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46-608: Bemelmans Bar is a cocktail lounge and piano bar in the Carlyle Hotel , on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City. The bar opened in the 1940s, serving wealthy Upper East Siders and numerous celebrities. Bemelmans has distinctive Art Deco decor, including murals of Madeline painted by Ludwig Bemelmans , author and illustrator of Madeline. It has been known for multiple drinks, though in recent years it

92-442: A "bow in the direction of France". A wet martini contains more vermouth; a 50-50 martini uses equal amounts of gin and vermouth. An upside-down or reverse martini has more vermouth than gin. A dirty martini contains a splash of olive brine or olive juice and is typically garnished with an olive. An extra dirty martini typically contains twice the amount of olive brine or juice. A direct martini or naked martini

138-541: A "standard" dry martini. The latest revision of this document, K100.1-1974, was published by American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the successor to ASA, though it is no longer an active standard. The exact origin of the martini is unclear. The name may derive from the Italian Martini brand of vermouth. Another popular theory suggests it evolved from a cocktail called the Martinez served sometime in

184-406: A drink, but are served in martini glasses . Some newer drinks include the word "martini" or the suffix "-tini" in the name (e.g., appletini , peach martini, chocolate martini, breakfast martini ). These are so named because they are served in a cocktail glass. Generally containing vodka, they have little in common with the martini. A porn star martini is a variation of a vodka martini. The vodka

230-404: A resurgence in the drink and numerous new versions. The traditional martini comes in a number of variations. A perfect martini uses equal amounts of sweet and dry vermouth. Luis Buñuel used the dry martini as part of his creative process, regularly using it to sustain "a reverie in a bar". He offers his own recipe, involving Angostura bitters , in his memoir. Some recipes advocate

276-523: A trend, what they dubbed "the Bemelmans effect", where bars are copying elements from Bemelmans, like its upscale, elegant, romantic, and transportive decor and atmosphere. Nines, a piano bar in Manhattan, surveyed popular, long-lasting gathering places, especially that increased in popularity in the "age of Instagram"; Bemelmans kept appearing, and thus the bar used elements from Bemelmans. The 2015 film A Very Murray Christmas by director Sofia Coppola

322-480: A twist of lemon peel. A dry martini is made with little to no vermouth. Ordering a martini "extra dry" will result in even less or no vermouth added. By the Roaring Twenties , it became a common drink order. Over the course of the 20th century, the amount of vermouth steadily dropped. During the 1930s the ratio was 3:1 (gin to vermouth), and during the 1940s the ratio was 4:1. During the latter part of

368-418: A variation of a martini. A vodka martini is made by combining vodka, dry vermouth and ice in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass. The ingredients are chilled, either by stirring or shaking, then strained and served " straight up " (without ice) in a chilled cocktail glass . The drink may be garnished with an olive , a "twist" (a strip of lemon peel squeezed or twisted), capers , or cocktail onions (with

414-432: A waiter or bartender holding a bill. As of 2000, this portion of the mural is a few feet to the right of guests facing the bar's cash register. The entire artwork gives a playful feel to the otherwise sophisticated bar, adorned with dark leather and wood. As of 2021, the most-requested drink at Bemelmans is a martini , almost always dirty, and often very dirty. The bartenders make an estimated 1,000 martinis per night there;

460-446: Is a regular attractor of people of fame, including socialites, film stars, politicians, and businessmen. Notable visitors to the bar have included John F. Kennedy , Judy Collins , Frank Sinatra , Britney Spears , Paul McCartney , Elizabeth Taylor , Harry Truman , Prince Harry and Meghan , Steve Martin , Matt Dillon , Tom Cruise , Robert De Niro , Heather Graham , and Kim Basinger . In 2022, celebrity Kylie Minogue visited

506-488: Is a regular martini, but prepared by storing the gin in a freezer and then pouring the gin directly into the serving glass with the vermouth instead of stirring it with ice first. This method allows the drink to be served very cold but without the dilution that the traditional stirring method adds. This style of martini is mainly associated with and popularized by Dukes Hotel Bar in London . A martini may also be served on

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552-447: Is based on his experiences as a piano bar player. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli also played in piano bars to pay for singing lessons. Martini (cocktail) The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth , and garnished with an olive and/or a lemon twist . Over the years, the martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. A common variation, the vodka martini , uses vodka instead of gin for

598-552: Is best known for its martinis , often served very dirty. The bar opened in 1947, and has been a place for celebrities and socialites to frequent since that time. In the early 2000s, the bar was renovated and its cocktail program was remade by bartender Audrey Saunders . In the 2020s, the bar temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic . Upon reopening, Bemelmans has seen a surge in popularity, especially with younger New Yorkers, eager for an authentic New York experience. The bar

644-423: Is designed in an Art Deco style with a gold-leaf ceiling and discreet lighting, including a small shaded lamp with an amber glow on each of its 21 glass-top tables. It is cozy, and has chocolate leather banquettes lining the wall, as well as a grand piano. It is typically packed with people and noisy. Bartenders have worn bright Ferrari-red suit jackets while working since possibly around 2000. The bar's atmosphere

690-587: Is his only artwork remaining on display to the public. Other murals were in the Hapsburg House restaurant in the city, a nightclub on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, and the playroom on Aristotle Onassis 's yacht. Instead of accepting payment for his work, Bemelmans received a year and a half of accommodations at the Carlyle for himself and his family. Bemelmans painted himself into one of the scenes, depicted as

736-527: Is managed by Dimitrios Michalopoulos, who began working at the hotel as an assistant manager around 2016. Head bartender Luis Serrano has worked at Bemelmans since 1989 ; 35 years ago  ( 1989 ) . He is the second-longest tenured bartender there, after Tommy Rowles, who worked there for 53 years. Other bartenders involved in managing Bemelmans have included notable mixologists Dale DeGroff and Audrey Saunders . DeGroff hired Saunders as bar manager around 2001. Saunders excelled at her job there, and

782-405: Is often written up as a unique experience. Foster Kamer, writing for New York magazine in 2020, said "The acoustics are perfect. When it's busy, the room hums as if it's the center of the world, and when it's quiet, as a veritable oasis of serene calm, it throws into sharp relief the relative chaos of the city outside. It doesn't sparkle; it glows — in rose gold, brass, and maroon hues." Bemelmans

828-522: The 20th century, 5:1 or 6:1 dry martinis became considered the norm. Drier variations can go to 8:1, 12:1, 15:1 (the "Montgomery", after British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery 's supposed penchant for attacking only when in possession of great numerical superiority). In 1966, the American Standards Association (ASA) released K100.1-1966, "Safety Code and Requirements for Dry Martinis", a tongue-in-cheek account of how to make

874-472: The United States (1920–1933) the relative ease of illegal gin manufacture led to the martini's rise as the locally predominant cocktail. With the repeal of Prohibition, and the ready availability of quality gin, the drink became progressively drier. In the 1970s and 1980s, the martini came to be seen as old-fashioned and was replaced by more intricate cocktails and wine spritzers , but the mid-1990s saw

920-478: The bar more, dressed casually, taking selfies of themselves in the space, and ordering a large volume of espresso martinis . The New York Times saw it as part of a trend that youth have for midcentury Manhattan, and their efforts to find and enjoy the "New York-iest New York experiences". While the management take care to enforce their dress code and party sizes, they welcome younger visitors as part of appealing to successive generations, keeping in business. The bar

966-482: The bar reopened at 50 percent capacity, though it became bustling with music and with a new drink menu (using a QR code) featuring guests, artists, and musicians who helped make the bar famous. It was the first time Bemelmans began a reservation-only policy, necessary to control demand for dining in the space. Contact tracers checked in guests, and each reservation had a 90-minute time limit. Bar seats were restricted from use. Masks were mandated when not at tables, though it

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1012-603: The bar to promote her wine collection, and sang several of her popular songs at the grand piano. She returned a few days later to demonstrate a new cocktail, the Pink Pearl, created by one of Bemelmans' bartenders, with occasional assistance from the bartender. The bar is considered an "icon" and "cultural touchstone" by Business Insider . In 2022, the Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine listed it among four other classic cocktail bars to visit in

1058-486: The bar) and made with Hudson Manhattan Rye, lime juice, rosemary ginger syrup, ginger beer, and egg white. The JFK Daiquiri, another served at Bemelmans, was inspired by the daiquiri, one of John F. Kennedy's favorite drinks. Drinks and food are expensive: cocktails averaged $ 23-25 in 2016. In 2013, Saunders-created drinks including the Gin-Gin Mule and Old Cuban remained as specialty features at Bemelmans. The bar

1104-413: The bar. Beside drawings of Madeline, New York magazine interprets the choice of setting as "nothing if not a great Freudian cocktail". Piano bar Theatre historian John Kenrick describes the piano bar as follows: A piano bar is a hybrid creature: part performance space, part living room, part cruise-a-thon, and part saloon. The bar is there to sell drinks, the pianist is there to perform, and

1150-668: The bar. The bar was reviewed and listed first among the best piano bars in New York City by Town and Country magazine, which stated that "no list of notable piano bars in New York would be complete without Bemelmans". Bemelmans Bar is known for its walls, decorated with a work titled Central Park : a pale yellow mural depicting Madeline , her eleven classmates, and their guardian in Central Park across four seasons. The painting has many vignettes with no central narrative;

1196-431: The circle of our common misery. There are several types of piano bars: The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs presents annually several awards, MAC Awards , for piano bar performers: Piano Bar Instrumentalist, Restaurant/Hotel Lounge Instrumentalist, Piano Bar/Restaurant Singing Entertainer – male and female. Jimmy Durante started as a piano bar player, as did Billy Joel . Joel's classic hit " Piano Man "

1242-435: The city. It referred to it as a "quintessential supper club", "just about everyone's favourite sophisticated uptown joint". According to Bon Appetit , the bar is so perfect that every guidebook directs visitors to Bemelmans. Regan Hofmann, writing for Punch in 2015, considered Bemelmans the city's "most iconic hotel bar", and one of New York's "most well-known hidden treasures". In 2022, Architectural Digest identified

1288-499: The cocktail program, and he had Audrey Saunders , his protégé, oversee a new drink menu with new flavors and homemade ginger beer. Around 2005, the bar dedicated several afternoons per week for children and their adult guests. The events, called The Madeline Experience, involved lunch, afternoon tea, shrimp arranged in two straight lines (like the schoolgirls in Madeline ) an Eiffel Tower sundae, piano music, and storytelling. In 2007,

1334-402: The cocktail's base spirit. By 1922 the martini reached its most recognizable form in which London dry gin and dry vermouth are combined at a ratio of 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, with the optional addition of orange or aromatic bitters , then strained into a chilled cocktail glass . Over time the generally expected garnish became the drinker's choice of a green olive or

1380-504: The crowd is there to sing, listen, drink and socialize. All of this means that it's impossible to predict what a given evening's chemistry will be, even if most of the people on hand are regular customers.... While every factor counts, the most important issue is the person at the piano. The pianist determines the type of music, the style of performance, and the general tone of the evening.... The experienced piano bar player knows how to take genial control of most any situation and generally keep

1426-697: The early 1860s at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, which people frequented before taking an evening ferry to the nearby town of Martinez, California . Alternatively, residents of Martinez say a bartender in their town created the drink, while another source indicates that the drink was named after the town. Indeed, a "Martinez Cocktail" was first described in Jerry Thomas's 1887 edition of his Bartender's Guide, How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks : Other bartending guides of

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1472-465: The elimination of vermouth altogether; the playwright Noël Coward is credited with the assertion that "a perfect Martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy." Similarly, the Churchill martini supposedly favored by Winston Churchill uses no vermouth, and is prepared with gin straight from the freezer and a "glance" at a bottle of vermouth, or

1518-613: The event was revived as the Madeline Tea Party at Bemelmans Bar, taking place on Saturdays and Sundays. The event was again held in 2019, on the 80th anniversary of Madeline ' s publication. On March 16, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic , indoor dining was completely restricted in New York state, forcing the bar's indefinite closure. During its time closed, the bar created a new cocktail menu with new drinks, began accepting reservations on Tock, and accepted modern social media by creating an Instagram account. In May 2021,

1564-524: The head bartender Luis Serrano estimated about 80 percent of customers order one on a weekend. The bar also became known for The Carlyle Punch, once its signature cocktail, though no longer on the menu. Martinis were not always the most popular drink; in prior decades it was Black Russians, scotch on the rocks, gin & tonics, and vodka-tonics; Manhattans also came close to the popularity of martinis there at one time. Recent drinks have included The Gillespie, named for Chris Gillespie (a long-time entertainer at

1610-414: The late 19th century contained recipes for numerous cocktails similar to the modern-day martini. For example, Harry Johnson 's Bartenders' Manual (1888) listed a recipe for a "Martini Cocktail" that consisted in part of half a wine glass of Old Tom gin and a half a wine glass of vermouth. The "Marguerite Cocktail", first described in 1904, could be considered an early form of the dry martini, because it

1656-420: The murals). In 1989, the hotel celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first Madeline book with a party at the bar. In 2001, the hotel changed ownership and the bar closed for renovations. Woodwork and leather were restored, nicotine was scraped from the walls, and a layer of 24-karat gold leaf was applied to the bar's ceilings. Amid the renovations, the hotel hired star bartender Dale DeGroff to reinvigorate

1702-427: The onion garnish specifically yielding a vodka Gibson ). A trend that started in the 1980s was to use the term "martini" to refer to other mostly-hard-liquor cocktails such as Manhattan , Cosmopolitan , whose commonality with the original drink is the cocktail glass in which they are served. There is some debate as to whether or not these are true martinis. In a similar vein, there are "dessert martinis" that are not

1748-479: The party going. The American minimalist composer Terry Riley , who worked as a cocktail pianist when younger, later offered this "religious" view of the profession: Having worked for years as a lounge lizard, I was smitten with the insight that the cocktail pianist is signaled out to conduct his ritual of group urban chanting on the themes of love and existence—a kind of medicine man at the ever-present altaric piano, surrounded by his boozy tribe sipping sacraments in

1794-569: The recipe as follows: Dry Martini Cocktail, à la Charlie Shaw, Los Angeles, Cal. Into a mixing glass place: Stir until thoroughly chilled and strain into a stem cocktail glass, squeeze a piece of lemon peel over the top and serve with an olive. The first dry martini is sometimes linked to the name of a bartender who concocted the drink at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City in 1911 or 1912. During Prohibition in

1840-425: The rocks—that is, with the ingredients poured over ice cubes and served in an old fashioned glass . A Gibson is a standard dry martini garnished with cocktail onions instead of olives. The Yale Cocktail is a 6:1 martini with equal parts vermouth and either crème de violette or Creme Yvette , which impart a blue color, and Angostura bitters. A vodka martini is a cocktail made with vodka and vermouth ,

1886-416: The vignettes are scattered throughout the room divided by painted trees and grass. The mural includes typical park scenes along with whimsical animals like a monkey-waiter serving two rabbit gentlemen, an ice-skating elephant, cigar-smoking bunnies, and rabbits building a snow bunny. The work was painted by Ludwig Bemelmans , author of Madeline, in 1947. Bemelmans is the namesake of the bar, and his mural there

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1932-426: Was a 2:1 mix of Plymouth dry gin and dry vermouth, with a dash of orange bitters. In his 1907 bartenders' guide The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them , San Francisco mixologist William Boothby provided possibly the earliest recipe for a "Dry Martini Cocktail" not only resembling a modern-day martini in the ingredients, but also under that name. Attributing it to one Charlie Shaw of Los Angeles, Boothby's book gave

1978-401: Was created and named for Ludwig Bemelmans in the 1940s, and opened in 1947. Bemelmans was the author and illustrator of Madeline , and was formerly a restaurateur and hotel employee. Robert Huyot, the hotel's general manager, was a friend of Bemelmans, and asked him to paint the bar's murals in exchange for 18 months' stay at the hotel for him and his family (the duration required to complete

2024-476: Was later approached to be an operating partner and the creative talent for the Pegu Club bar she became known for. In 2007, noted bartender Brian Van Flandern left Per Se to rework the bar program at Bemelmans. The bar has always been known for its music. For over 14 seasons, Jazz pianist and vocalist Barbara Carroll performed at Bemelmans. For about 25 years, composer and pianist Earl Rose has played at

2070-541: Was loosely enforced. Staff were required to wear masks. By late 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to wane, the bar became immensely popular, enough to require a security team. The bar's manager would previously tell guests to come back later if the venue was too busy, though lately these patrons would rather wait. While Bemelmans has typically been an "old-school" bar inviting in regulars, Upper East Siders with tailored clothes, young people (part of Gen Z ) began to visit

2116-535: Was set in the Carlyle and in Bemelmans Bar. The 2020 show High Fidellity aired, where Bemelmans was a significant plot point. Later in the year, the bar appeared in an episode of Love Life . The bar appears in the 2020 film On the Rocks , also directed by Coppola, where it also is used for the official movie poster . Scenes in the latest three productions involve older men taking younger women on dates to

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