Add this to your ever-growing Italian bucket list: Visit Harry’s Bar and experience the Bellini where it was born.
The pink drink’s name was inspired by the fabric of a woman in a 16th-century painting by Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini. The founder of the bar, Giuseppe Cipriani, was inspired by the color.
The Bellini is a wine cocktail of a very nectary flavor with a subtle alcoholic kick to the throat on each swallow. It’s made with 4 ounces of Prosecco, 2 ounces of fresh peach purée and white peaches. The menu at Harry’s lists the cocktail for € 21.
Located on Calle Vallaresso by Piazza San Marco in Venice, the bar propels its customers back to the 1930s. The cool-toned interior features a wooden bar and the brown furniture creates a relaxing atmosphere.
Waiters and bartenders wear white tuxedos usually paired with a black bowtie.
With four dollar signs on tripadvisor, the restaurant’s menu certainly encourages customers to treat themselves.
“I had dinner at Harry’s bar 25 years ago and loved the experience,” Klaus G. wrote in April on tripadvisor. He was traveling from Denmark. “I wanted to try it again. In the end, the prices are astronomical, and while the food is very good, it doesn’t warrant the expense. I still thought it was wonderful. Old time charm, tradition, impeccable service and a mixed and highly entertaining crowd. Go for the experience!”
At the bar, a waiter pours the pink liquid into a handful of cups and sends them off in different directions, just as it has been done for 80 years.
Cipriani opened the bar in 1931 and found great success almost immediately. The bar found itself in the company of many knowledgeable names such as film noir actor Humphrey Bogart, silent film actor Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, George Clooney and Orsen Wells.
Among the company Harry’s bar had, Ernest Hemingway had been one name responsible for its popularity.
He had a permanently reserved table in a corner. Hemingway went on to include the bar in his 1950 novel “Across the River and into the Trees” as well his short story “In Harry’s Bar in Venice.”
But who was Harry?
Harry Pickering, of a rich American family in the 1920s, was sent to Venice by his family to work on his “enthusiasm” for drinking. He and his aunt still spent time drinking at the Hotel Europa bar, which was in the management of 29-year-old Giuseppe Cipriani at the time.
Eventually, Pickering and his aunt parted ways and he found himself alone and broke. To which Cipriani asked about one day when Pickering was distraught in the bar alone and unable to pay his bill.
Cipriani leant Pickering $10,000 to pay his bills and go back to Boston where he was from. Despite this generosity, he was still very wary of lending money to customers with the fear of them never paying him back.
And he didn’t for two years until Pickering showed up to the Hotel Europa one day. He handed Cipriani his money back and said, “Here you are – thanks for the money.”
Then he handed over another $30,000. To this, he said, “And now you can open a bar of your own.” This bar was named Harry’s and was opened on 13 May 1931.
The spirit of Cipriani’s vision is very much alive when you take one step into the restaurant, and the experience is well worth the time and pretty penny spent there.