Hollywood; The Heart of Good Taste
I’m sitting in the pin spot-lit interior of the Library bar of Hollywood’s historic Roosevelt Hotel. With its dark walls, leather sofas and wood panelling, it has the feel of a gentleman’s club - with a heady spritz of Hollywood glamour and the merest promise of sin.
Opposite me sits a man of southern-European complexion and indeterminate age, eyes glowing with health and mischief. He leans forward. “Try this,” he says, with a conspiratorial smile – his eyes glinting in the dimly-lit bar. With a showman’s flourish, he hands me a strawberry.
The fruit is almost black in its ruby intensity. I put it in my mouth. The flavour flares on my taste buds then explodes, a deep sweetness accented with an alpine tartness – delicious and distinctly ‘heirloom’. I grin, caught off guard by the very… berry-ness of the fruit. The man smiles and shrugs. “That’s nothing. We’re early in the season. In a couple of months, those flavours get really intense.”
He is Matthew Biancaniello and I’m having a cocktail experience like no other. In the heart of old Hollywood, opposite Graumann’s Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame, Biancaniello is pursuing his unique approach to the culinary cocktail. Eschewing the mixes, the syrups, the coloured liqueurs and the predictability of the traditional cocktail bar, Biancaniello takes seasonal, local ingredients - fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables, pure and infused spirits - and distils them into both the ultimate taste experience and a distinct personal philosophy.
I am staying here a week on business, and when my working day is done, I’ve been taking a perch opposite Bianciello to enjoy a couple of his remarkably intricate cocktails and, in particular, his narrative as he creates them. It is a culinary commentary shot through with the intensity of the auteur and a good splash of missionary zeal. Appropriately from a man who was until just a few years ago a jobbing actor/director, it is less a quick drink before dinner and more a piece of cocktail theatre.
“These are all natural, totally fresh flavours that you could never reproduce,” he says, as he balances a sprig of wild purple-flowering oregano on the lip of my glass. “My favourite thing is when people say ‘I’ve never tasted anything like that before’. I love that, because I know I’m tapping into something unique.”
Indeed. His Last Tango In Modena - which includes Hendricks gin, balsamic vinegar and a St Germain saffron foam - is as surprising as it is sublimely delicious. And while I struggled to make out all the ingredients in Mother Mary, his famous 17-step Bloody Mary, it has a depth and complexity of flavour that demonstrates remarkable culinary skill.
With his half-Greek, half-Italian ancestry, Matt has a passion for flavour, food and conviviality. But a family history of alcohol abuse and his own issues with food in his youth have been channeled into an obsession with flavour and quality, and it is this passion that informs his work. “It’s about re-scripting and reshaping how people feel about alcohol and cocktails – I look at it in a much more culinary way.”
Matt gets his ingredients (and inspiration) from the farmers’ markets of Los Angeles and speaks of his discoveries with the wonder of a child. “One of the most beautiful things I’ve discovered this year was Finger Lime, indigenous to Australia. “It looks like a cornichon, but you break it open and it’s like… lime caviar!”
“I created an amuse-bouche, by injecting the lime with cachaca and sugar syrup,” he continues. “When you squeezed it into your mouth, you got an instant caipirinha - but with this totally unique caviar texture thing going on. It was amazing.”
He shows me fronds of frilly Delfino Cilantro (Coriander) which he had discovered only that week, and a Peruvian flowering mint with such an intensity of flavour, he created a cocktail to showcase it. “Just when I think I’ve found everything,” he says, “there’s always something new popping up!”
Despite the originality of his creations, Biancaniello makes no effort to keep his recipes secret. “We’ve all followed recipes and they’ve never tasted the same as when we first had them. A good cocktail is still all about the love that a person puts into it.” “Anyway,” he adds, “I don’t mind giving this stuff away. The more you give, the more you get.”
And so it is, with this reflection of his creativity, wrapped in a very West Coast notion of abundance that he smiles and turns to his next customer. “So… tell me. What flavours do you like?”
Library Bar, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028 thompsonhotels.com
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