It was just a short flight down to the north of Africa, but I have never much liked airports, so I turned to my usual routine and took out my iPod, the one still loaded with audiobooks, and put on Kitchen Confidential.
I remember the first time I listened to it. @jrd.norton recommended it to me when I first started working in bars and restaurants. Back when we thought we might open something of our own, painting walls, figuring things out as we went, letting Bourdain narrate the parts we did not yet understand.
I return to it every so often.
There is a memory he describes of eating his first oyster on the coast of southwest France. The glory of this silt encrusted creature that would let him know that food is good.
There are so many of these unphotographed moments in Morocco that I will keep thinking about.
Mornings with Muhammad. Cracked eggs over colorful tile, coffee, and sweet potato confiture. Green harissa I did not even know existed.
Afternoons over seafood tagine and paella by the water in Tanger and Asilah.
And the nights over kefta in the middle of the street, a table set between passing cars and stray cats, smoke rising, people moving around us.
I will remember how the scent of her cigarettes changed.
From the robust Philip Morris to the softer menthol Gauloises. The boxes brighter, almost playful. Nothing hidden. Nothing warned against.
Walking without a destination. Making small choices together, or sometimes not making them at all. Not much to say, but with the call to prayer moving through the air, stretching everything just slightly.
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself walking across the city with a colleague, carrying a plastic crate of plastic bottles that needed to be carbonated. Harry’s has many things, but a carbonation system is not one of them, so we were making use of the kindness of others. Abstract Bistro had offered to help, as people in the bar world so often do when some oddly specific little crisis arises.
As we walked, we got to talking about how we ended up in the places we are.
I told him how I had come from New York for a girl.
He smiled. “As one does.”
He asked if I was still with her.
No, I said.
Then he asked if I’d found another.
Yes.
Again, a smile. “As one does.”
We kept walking.
You see, today marks one year since I technically worked my last service at Harry’s.
At the time, I think I imagined Paris as something slipping into the rearview, a chapter I had already lived.
But you can uproot yourself for something, or someone you love, lose it, find some version of it again...
and somewhere in the middle of it all, you are hauling prebatched cocktails through Paris with a wise Turkish bar owner from Oslo, discussing the quiet absurdity of it all.
You let go of “the plan.”
You accept that the best parts of life are often the least imaginable in advance.
You keep walking.
As one does.
📸: @thekevinalexander_
Five photos for Schofield’s fifth birthday.
A proper evening behind a beautiful bar, in a city I had been meaning to see for years.
Manchester had been on the list for a while. It was one of those trips that was supposed to happen during the COVID years and never quite did. So it felt especially nice to finally make it over. Even better that the occasion was the 5th birthday of Schofield’s. A bar that we at Harry's have admired for a long time and one that clearly cares about the same things we do. Classic cocktails, hospitality, and a room that feels alive.
We were invited to come up and bring a little bit of Harry’s with us for the night. That meant pouring some of the classics, but also having a bit of fun with it. Extremely dirty martinis with @yuri.h.choi 's blue cheese tincture. And of course continuing my personal mission to test the patience of French bartenders everywhere with my Chocolatine.
Oh yeah, and the beautiful abomination that is Charfast... (50/50 Green Chartreuse and Buckfast wine)
Until next time… true believers!
Mid-winter moments:
1) A session with Mr. Preston... 6 years overdue
2) Dusk on the Liffey
3) The Kid Ă la Abu Dhabi
4) Schumann's
5) Mama's Boy
6) Valentine's Day in Paris
7) Caricature by Massimiliano
8) Jardin des Plantes
At this point in my bartending career, things have gone pretty far. I’ve made drinks for people on five continents. Served counts and vicomtesses. And I have been blessed to witness so much creativity globally.
In Abu Dhabi, I met a beautiful, kind South African man who punctuated every moment with the same phrase. “Happy days,” he’d say, no matter the hour, no matter the task.
In the mornings, I would run along the coastline and straight into the Persian Gulf. I swam out toward the buoys in the distance and let the luxury dissolve behind me. And I thought, absurdly but clearly, that if I just kept swimming straight, I’d eventually reach Iran.
Another country where protest has meant beatings, detention, silence. Another country cut off by sanctions, by politics, by bombs made in my language, stamped with my passport.
Back home, I think of ICE raids. Of who gets to stay and who gets pulled out of their lives mid-sentence.
I think of the generous people I’ve met from everywhere labor is exported and movement is monitored, questioned, revoked.
And there I was, floating. Treading water long enough to catch my breath. With the option to drift easily back to shore.
The phrase came back to me, uninvited.
Happy days.
PoitĂn in Paris
Four years ago, Nico, Olivier, and I were blown away by what Dean, Dave, and Brendan were doing behind the bar on the corner of Little & Green. That first visit turned into a friendship with the whole team that's grown generously over the years.
So welcoming the boys to Paris and behind our bar felt like a real gift. And what a Monday it was. The room filled with love, pride, and Irish voices.
Sometimes the work reminds you why you started.
This night did that for me.
Very grateful this got to happen. 🇮🇪❤️
📸: @taken_by_tom
The Bloody Mary
The origin stories of cocktails have always been a kind of joyful labyrinth, especially at Harry’s Bar. You can trace a line back to Jerry Thomas. And many of the so-called classics have passed across this mahogany counter in one form or another before being refined, reinterpreted, and celebrated elsewhere.
The Bloody Mary has long been a topic of spirited debate.
The St. Regis.
5 rue Daunou.
Two addresses, one drink, decades of lore.
Which is what made this moment feel special. Joining forces for the first time to celebrate the man at the center of it all, Fernand Petiot, and the way cocktails are actually born. Not in isolation, but through movement, migration, and conversation.
A huge thank you to Don and the entire team at the St. Regis for the invitation and the hospitality that makes you feel both welcome and genuinely at ease. And thank you to Peter at Diageo for encouraging collaborations rooted in bringing people together across borders, always with a positive outlook and a sense of play.
History is not fixed. It is shared.
And sometimes, it is best enjoyed with a hot dog.
📸: @samfotoart
📸: @taken_by_tom
Patrick Dooley shares the history of The Boulevardier as well as his experience of re-publishing the magazine that gave its name to the cocktail. Dooley took on this project, dormant for almost 100 years, and shares a lost Hemingway article among other forgotten pieces and culture from the late 1920s and 30s.
Full interview - Link in bio
@boulevardiermagazine@mrpatrickdooley@harrysbar_theoriginal
#paris #harrysbar #cocktails #discoverparis #mimosaaparis
