Martini cocktails, martini bars and martini culture
After having become one the food capitals of the world (believe me, Peruvian food is worth the travel), Lima is also turning into one of the cocktail spots of Latin America, with several bars in the well-known charts and a growing cocktail movement attentive to local approaches and products. Still, even if top-level cocktail bars …
Cuzco, the former capital of the Inka empire and one of the food capitals of Peru, it is not the best Martini spot of the country, meaning that it took me a few attempts to identify a proper Martini bar (I will not mention the deceiving cocktail bars I visited but the very good restaurant …
Third and last stop of my NYC bartour was the Bar Snack, in the East Village. The bar attracted my attention since on their website they are described as "a new iteration of the classic neighborhood bar, offering dressed-up classics for dressed-down people". An easy-going bar with top quality cocktails? For me, irresistible. Indeed, this …
Throughout my long and joyful barfly career, when I am in a new city for two nights I try to visit at least two bars, to get an understanding of the local "bar scene". Well, not in Bangalore: the SOKA bar was so good that I just went there two evenings in a row. The …
Let's start from this: the Sips bar was elected best bar of the world in 2023, and scored third both in 2022 and 2024. So, even if rankings such as the World 50 best bars are sometimes disappointing, my expectations were rather high. Now, the Sips is a fantastic bar, both for the concept - …
Barflies will agree that the more a town is filled with self-defined cocktail bars, the more it is difficult to get a proper drink. Following this universal law, getting a good Martini in Malta is nothing but hard. Still, after a few failed attempts on which I will not report, I found THE place in …
Seoul has more than 15,000 bars, a strong whiskey culture and a growing cocktail scene, with some bars listed among the world best drinking spots in several rankings. During my time in the city, I've been searching for the right bar with certain limitations, basically two kids (who can mix a Martini like a pro, but are …
I love visiting cocktail bars just after their opening time, when the evening has not started yet and you get the feeling of increasing excitement for what will happen soon. This is the moment when you can quitely talk to bartenders and when you can witness the rituals of bar preparation, and from these moments …
Sometimes, when I am in a cocktail-friendly city like Madrid, I like to choose my bar not by looking at rankings and reviews, nor by asking friends and fellow barflies. I just open a (google) map, pick a bar that inspires me, and just try it. I did that with the Harvey's cocktail bar, in …
Bars, as well as life, are all about expectations, and expectations fluctuate. When I was told that the Lolita is one of the best bars in Tbilisi (actually a cocktail town, to my surprise) my expectations were high, but they went down in front of the entrance (with a security guy checking all customers, and …
The Martini Hour 