The restaurant is full of eastern European delights and, if you’re wondering what the hell that means, it describes them thus: “From the soups, pickled fish and dumplings of Poland and Russia, to the hearty and spiced stews of Hungary through to the aromatic grills and light braises of Georgia…” Yum.
V Bar
Royal Kowloon Hotel, Hong Kong
regalhotel.com
V Bar & Lounge describes itself as a “cozy rendezvous to relax and chill”. It serves a wide variety of vodkas as well as cocktails and snacks – with live entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights. Vodka is divided up by country of origin and you can choose from Swedish, French, Russian, Polish, British, Danish as well as vodka from the US, Finland, Ukraine, China, Australia, Germany and New Zealand. There are all manner of flavours to choose from, too, and some of those trendy American dessert flavours are on the list – whipped cream, anyone? Besides signature and fruity cocktails, there are shooters and classic cocktails. V Bar has all bases covered.
Davai
Largo La Foppa 5, Milan
This is Russian Standard’s fashionable vodka bar in Italy’s fashionable city – Milano. The interior design is reminiscent of a Russian Standard bottle and apparently Davai in Russian means “let’s go”. The bar prides itself on inviting guest bartenders from all over the world and, according to its Facebook page, the Artesian’s Alex Kratena is among them.
Brand ambassador Diego Travaglio says: “I believe it is one of the first mono-brand vodka bars in the world and it is the first Russian Standard vodka bar, which means we only use Russian Standard vodka for the drinks (no gin, no tequila, no rum etc, and no other brands of vodka). The uniqueness of our drinks is that, along with the ordinary cocktails we make special and unusual cocktails such as alcoholic toothpaste, carbonated cocktail with C02 and solid cocktails made by our professional mixology barman Arturo Pappalardo.” So there you go.
The Purple Bar at the Sanderson
50 Berners Street, London
morganshotelgroup.com
As you might’ve guessed from the name, this place (above) is purple. Purple curtains, purple chairs, purple billiard table… more purple than the Cadbury’s packaging factory.
It’s not ‘just’ a vodka bar but it offers its fair share – scores of them, actually, all lined up and waiting to be made into a Martini, for which this bar is known. The Wordless Martini sounds like a good one to start with: 42 Below Manuka Honey vodka, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino, lemon, fresh pineapple juice, grapefruit bitters (£13).
This bar hit the headlines in 2010 with what was then claimed to be London’s most expensive cocktail. It didn’t involve vodka but it did come with a diamond ring. The actual cocktail was made from Dom Perignon Oenotheque 1995 blended with fresh plums and red hibiscus nectar. And the price? £3,400. Gulp.
