Martini cocktails, martini bars and martini culture
Chueca, the hip barrio in Madrid, is full of bars, still it is not that easy to get a really good cocktail or two (we leave to others the debate on how the recent cocktail hype in Spain has not really raised the average quality of drinks in the country). But, some really good bars …
Life is sometimes bizarre. You travel around for years searching for the perfect mixture between quality of drinks and creativity in making something new, then you end up in a town (Torino in my case) which is surely not known for its cocktail scene, and you find a bar that is probably the most creative …
Sometimes internet searches for "the best cocktail bar in town" are disappointing, but when they work the feeling is good. In Leicester, for example, if you follow this advice you'll feel like a local, even if you are in town since a couple of hours. The manhattan34 bar is in fact one of these places where you …
Sometimes bars are in your destiny, as proven from the fact that the Mad Dog opened its doors on the very same day I moved to Torino, on first of November 2014. You might think: with so many bars opening in town lately, where is the big news? Well, the fact is that, in my humble …
Let's put it simply: this is the best cocktail bar among the dozens of bars in Vila Madalena in Sao Paulo (I am ready to be challenged on this). This is how to do it: enter the Astor Bar, a classy bar with nice food and cocktails (including a well-done Martini list) where you can …
If you look for serious cocktails in Amsterdam, Hiding in Plain Sight is where you want to be. Not too far but far enough from the noisy touristic part of the city, this bar is an hidden gem in the city who gave birth to Genever, the ancestor of gin (well gin was not really created …
Continue reading "Hiding in Plain Sight, Amsterdam, The Netherlands"
 Barbados is not a place where you'll find many cocktail bars, unless you want to end up in a 5 stars hotel sipping a rum punch (which is very good by the way). Still, a small gem is hidden on the island: the Scarlet bar. You'll have to look for a totally scarlet wooden house on the …
Officially called "The bar with no name", but known as 69 Colebrooke Row, this bar is an absolute gem, and a good example of how fame should not change a place. In fact, despite being one of the most trendy and talked-about bars in London and having being nominated twice for the very prestigious ‘world’s …
A good bar should be about good drinks, a wise man once told me. This must also be the philosophy of Herr Fritz Müller-Scherz, owner of the Green Door bar in Schöneberg in Berlin, since the feeling you have when you enter his bar (after having to ring in front of a big green door, quite a …
This is probably the oddest bar I visited, and even if it does not stand out for its Martinis, it deserves a post. This is the story: in 1973 former professor Jim Turner, inspired by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books, created a bar in manila called Hobbit House. OK, what's the news? Well, the bar …
The Martini Hour 