In these cocktail bars is where THE MAGIC happens
“If you ask me if I have ever had the misfortune to miss my daily cocktail , I would tell you that I doubt it; when it comes to important things I like to plan ahead.”
Luis Buñuel had it clear and so did I : life is better in front of a cocktail; Director of The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie also understood the bar as "a place of meditation and recollection without which life is inconceivable" , but cocktail bars have changed a lot since their usual visits (in the fifties) to the ** Oak Bar at the Plaza Hotel in New York **. Especially one: the kitchen.
We live in turbulent times on the gastronomy planet: trends are shortened and the supposed 'revolutions' are piled up in the drawer of the forgettable... they wouldn't be that bad either.
But there are two realities that we cannot deny. The first: the importance of the room ("We already have an important need for gastronomy to turn to the room"), the second: the fusion of mixology and gastronomy . Cocktail bars where you can eat (well) and the integration of the cocktail bar as one more leg of the total gastronomic experience, Why do you always dine with wine and not with two pisco or a Manhattan?
We have already seen how cocktails left behind the terrain of a bar counter (“ from the only bar we saw open ”) to take over the tables of the big restaurants, but we almost like this latest twist: not only restaurants with cocktails, but also cocktail bars with menus and gastronomic proposals. And three have fallen in love. Barcelona, Paris and Madrid.
THE ALCHEMIX IN BARCELONA
The chef's cocktail bar (and restaurant) has been open for less than a month o Sergi Palacín and the barman Nacho Ussia in the heart of Eixample and two steps away from another fusion giant: Gastón Acurio and his Yakumanka.
The Achemix is a bar with a menu of Asian dishes and a restaurant with a cocktail menu : the Paradise. Nacho and Sergi have it clear; come with fresh ideas from Gaggan, best restaurant in Asia for the third consecutive year and number seven in the world in The World's 50 Best Restaurants.
Well, his good work with cocktails and cuisine reminiscent of Gaggan Anand we can enjoy it right now at calle València 212. I prefer his version of the Old Fashioned with sweet pepper and the satay chicken yakitori Good combo.
CANDELARIA IN PARIS
In Le Marais and in front of the most beautiful café in Paris, Candelaria is a speak easy true but unexpected: hides behind a taqueria that is not a trompe l'oeil —It's an honest taqueria that makes one of the best Mexican cuisines in the city of light. There is nothing.
"A true hidden gem", says the magazine World's Best Bars and nineteenth best cocktail bar in the world according to 50Bestbars; I loved his freeze margarita and his Peruvian pisco but especially his gastronomic story: a cocktail bar is a place where things happen, a vibrant and electric space, without a trace of stiffness. He has a party. It has swakh.
ANGELITA IN MADRID
“The rooster tail. The inspiration that comes from absinthe, from the twenties, from art and expression. The mix Angelita , which begins with wine, continues with gastronomy and ends with cocktails…. although we are also palindrome”.
David and Mario Villalon have hit the hedonistic target: because pleasure (of course it does) does not understand common places but it does understand amazement and miscegenation: Angelita is a non-stop of natural wines, seasonal cuisine and unforgettable cocktails like her version of Bloody Mary or an Aristotelian Whiskey Sour.
Best cocktail bar of the year in the last edition of the FIBAR , Mario acts as canonical bartender accompanied behind the bar by Borja Goicoetxea; how we like great bars.
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