Another of my happy places, Bar Italia. A large Fernet Branca in front of me and nothing other than the cold English summer outside to break the spirit of being in Italy.
Anthony Bourdain loved this place. I was in Paris when I first saw The Layover of him sat on the terrace with celebrated nose-to-tail chef Fergus Henderson, enjoying a Fernet Branca to the Soho backdrop—little looks to have changed since his visit, other than the prices rising with everything else in the city.
“Steadying.”
Bourdain’s response to a shot of Fernet Branca in the morning.
I don’t overdo it here, instead saving Bar Italia for when I need a pick me up or miss life on the continent. I’m also on the floor myself for most of the week, waiting on others.
Mid-afternoon on another overcast day in June; Bar Italia is doing what it does best, transporting you back fifty years to a more analogue age—Dean Martin crooning out That’s Amore amid the chatter of the surrounding tables. The tiled floors are chipped and battered from the waiters’ hard-soled footsteps going back and forth.
‘Macchiato, per favore,’ one shouts and the barista gets to work.
The Fernet B is already doing it’s thing. I’m dreaming up a trip to Italia—picturing that scene of Michael Cain (a.k.a Alfred) in The Dark Knight Rises when he fantasises about a more peaceful (less painful) life for Bruce Wayne. Alfred sips on his own Fernet Branca in the Florentine summer with a paper when he spots Wayne across the tables enjoying the good life with ‘a wife, and maybe a couple of kids.’ Far away from Gotham.
‘Buongiorno,’ the barista greets a couple at the bar.
My glass is empty. It’s time to leave. I’ll pack up my things, thank the waiters on the way out, cross the threshold onto Frith Street and leave Italy behind me.
AMARO
The Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueur
Like so many subjects, amaro (plural : amari) can quickly overwhelm the curious new adventurer, like discovering there are far more grape varieties than wine bottles you could ever drink in a lifetime.
Fernet Branca is perhaps one of the best known amaro, Italian for ‘bitter,’ from its humble beginnings in Milan in 1845, first marketed as helping to reduce anxiety and aid digestion. It is also one of the darkest and, frankly, most bitter amari out there and can be overly confrontational to a fernet first-timer. Stick with it, the complex nuances in flavour generated by the secret blend of 27 herbs, roots and spices will do something to the tongue and taste buds that calls for another sip, then another, then one more…
I’m in no way qualified to help map-out the complicated world of potions that come bottled in these closely guarded propriety blends of varying sweetness, bitterness and colours. Like the dinky fun of tiny, paper-wrapped Underberg bottles—the German bitter that, if it wasn’t for being established in 1846, you would think was created with Instagram and #foodporn at the forefront of the company’s marketing strategy.
For those wanting to go further on this journey, I recommend Amaro by Brad Thomas Parsons. It provides historical context, some of the better and lesser known brands are introduced, along with cocktail recipes incorporating amaro. Fun facts too; like how Fernet Branca is loved by Argentinians—the national cocktail, Fernet con cola, has helped cement the beverage into the culture and, as a result, the country’s ‘current market share is 80 percent compared with 15 percent in Italy.’
Amaro is each to the beholder; some take theirs with ice, others with a wedge of orange, while some might call for the bottle to be removed straight from the freezer and poured into, preferably, frozen shot glasses, like Vecchio Amaro Del Capo—an infusion of 29 ingredients from Calabria in southern Italy. Wonderful for long summer nights with, perhaps, Dean Martin singing That’s Amore somewhere off in the distance.
