Martini cocktails, martini bars and martini culture
The Soho Cigar, formerly known as Circa Tabac, is a resistance spot in NYC. Forget that guilt feeling that you prove every time you light a sigarette in the streets of the big apple, and also the uncomfortable feeling to have to go outside a bar ("Outside a bar? Never!" said someone once) to smoke a sigarette. …
Let's get it straight: the Bridge Café is the oldest surviving bar in New York City. Once it was a brothel, then a speakeasy, then a tavern, now it is a classy and very enjoyable restaurant and bar. The bar is located in a woody building erected in 1794 with a splendid view on the Brooklyn Bridge …
New York has many skybars, they say. They also say the good Martini drinker is normally lucky in his choice. Well, normally he is, not this time. Let's put it like this: the best thing you can do in the Rare Rooftop Bar is to go up, to have a glance at the view (that is impressing) and …
Do you feel lost in Budapest, like Chico Burque in his book, and only a martini can save your life? If so, the Boutiq'Bar is the place you are looking for. The bar is intimate but full of life and laughs, classy but modern, local but international, and most of is the place where …
Lisbon is full of bars for any mood and occasion, including some nice classic cocktail places. Still, finding a bar which mixes the classic old lisbon feeling with a good hipster athmosphere is not that easy. The Bicaense is one of these places, a cool lounge bar perfect for a quite drink before dinner …
The bar at the Hotel Cala del Porto is not precisely a Martini bar, but if you happen to pass by this wonderful corner of Tuscany, and you feel like having an expensive but perfect rest, this is the place. Not only you'll be able to sip your dring by looking at the wonderful marina of …
Continue reading "Bar@Hotel Cala del Porto, Punta Ala, Italy"
The legend says that Bono and The Edge enjoyed so much a night at this bar, located in the Clarence hotel in Dublin, that they decided to buy the whole Hotel. The question is: what was served to them that night? Probably Martinis. Apart from legends, the Octagon is one of the best cocktail bars …
Dublin is not the best place for cocktails, with its rivers of Guinness and Irish wisky, but still it is possible to find some good Martini spots. One is the Mint Bar at the Westin Hotel: once the caveau of a bank, the bar is a rather large and confortable lounge where middle and upperclass …
Back in 1952, the famous bartender Giuseppe Cipriani, creator of the Harry's Bar in Venice, convinced his friend Enrico Mariotti to use the name “Harry’s Bar” also for his new bar in Florence. Since then, the bar is the realm of Leo Valdorini, probably the only bartender who was honoured with the Key of the City …
Before entering the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, in New Orleans, I was convinced that - at the end of the day - good bars are good bars, but they all are quite similar, the rest are details. Then I sat at the bar, I ordered a Martini (sorry, a very good Martini) and …
The Martini Hour 