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Harry’s Bar: Hemingway’s Favourite Watering Hole
A ‘History’ of the Venetian Bar
Anyone who has been to Italy will know immediately why Hemingway loved the country — it’s the people, of course, and the beautiful countryside, naturally, and the eternal cities, especially Rome and Florence, and Venice, but above all else it’s the hotels, and the bars, especially the bars. And Hemingway loved hotels, and hotel bars, but best of all he loved small out-of-the-way bars, which is why he loved Harry’s Bar in Venice. And if you’ve been there you’ll know why Hemingway loved it so much, because it’s like his writing: plain, well-scrubbed, and wonderfully sophisticated.
Harry’s Bar came into being on May 13, 1931, and that wouldn’t have happened without the help of a quiet young American by the name of Harry Pickering.
This quiet young man was apparently suffering from the early signs of alcoholism, which concerned his family greatly, who, in their wisdom, packed him off on a world tour with an elderly aunt (and her snuffling Pekingese) who kept the young man very quiet indeed with her endless stories of gay old times in New York, and San Francisco, and London, and Paris, and Rome, and the countless hotel bars she used to drink in, which is no way of helping a young man off the booze.
Harry and his aunt, and the Pekingese, were staying in the Europa Hotel in Venice, which was a very pleasant hotel, with a very pleasant bar that, in the summer of 1928, had a barman by the name of Giuseppe Cipriani who, during the winter of 1927, had been working in the bar of the Bellevue Hotel in San Remo where a customer had persuaded him to lend him all of his savings for a shore-fired bet. Naturally enough the customer vanished overnight: Giuseppe returned to Venice wiser and very much poorer. But he was good at his job, and the young man and his aunt were pleasant people who spent and tipped well. He’d soon get his savings back.
Giuseppe also spoke good English…
“Madame, sir, what can I get you today?”
“The usual, Giuseppe, and make ’em good and strong,” came the aunt’s reply.
“And for the dog, madame?”
“Hell, the same, but take it easy on the 7UP.”
