Beverage director Joey Smith — alum of The NoMad, Eleven Madison Park, and Booker & Dax — opened Chez Zou in 2022 above Zou Zou's Mediterranean restaurant atop Pendry Manhattan West, with an AvroKO-designed interior of velvet, black-and-white tile, and Middle Eastern tea-room lighting. The menu organizes around six categories (jarras, stiff drinks, shaken, coladas, highballs, bubbles) and pulls Levantine ingredients into the cocktail vocabulary — the shankleesh dirty martini (Lebanese strained yogurt cheese) and the pickle spritz are signature, with cardamom, fig, date, saffron, and verjus running through the program. 50 Best Discovery has Chez Zou in its directory (listed, not ranked), and the outdoor terrace extends the program in season. For Mediterranean ingredient-driven cocktails by a NoMad / EMP / Booker & Dax pedigree bar director — the credentials are Smith's, the room is the editorial substance.