While the location of The Black Angel restaurant on Iowa Avenue may not literally be “cursed,” as Iowa City locals would say, the good food, live music, and tasty drinks certainly cast a spell.
Co-owner of The Black Angel Derek Perez, originally owned the business Perez Family Tacos during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic before deciding to remodel the space and open The Black Angel, a reference to the Black Angel statue in Oakland Cemetery steeped in local lore. He asked the former owner of The Mill, Marty Christensen, to help him and his brother with this process, and Christensen became a co-owner.
The Mill preceded Perez Family Tacos in the Iowa Avenue space, and before that, it was occupied by a variety of restaurants and a gas station.
“The name is because everybody assumes this place is a ‘cursed’ business,” Jeffrey Simon, bartender at The Black Angel, said. “There have been so many businesses, so they called it The Black Angel. It’s kind of tongue-in-cheek.”
The Black Angel is a unique business, attracting an older crowd of Iowa City residents during the week but drawing younger patrons with live performances on the weekends.
The restaurant also recently started displaying art pieces from Iowa City locals along one dining room wall, hanging them for about a month at a time. This month’s featured artist is Jayson Reid.
As the weather warms up, patrons can enjoy drinks like the Tequila Verde, a spinoff of a drink from New York called the Picante, made with cilantro and jalapeño.
Simon started making the drink by slicing a fresh jalapeño and gathering a bowlful of cilantro leaves. He muddled the ingredients together with an ounce of squeezed lime juice, added a shot of Reposado tequila and a pony of agave syrup, and shook the concoction with ice. He filtered into a rocks glass the final product, a swirl of light green flecked with cilantro and garnished with a jalapeño slice floating atop the singular ice cube.
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Though I was hesitant at first about the mouthwatering scent of the jalapeño spice wafting from the drink, the kick was just strong enough to kiss my taste buds without being overwhelming. It had a warming effect combined with the tequila, and each sip ended with a sour quench of lime and the lingering sweetness of the agave. Completely subverting my expectations, this drink proved to be my favorite.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Family Therapy, a fruity treat modeled after a vacation drink in the ‘70s from the Virgin Islands called Painkiller.
For this cocktail, Simon poured ounces of dark rum and Aperol over ice in a mixer, followed by roughly an ounce of each blood orange juice, cream of coconut, orange juice, and pineapple juice. He shook up this feud of tropical flavors before pouring it over ice into a tall glass garnished with a lime wheel. As an homage to Painkiller, Simon said he tried to match the muted coral color of the drink to that of Advil.
As perfectly colored as it was, the cocktail was also perfectly balanced. Every flavor appeared in each sip, beginning with the strong taste of pineapple. The surprising bitterness of Aperol blended with blood orange, the only possible black sheep of the flavor profile, was complemented by a coconut finish.