The rusted, copper globe dangling over the entrance is the first thing I notice whenever I walk through the door of Souz Dal. Second, the dimly-lit, domed ceiling, inspired by the cathedral domes of the Russian city the bar was named after.

Third - and it’s always in the same order - is the music rocking the small room: heavy deep-bass beats eternally played too loud for a bar that size. It’s all good though. It feels like I've been magically transported too a Middle Eastern coke den, or maybe to the set of some red-toned Blade Runner sequel. But, not Russia.

Wherever. If I’m at Souz Dal, I’ve landed in Cocktail Nation: The College Strip - where busy Little Italy goes cheek-to-cheek with industrial chic. Where the pierced, tattooed and six-figure-income run the show. And that show doesn't start until well past the average middle-aged bedtime. That's when College Strip’s black-on-black loungebars, like Souz Dal for example, opens its doors to the young and the restless.

These days, the candlelit space is often crammed with requisite hipster types. But Souz Dal was a hip place to go for a drink long before a time when you’d use ‘Hip’ and ‘College Street’ in the same sentence.

"Souz Dal landed on College Street before the street was re-born as cool," explains the charming bartender/owner, Sid Dichter as he hands over our precisely made cocktails. "Back then, it was just the copper-globed bar within this cross-section of Little Italy."