August’s solar eclipse was best watched from an armchair on the terrace of Dry Martini in Sorrento. The eclipse comes around once every 30 years; the view does not. Vesuvius rises in the distance, beautiful and dormant, while the coastline below is animated by the movement of the sea. There is little doubt that this is one of the world’s great bars with a view, presided over by a veteran of the industry, Lucio D’Orsi.
Dry Martini Sorrento, Cocktails and Snacks with a View of Vesuvius
Then again, the Dry Martini name is hardly for everyone. This is no TGI Fridays-style chain. A chain, perhaps, but more of a gold one. Sorrento is only the fifth outpost of Javier de las Muelas’s legendary bar, following Barcelona — the original, opened with remarkable foresight in 1978 — Madrid, London and San Luis Potosí, inside the grand Hyatt Regency. Great cities on one side, majestic views on the other. Always the best, in short. The terrace and its armchairs have become part of Sorrento’s visual identity, and the bar has undoubtedly helped elevate the already impressive Majestic Palace Hotel. More importantly, it has achieved something still relatively rare in Italy: making people want to go to a hotel simply for a drink, as they once did.
The Menus at Dry Martini Sorrento
Beauty, of course, only gets you so far. There has to be substance, too. And here, the menus are every bit as celebrated as the view — and almost as expansive. The drinks list runs to nearly 200 cocktails; the formidable Martini section alone offers 100. But what interests us today is something else: why the food — the snacks, specifically — adds so much to the experience of that terrace.
At Dry Martini Sorrento, bar food is taken seriously. There are pizza bites, naturally, but also jamón croquettes, a nod to the Spanish heritage of the Dry Martini brand. Then there is the now-famous Lobster Roll, and a bao that bears a passing resemblance to pizza fritta. “Food has always played an important role here,” D’Orsi says. “With the Michelin-starred Don Geppi and the more elegant Magnolia, we needed something more informal — proper bar food. So we decided to serve bites only, dishes you can eat with your hands. Or almost.”
The Bar Snacks According to Lucio D’Orsi
In a place like Sorrento, where food and abundance are part of the local grammar, eating was always going to matter. But tastes have changed, increasingly favoring something lighter, easier and less ceremonious. So don’t call it a rooftop restaurant. This is very much a bar with snacks. A bar with mozzichi — bites. There are, inevitably, the usual welcome snacks, though at a hotel like this even they move into more exotic territory: dried mango, coconut and banana, alongside salted hazelnuts, peanuts and cashews. The real attraction, however, is what you order from the menu, a clever back-and-forth between Sorrento and Spain.
Alongside the Ibérico ham croquettes comes the Bikini, which here abandons its Catalan identity for a thoroughly Italian filling of prosciutto crudo, Campanian mozzarella and truffle. Then there is the Gilda, the classic pintxo skewer, made — needless to say — with Cantabrian anchovy. “It is all a game of references and combinations, and that is ultimately part of what defines a hotel bar, beyond the more obvious connection between Spain and Italy that belongs to us,” D’Orsi says. “And perhaps having a bite alongside a cocktail simply feels easier and more natural when you’re sitting in a bar rather than a restaurant.”
Dry Martini Sorrento and Don Geppi Pairings
For the classic Martini, however, D’Orsi crosses over into the Michelin-starred kitchen of Don Geppi. He pairs it with “cold spaghetti with an emulsion of shellfish cooking water, sea fennel, lemon and oyster leaf. The most classic Martini Cocktail alongside it: clean, with nothing but a lemon twist.” From Sorrento, naturally. So here’s to Dry Martini Sorrento, a bar that manages to revive some of the old romance of the grand hotel bar while doing so entirely against the prevailing current. Its menus are lavish, even baroque, whether they concern cocktails or the bites served alongside them. There are Gin & Tonics topped with droplets of other drinks, riffs on the Negroni and Martinis in seemingly every conceivable form.
The New Projects
And all that drinking deserves a companion on the plate: something contemporary yet exuberant, deeply local one moment and far- flung the next. Take the steamed bao, fried after cooking and filled with pulled pork, kimchi sauce and pickles. Serious stuff — gloriously so — and a welcome rebuke to the minimalism that has worn out its welcome. There is more change ahead. “We’ll soon begin a major renovation. After 60 years, we’re becoming part of Hilton’s Curio Collection,” D’Orsi says. Vesuvius, the bay, the sunset: one sip and one mozzico after another, in the manner of true gentlemen.
The article first appeared on Coqtail – for fine drinkers. Order your copy here
Images courtesy of Dry Martini Sorrento
