London’s Vesper Bar at The Dorchester hotel has launched a new menu, Essentia, featuring cocktails based around smells from its bar team’s memories.
The Vesper Bar at London’s Dorchester hotel has unveiled a new cocktail menu, Essentia. Located in Mayfair, the bar opened last year in the almost century-old hotel.
Vesper Bar manager Lucia Montanelli and head bartender Denise Elisei developed the new menu, which focuses on the connection between scent and memories, and mixes them with personal experiences from each team member.
Eleven cocktails in total are included on the new menu, which is based on the Olfactory Pyramid, a concept that visualises a fragrance through three levels: head (top notes), heart (middle notes) and base (end notes). Building on this principle, the team have crafted unique cocktails, evoking a memory through the smells. Each cocktail looks to evoke a memory through the smells.
Scents depicted through the Vesper Bar Essentia cocktail menu include mushroom foraging in the forest, salty sea air from summers on a boat, picking summer berries, childhood birthday cakes, thunderstorms, and leather-bound books.
Highlights from the cocktail list include:
- Sunkissed Summers: a boat trip to Capri in the heat of Italian summer – Seatrus gin, rhubarb ‘sea water’, aloe vera
- Morning Sunshine: The beginning of spring, just as the days become longer, when the warm morning sunshine casts a vibrant prism of light reflecting off the table into a splendid rainbow all over the room – Enemigo Blanco tequila, Genever, lychee, kiwi, magnolia
- Thunderstorm: Rainy days bringing the promise of new beginnings. Patchouli dances across damp grass and the wet, heavy earth – Altamura vodka, oregano mezcal, passionfruit, Greek punch, patchouli
- Turning Pages: Hidden away in the corner of an antique library, a treasured leather-bound book was found. Open the pages to release a musty, sweet scent, tinged with vintage wine and earthy vanilla – Jack Daniels single barrel whiskey, cognac, white port, paper syrup, smoke
Four of the drinks can also be ordered as non-alcoholic cocktails: Birthday Wish, Timber, Morning Sunshine, and Forbidden Berries.
The new menu is currently available alongside the bar’s signature Vesper Martini. Shaken not stirred and made from gin, vodka, a touch of sherry and a spritz of lemon, the cocktail is served in a delicately styled glass featuring the same scallop shell design motif as the bar itself.
Last year, as part of the hotel’s renovations, Swedish architect Martin Brudnizki redesigned Vesper Bar taking inspiration from “the spirit and elegance of the roaring thirties,” according to a press release. Earlier this month Vesper Bar was nominated for Best New International Cocktail Bar – Europe at the 2024 Spirited Awards.
For more information or to make a reservation, head over to the official website.