by Alia Akkam
Scarfes Bar at Rosewood London: English cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe, who created the promo video for Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)’, lent his name and his artistic prowess to this bar at the Rosewood London when it opened on High Holborn in 2013. Bearing the signature upbeat-clubby imprint of designer Martin Brudnizki, the magnetic room is graced with Scarfe’s caricatures of well-known Brits such as Mick Jagger and Margaret Thatcher. Look out for changing Scarfe-illustrated menus that may nod to different musical genres such as jazz and classical with the ‘Crescent City Crusta’ (Rémy Martin 1738, pandan, banana vinegar, unripe grape) and ‘Curtain Call’ (Roe & Co Irish whiskey, clarified carob, hazelnut and mint, fortified wine, liquorice), respectively.
London is arguably home to the world’s best hotel bars.
No. 21
St Moritzino
RENAISSANCE BAR AT BADRUTT’S PALACE, ST MORITZ, SWITZERLAND
Created by Mario da Como
INGREDIENTS
40 ml (1¼ fl oz) Russian Standard Original vodka
30 ml (1 fl oz) Cointreau
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Orgeat Fabbri or Monin almond syrup
METHOD
Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, then strain into a Martini glass.
Every winter, the Patek-Philippe-donning elite descend upon the Swiss resort town of St Moritz to hit the slopes. They have Johannes Badrutt to thank for this cold-weather ritual, for in the 1860s he made a bet with British guests at his Kulm Hotel that if they didn’t love staying there in the coldest months, too, he would foot the bill of their return visit. By the time Johannes’ son, Caspar, opened the Palace – a hotel of his own – in 1896, St Moritz was a hotbed of bobsleds and toboggans. Still, alpine tourism doesn’t thrive on sports alone. Thrill-seekers also came to Badrutt’s Palace, then, as they do now, for the eddy of après-ski soirees.
Back in the 1960s, those who hankered for a less raucous environment than the basement discotheque (one of the first in Switzerland), went to the Renaissance Bar instead. There, they likely encountered barkeep Mario da Como, who arrived in 1963 and stayed for more than 40 years. Maybe they even spotted Alfred Hitchcock, who spent myriad holidays at the Palace, Audrey Hepburn or Marlene Dietrich. Renaissance Bar carries on, and sitting by the crackling fireplace, a cigar paired with one of the classic libations from the A–Z ‘Cocktail Library’, is amped chalet sipping at its best.
Long-time barman Mario da Como no longer holds court at Badrutt’s Palace, but his jovial presence is still felt at the Renaissance Bar, playfully dubbed ‘Mario’s Bar’. His bright ‘St Moritzino’, first spawned in 1972 from an embargoed bottle of South African rum gifted to the hotel’s then-owner Andrea Badrutt, has since metamorphised into a vodka tipple. It remains a favourite among the hotel’s discriminating clientele.
No. 22
Bellini
BAR LONGHI AT THE GRITTI PALACE, VENICE, ITALY
Created by Giuseppe Cipriani, Harry’s Bar
INGREDIENTS
30 ml (1 fl oz) peach purée
90 ml (3 fl oz) chilled prosecco
METHOD
Gently stir the ingredients directly in a coupe glass.
No matter how many times they gape at it, the straight-out-of-a-fable Grand Canal buoys visitors to Venice, especially if it’s seen from the amorous environs of The Gritti Palace. Built in the 15th century by the Pisani family, this gothic palazzo, converted into a hotel in 1895, was once the residence of the 16th-century Doge Andrea Gritti. VIPs such as W. Somerset Maugham, Elizabeth Taylor and Greta Garbo were all devotees of the enchanting property, and they’d certainly still be pleased to wake up to the silk damask walls. With its terrazzo-etched mirrors and Murano-glass chandeliers, Bar Longhi, yet another of Hemingway’s preferred hide-outs, has the pristine aura of an oil painting come to life. In the summer, the seat that everyone wants, though, is on Riva Lounge terrace, facing Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute with a ‘Bellini’ (the uplifting drink was invented by Giuseppe Cipriani at Harry’s Bar, a few minutes’ walk away) or a ‘Basil-ica’ (Old Tom gin, lemon juice, St-Germain liqueur, basil, orange bitters). As the sun sets, the water gleams, and you never want to leave the city.
No. 23
Apricot Sour
STRAVINSKIJ BAR AT HOTEL DE RUSSIE, ROME, ITALY
Created by Paolo Danini and Barbara Simmi
INGREDIENTS
25 ml (¾ fl oz) The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve
35 ml (1¼ fl oz) apricot distillate (Stravinskij Bar uses Capovilla Distillato di Albicocche from Vesuvio)
12 ml (1 scant tablespoon) vanilla syrup
2 teaspoons organic apricot jam (jelly)
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 dashes of Angostura bitters, to garnish
fresh apricot wedge, to garnish
METHOD
Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, then strain back into an empty shaker. Dry shake, then double strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a few drops of Angostura bitters and the apricot wedge affixed to garnish.
Piazza del Popolo, one of Rome’s most remarkable squares, was spiffed up in the 1820s by architect Giuseppe Valadier. Steps from it, he completed a building during the same time period that became a hotel, gaining the favour of Russian nobility and Jean Cocteau, and it eventually morphed into the headquarters of a top Italian television station. In 2000, Sir Rocco Forte swooped it up and added it to his hotel collection and soon a stay at Hotel de Russie was as coveted as those at Eternal City legends the Eden and Hassler.
Much of its mystique comes from the terraced gardens, where guests eat cacio e pepe ravioli surrounded by roses and orange trees. Stravinskij Bar is an equally splendorous al fresco enterprise, with patrons taking to the courtyard and sitting down under shady umbrellas to inventive aperitivo-hour tipples such as a Bloody Mary that swaps tomato juice for perky carrot, and the ‘Modern Fizzy’, a highball pairing saffron-infused Cognac and rum with honey-black peppercorn syrup and cardamom liqueur. In gloomy weather, la dolce vita persists; dotted with statuary, the interior of Stravinskij Bar is an upscale ode to ancient Rome.
No. 24
Tesoro
PULITZER’S BAR AT PULITZER AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
INGREDIENTS
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) Ron Zacapa 23 rum
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) Taylor’s 10-Year-Old tawny port
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Grand Marnier
3 dashes of Aphrodite bitters
1 barspoon maple syrup
1 strip of orange zest, to garnish
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients in a mixing glass, then add ice cubes and stir for 20 seconds. Strain into a chilled rocks glass filled with ice cubes and add the orange zest to garnish.
By 1960, the gloriously narrow 17th- and 18th-century canal houses in which Amsterdam merchants and aristocrats once cavorted had sadly deteriorated. Peter Pulitzer, the visionary grandson of the Hungarian-born, American newspaper titan Joseph Pulitzer, saw potential in reviving them and snatched up 12 to transform into a five-star hotel with an unlikely partner: the modest American motel and restaurant chain, Howard Johnson’s. Eventually, the maze of homes and warehouses between the Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht canals grew to 25. Several owners later, the Pulitzer – original wood beams intact – was reinvented in 2016. Fortunately, this time around there was Pulitzer’s Bar, a purple-tinged respite for fireside conversations, with plush armchairs that comfort after an exhausting day of sightseeing (the hotel’s prime Nine Streets location means many museums are within walking distance) and imaginatively themed cocktail menus that celebrate, say, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express with cocktails like ‘The Doctor’ (whisky, whey, sherry and genmaicha tea). Catch a glimpse of the golden, geometric-patterned bar sparkling against the dark walls, and it feels like you’ve stepped insid
e one of Rembrandt’s moody paintings.
At Pulitzer’s Bar, Tesoro is served aged, but it is also satisfyingly heady in its à-la-minute form.
SPOTLIGHT:
ONE-OF-A-KIND NICHE EXPERIENCES
for when you want a little something extra
SINGLE-MINDED
Many hotel bars, just by the very nature of their energetic, public locations, seem to warmly welcome folks right into the lobby. They tend to be inclusive spaces, and no matter who you are and no matter what part of the globe you might be visiting from, there is something on the menu that is bound to strike your fancy and put you at ease, whether it’s a glass of rosé or a complicated tequila drink. But this is not always the case. Some hotel bars have strong personalities and offer sharply defined experiences with a specific roster of cocktails to match. These places are destinations fuelled by a singular vision – usually reflected in the menu or sometimes the design – and they aren’t meant to entertain the mainstream masses. Hotel bars can inhabit an out-of-the-ordinary world, and that is what these particular bars do.
Take Fragrances at the Ritz-Carlton, Berlin. Guests who want to spend the evening knocking back a few Martinis on Potsdamer Platz should walk over to the lobby’s Curtain Club instead of coming here, because this aromatic haven is meant for guests who want to turn their night into an interactive sensory journey. Instead of being handed a classic menu, they will whiff their way through an artfully curated wall of fragrances, seeing the corresponding liquor bottles beckon to them from bell jars. Barkeeps here know exactly how to translate a perfume’s olfactory profile to cocktail form. Aventure – a nod to Berlin’s own Frau Tonis Parfum scent – is a delicate mix of rose lemonade, Yamagata Masamune sake, verjus, bergamot, orange blossom water grenadine and an earthy syrup of vanilla, vetiver, ylang-ylang, patchouli and sandalwood. The ‘Vaara’, which references the Penhaligon’s potion of the same name, combines pear purée with saffron-infused Zacapa 23 rum, Bulleit bourbon, rosewater and vanilla-honey-tonka-bean syrup.
If you like the idea of planning an outing to an alluring niche bar, consider these:
Black Angel’s Bar, Hotel U Prince, Prague, Czech Republic: Close to the medieval Prague Astronomical Clock, that tourist favourite on Old Town Square, is Black Angel’s Bar. Hidden underneath the Hotel U Prince, it’s essentially a classy cave with 1930s speakeasy leanings. Come drink a ‘From Dust Till Foam’ (gin, lemon, Aperol, fresh grapefruit juice, elderflower foam) or the pleasant, pretty ‘Concord’ (gin, dry vermouth, strawberry syrup) – both cocktails that honour the early 20th-century Czech bartender Alois Krcha –amid the soaring arches.
The Chandelier, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, US: Hotel bars on the Las Vegas Strip are on completely different turf than their brethren. The city has considerably upped the quality of its beverage programmes through the years, led by bartenders such as the Chandelier’s Mariena Mercer Boarini, yet bars are still showy and theatrical – exactly how they need to be (and, when in Vegas, how you want them to be) in order to capture the fleeting attention of restless tourists meandering across the casino floor. The Chandelier, originally designed by Rockwell Group, is comprised of three different bars, all situated within a gleaming, tri-level structure sheathed in undulating string and crystal. You’re either sitting at the bottom of the Chandelier with a ‘Whiskey Business’ (Knob Creek bourbon, Amaro di Angostura, Amaro Meletti, ‘old time rock ’n’ roll’ syrup); tucked inside it sipping an ‘Evil Twin’ (Don Julio Anejo tequila, Laird’s apple brandy, Allspice Dram, Zirbenz pine liqueur, smoked maple syrup); or at the very top, trying the Mule-inspired ‘Finishing School ‘(CÎROC Red Berry vodka, lemon, strawberry-rhubarb rose syrup, ginger beer, plum bitters).
The Milk Room, Chicago Athletic Association, Chicago, US: There are only eight stools at this bar on the second floor of the Chicago Athletic Association hotel, and the booze geeks who don’t flinch at the hefty prices must reserve in advance. Here, bar-goers are wooed by an ever-changing stock of rare spirits such as a Very Old Fitzgerald bourbon bottled in bond from 1945–53, or a 1978 Delord BasArmagnac. When a bottle of 1970s Tarragona Chartreuse graces the eclectic collection, the bartender will be happy to let it sing in a truly retro ‘Last Word’.
Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, Fairmont San Francisco, US: In 1945, a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer set designer was tasked with reimagining the Fairmont San Francisco’s one-time pool into a lagoon and floating stage. The occasion was the opening of the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, a tiki paradise that embodied the post-World-War-II fascination with the Polynesian idyll. Dancing on the floor fashioned from the remains of S.S. Forester, a schooner that darted between San Francisco and the South Seas, pausing only for sips of Don the Beachcomber’s 1934 ‘Zombie’, was all the reassurance folks needed that a better life was indeed around the bend. Overlook the cloying cocktails – you’re here because the thatched roofs and tropical storms, replete with lightning and rain falling from the ceiling above the lagoon, are an illusion you’re not ready to shatter.
destinations fuelled by a singular vision
...
interactive sensory journey
...
an allusion you’re not ready to shatter
No. 25
Juniper/Beetroot/Pineapple/Cocktail
BAR AM STEINPLATZ AT HOTEL AM STEINPLATZ, BERLIN, GERMANY
INGREDIENTS
40 ml (1⅓ fl oz) Freimeister Doppelwacholder juniper spirit
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) Faude beetroot (beet) spirit
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice or lemon-infused water
15 ml (½ fl oz) Pineapple Syrup*
2 drops of mint oil
*For the Pineapple Syrup:
500 ml (17 fl oz) simple syrup
5 ml (1 teaspoon) pineapple essence
METHOD
For the Pineapple Syrup, combine the simple syrup and pineapple essence in a mixing glass.
For the cocktail, stir all the ingredients together in a separate mixing glass filled with ice, then double strain into a Nick & Nora glass. Finish with a couple of drops of the mint oil.
Hotel am Steinplatz opened in Berlin’s swanky Charlottenburg neighbourhood in 1913 – an Art-Nouveau marvel that was the handiwork of Jugendstil architect August Endell, who designed the city’s Hackesche Höfe courtyard complex. After a restoration in 2013, the olive-green-hued building, festooned with geometric decorative elements, still stands out, encouraging passersby to walk underneath the entry’s ornamental canopy into a world that once tantalised the likes of Vladimir Nabokov and Romy Schneider.
The basement bar – a 1950s smash with actors and artists – is long gone. In its place is ground-level Bar am Steinplatz, where the Art-Deco atmosphere, a melange of marble and leather – black and cream – is reason enough to pull up a stool. At first, gin lovers might be chagrinned to discover not even one bottle of their favourite spirit skulks on the shelves. Then, they peer at the cocktail menu, cleverly illustrated so that each drink’s taste profile is in the limelight, and they realise they are actually quite pleased to try one – all of them clear, all of them served in Nick & Nora glasses, and spun from a brazen mix of ingredients such as pisco, kaffir, blackcurrant and rice.
No. 26
Little Match Girl
NIMB BAR AT NIMB HOTEL, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
Created by António Saldanha de Oliveira
INGREDIENTS
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) Don Julio Añejo Tequila
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Graham’s ruby port or tawny port
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Lillet Rouge
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) simple syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 part water)
2 large pieces of pared grapefruit or orange zest
2 large slices of galangal or root ginger
METHOD
Combine the liquid ingredients in a small saucepan and place over a low heat. Add the grapefruit or orange zests and the galangal or ginger slices to the mixture, then cover with the lid and simmer for 3–5 minutes.
Strain into a mug to serve.
Tivoli Gardens, providing merriment to Copenhageners since 1843, is one of the world’s oldest amusement parks, and Nimb Hotel is serendipitously plopped in the centre of this joyful setting. When it first opened in 1909, inside a fantastical Moorish palace, Nimb was a buzzing bazaar restaurant, named for the same hospitable owners who had popularised Denmark’s now-ubiquitous, open-faced rye-bread sandwiches. By 1930, the Danish National Broadcasting Company was recording live from Nimb, making it a bastion of contemporary dance music. Since 2008, Nimb has taken the form of a soothing Nordic-style boutique hotel, with balcony suites, a pool the shade of the fictional Emerald City gracing the rooftop terrace, and multiple restaurants that add another layer to its gastronomic history.
Nimb Bar, in what was the old ballroom, bristles with sophistication – a muted space that allows the birch-wood-burning fireplace, original lost-then-found crystal chandeliers and grand piano to take centre stage. After a day on the Ferris wheel and the animal-bedecked carousel, Nimb Bar’s afternoon tea or blissful cocktails, such as the summery ‘Little Mermaid’ (Absolut Elyx vodka, lychee, lime cordial, spirulina, coconut water and cucumber), confirm that the fairytale need not end here.
Little Match Girl is an elevated hot toddy, which is wonderfully warming on those frosty-day forays through Tivoli Gardens. Ideally it is made with a Viennese coffee maker, but a stovetop coffee pot or a saucepan over a low heat, covered with a lid, will work just as well. This recipe makes one cocktail, but it is best served for groups of two or more; simply multiply the ingredients accordingly.
No. 27
