The Bar Journal

Over the past 18 years,  the Hemingway Bar of the Ritz Paris the city’s pre-eminent watering hole. The head bartender, Mr. Field is a host with a knack for sparking conversation between his guests and approaches drink-making with the detailed eye of a tailor, often sizing up a customer’s personality and mood to create a made-to-measure cocktail. Considered by many to be one of Paris’s best bartenders, he will soon become the town’s most sought-after one as the Ritz prepares to shut down for a two-year renovation on April 16.

Other chic hotels  dream of hiring him. Mr. Field in the meantime, he is working toward setting up his own company and possibly making bottled cocktails for airlines and hotel minibars.

Paris is traditionally more of a wine and Champagne capital than a hub of mixed-drink innovation. Patrons at the city’s cafes sip wine and munch peanuts, seated in rickety chairs facing the street. The Hemingway Bar, by contrast, is a much more intimate scene. It only has room for 34 people and is adorned with the writer’s rifle and other memorabilia. But despite being unlike other Parisian bars, it has been the center of the city’s cocktail culture since it reopened in 1994 after a near decadelong hiatus, thanks to Mr. Field’s original drinks.

The closing of the Hemingway Bar comes, unfortunately, at a time when Paris is starting to embrace the cocktail more fully..

A Bientot …. Hemingway Bar

SALUTE !