maraschino cherries, ginger ale, and bitters. The bartenders have ripped biceps from shaking cocktails by hand. They flambee orange slices and shake egg whites into soft peaks for Ramos Gin Fizzes. It is expensive (for Cleveland) and cheap (for what you get) at once. At the VTR, some weird alchemy makes it all work.