A Gimlet looking at San Marco?
Venice is all the cities of the world
Sometimes it is sad and sometimes feverish, sometimes it is dirty and sometimes bright, like those afternoons when the sun caresses the water of the Grand Canal and touches your back; and they scratch and bite and fall in love and each flash is a cramp.
Sometimes from New York and sometimes from Castiza , sometimes secret and (so many) times lover. Venice is a museum, a café and a farewell letter (because each time is the last). Venice sinks. How not to return to Venice?
"- There's one left that you never talk about.
Marco Polo bowed his head.
- Venice, said the Khan.
The emperor did not blink.
"However, I have never heard you utter his name."
- To distinguish the qualities from the others, I must start from a first city that remains implicit. For me it is Venice.
- You should then begin each account of your travels with the departure, describing Venice as it is, all in its entirety, without omitting anything that you remember about it.
"The images of memory, once fixed by words, are erased," said Polo. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it."
Our guide to Venetian cocktail bars and bars
1) The bar of the Hotel Bauer (San Marco 1459) . In a nutshell: the best club in Veneto . A bar without concessions, where smoke is breathed and the parquet floor creaks, a bar without waitresses from the east or kids asking for a rum cola. A bar where the sofas are leather and there's no deejay, just an old loser behind a grand piano.
Behind the bar, Mauro de Martino governs, whose two passions (cinema and spirits) wonderfully litter every corner of the tavern . His inn was born in the 1930s and today belongs to Francesca Bortolotto Possati, a sort of Carmen Lomana who also owns the Colmello di Grotta winery, in the Collio region.
My recomendation: Merchant of Venice (€13) : Cocktail invented during the filming of Michael Radford's film of the same name in honor of Al Pacino, a twisted Shylock who had to get thin based on (vodka, dry martini, green apple and 7up), at the Hotel Bauer la selection of distillates is overwhelming and the light is always dim. The Paradise.
Hotel Bauer: the best bar in Veneto
two) Westin-Regina (San Marco 2159). What about the Westin? Four long centuries of history in front of the baroque church of Santa Maria della Salute and a stone's throw from the square of squares, the immense Piazza San Marco. The bartender, Giorgio Fadda, is president of the Italian bartenders association and the living example of what the old school was like: serious, distant, polite and proud.
In the room rules a piano that plays every day from seven and experimental cocktails (caviar spherifications) that coexist with the aristocracy of the drink.
My recomendation: gimlet (€15) Gin, lime and zucchero, a classic to enjoy, for example, on the terrace of La Cusina restaurant, watching time, tides and noise go by.
3) harry's bar (San Marco 1323) . The history. It is difficult to separate Harry's from the legend, from Hemingway and the Cipriani . Unfortunately, it has become a kind of Chicote, a museum without soul or scruples passing the brush. A gray and dead local, in a nutshell. The selection of brands is mediocre and the service stiff. And what a pity, when professionalism is confused with stretching.
My recomendation: Bellini (€17) Things as they are, Giuseppe Cipriani invented the Bellini (champagne, raspberries, peaches and sugar) and in his kitchen a dish was conceived in honor of Vittore Carpaccio, the quattrocento painter, a dish that you may know. Friends, the carpaccio was born in this tavern. A respect to Cipriani.
4)** Metropole ** (Riva Schiavoni 4149) . The decadence . Surrounding the basilica of San Marcos, facing the lagoon and the island of S. Giorgio, this 17th century building sinks, within whose walls Vivaldi composed The Four Seasons, a prodigy of excess, art, baroque and decadence. Visconti's Eden, if he raised his head. the met restaurant has a Michelin star and one letter with more than 1,500 references . Most French, fortunately.
My recomendation: Manhattan (€12) A Manhattan (whiskey, vermouth and Angostura) because why complicate ourselves, sitting in the interior garden where Proust (another famous guest) was drowning in himself.