Memories inspire new menu at Bar Les Ambassadeurs
The new cocktail menu at Bar Les Ambassadeurs in Paris hopes to conjure memories while helping guests create new ones. Bar director Kevin Rigault gave The Spirits Business the first look at the new menu.
A Sense of Memories is the new cocktail list at Bar Les Ambassadeurs, located at Hôtel de Crillon, a Rosewood Hotel in Paris, France. Set to launch in May, it builds on the bar’s previous menu A Sense of Taste.
Designed to deliver moments of nostalgia for guests, the new menu includes 15 signature cocktails. One example is Seaside, which blend Haku Vodka with aquavit, Manzanilla, capers and oyster leaves to serve a twist on the Dry Martini. Meanwhile, Flames aims to remind drinkers of barbecues in summer with its mix of Siete Misterios Mezcal infused with beef, padrón, and maple syrup – a creative take on the classic Old Fashioned cocktail.
Alternative offerings include Funfair (pictured above), designed to give a ‘whimsical experience’. The cocktail combines Zacapa 23 Rum with sweet vermouth, Calvados, peanut, sage, and candyfloss for a fizzy riff on a Palmetto.
“We are a hotel bar and there are a lot of perceptions and misconceptions about it,” bar director Rigault explained. “We wanted to make people feel at ease straight away from the beginning when they receive the menu, and make something very immersive. We have a very international crowd, so we tried to include everyone in [the menu], and to keep them all in mind. We have 15 memories; but memories for our French guests might not be the same as for our American guests, so trying to make sure we included everyone was important to us.”
From start to finish, the creation of the 15-strong menu took around four months. It was a team effort, Rigault stresses, with each member challenged to develop a memory-inspired tipple. The design process went back and forth among the team “until we managed to have 15 balanced drinks that, in my opinion, make great sense and transport people to old memories”, Rigault said.
Pushing creativity and the importance of imagery
While there were stressful elements in creating a complex drinks offering, Rigault noted the team found the overall process hugely rewarding and enjoyable. It was a chance for them to push their creativity to new limits and fully immerse themselves in the design process. It was, however, pushed back because the demand on the bar from last year’s Olympics in Paris created queues of eager drinkers for the bar.
“After the Olympics, we had massive groups of people coming every day,” Rigault recalled. “We were doing like 250-300 cocktails per night. We had a line of 40 minutes every day, even on Sunday and Monday. So that didn’t allow us much time to work on the new cocktails.”
The design process picked back up again in January this year, and will officially launch this week on 15 May.
Each cocktail is accompanied by photography that aims to add an extra dimension to each cocktail.
“We wanted to create an object that will be reminiscent of the past as well, through touch and through sight,” Rigault said. “It’s like a photo album. We wanted to create a sense of a photo album, like one you might go through with your family and that can transport you to the past and to good memories. Once again, we wanted to transport people but with a little bit of a vintage touch.”
Rigault is excited to share the new menu with drinkers in Paris – whose cocktail scene has been steadily growing over the years. He notes there is still room among the hotel bar segment in Paris for elevated drinks and experiences and is confident his team at Bar Les Ambassadeurs have what it takes to be a leader here. “It’s a very dynamic market, for sure,” he added.
Ultimately, the new menu is a chance to experience cocktails in a new light. Rigault said: “For us, we want the menu to remind you of all memories from the past, but hopefully we’ll be able to create new memories and good fun. That’s probably the only thing I really want people to take with them when they leave our bar.”
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