Photographs by Grant Cornett
Heather and Christopher Tierney seem to have perfected the art of sharing with one’s sibling. In addition to possessing the same bone structure and Indiana upbringing, the brother and sister co-own a pair of stylish nightspots in the Doyers Street crook of increasingly buzzy Chinatown. Their three-year-old bar Apotheke (formerly a Chinese restaurant) is a riff on a Belle Époque absinthe den, and next door, the just-opened Pulqueria (formerly a Vietnamese restaurant) references Mexico City and the milky, fermented-agave liquor pulque. While they have an aesthetic mind-meld when it comes to their watering holes, the Tierneys’ respective apartments—located a few blocks apart on Spring Street—have their own distinct personalities. Christopher labels his sleeker, nautically inflected place, which he renovated with recycled barn wood and a long marble bar, “Montauk meets Manhattan.” Heather’s one-bedroom loft is more bohemian, embracing graphic patterns and bright colors and leaving raw wood beams and painted brick walls in all their imperfect glory. “I asked the landlord not to finish the floors and let me finish them for him,” says Heather, who used four gallons of wood bleach to whitewash them. “But Chris advised me.”
Their Chinatown Heather and Christopher Tierney outside their dueling Doyer Street establishments, the cocktail bar Apotheke (left) and Mexican cantina Pulqueria (right). Photo: Grant Cornett