Harry's Bar: The Life & Times of the Legendary Venice Landmark - Hardcover

Cipriani, Arrigo

3.52

112 ratings by Goodreads

9781559702591: Harry's Bar: The Life & Times of the Legendary Venice Landmark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559702591 ISBN 13: 9781559702591

Publisher: Arcade Publishing, 1996

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The anecdotal history of Harry's Bar in Venice, a meeting place for the rich and famous for sixty-five years, accompanies the autobiography of one of the founders of the bar, Arrigo Cipriani, from World War II through the present.

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Review:

For the weary traveler or isolated expat, there is nothing like finding that special bar or caf� that can make you feel welcome when you are far from home. While the desperate characters of Casablanca had Rick's Place, we have our favorites as well: Willi's Wine Bar in Paris, Jo's Bar in Prague, the Caf� Greco Antico in Rome, or Magaritsa in Sophia. Harry's Bar in Venice is such a spot--and one of the most famous at that. Just off the Palazzo San Marco, Harry's Bar has played host to such literary luminaries as Truman Capote and Ernest Hemingway, cinema heavyweights the likes of Orson Welles, and rich and powerful guests such as the Aga Khan. Harry's Bar is the biography of this institution. In this witty memoir, Arrigo Cipriani gives us the view from behind the bar, sharing anecdotes about the operation of the Venetian watering hole, disclosing secrets of mixacology, and passing on the old stories of his father, who cofounded Harry's in 1931.

From the Back Cover:

A meeting place for writers, artists, models, stars of stage, screen, and corporate boardrooms, a luxurious restaurant whose fabulous concoctions and timeless decor have often been imitated but never matched, Harry's Bar in Venice has remained one of the world's most renowned watering holes for more than sixty years. Here for the first time is the history of this most venerable of saloons, as entrenched a fixture of the Venetian landscape as the Doge's Palace, the Basilica, and the Piazza San Marco. Beginning with its founding in 1931 by a humble but enterprising Venetian barman named Giuseppe Cipriani and a wealthy American named Harry Pickering, we follow Giuseppe and his son Arrigo through World War II, when Harry's Bar was requisitioned by the fascists and turned into a mess hall for Mussolini's navy, while the real festive meals were served at the Cipriani house; the raucous liberation in 1945, when Allied Army officers took up virtual residence at the bar and tossed Giuseppe around the dining room like a rugby ball; and up through the postwar years, when Harry's Bar became a virtual club for the world's glitterati. Here too are the stories behind the Ciprianis' great inventions, from the "carpaccio" appetizer, which has become a generic term for thinly sliced raw meat or raw fish with a white sauce, to the bellini, the now famous pink cocktail made of pureed white peaches and Italian champagne. The author also treats us to the adventures and misadventures of Harry's New York nephews, Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue, the only restaurant that was ever stolen from its director between lunch and dinner, and the Bellini in the old Taft Hotel.

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