On a scale from one to wild, the contemporary cocktail garnish is hard to place. At present, your drink—regardless of what, exactly, you’ve ordered—seems just as likely to arrive topped with a tidy curl of orange peel as, say, a proper octopus tentacle, or perhaps an entire quail.
Therein lies the problem of the garnish: Nontraditional innovation is certainly a positive, but when does innovation cross the absurdity threshold? How much caviar do we really need on any given table? And what, exactly, is additive—as opposed to merely gimmicky?
FEATURED IMAGE (TOP)
The brininess of the anchovy, olives, and guindilla peppers atop the Pintxotini at Ernesto’s works in contrast with the high acidity of the gin drink cocktail it adorns.
“People drink with their eyes first, so visual appeal is crucial. Garnishes help set the mood and tie the whole experience together before the first sip,” says Gabe Orta, co-founder of Bar Lab Hospitality—the parent company behind LilliStar at Williamsburg’s Moxy Hotel. “We strike a balance between visually striking garnishes that people love to photograph and ones that are flavorful, and fun.”
There, you’ll find a cocktail called the “Hot Doggin It,” made with tequila, vermouth, tomato water, and mustard seed agave … served in a classic foil hot dog wrapper, with a mini meat stick on top.
According to Orta, the team “gets fun” with garnishes— meaning everything from the aforementioned weenie to “glitter, dessert foams, and funky salts.” And while one could scoff at the twee-ness of it all, a Google search for “Hot Doggin It cocktail” yields countless results promoting LilliStar. The media-cum-influencer junction is clearly not immune to the absurdity factor, hence the power of the garnish. People care. The wheels of promotion turn of their own accord.
At Ernesto’s—a chic Basque restaurant located on Manhattan’s Lower East Side— the Pintxotini is a longstanding mainstay of the menu: A classic gin Martini with Spanish fino-based vermouth, topped with a proper pintxo (a skewered lineup of rolled anchovies, olives, and guindilla peppers marinated in sherry vinegar and olive oil, known as a Gilda). It’s a nod to Basque snacking culture but—more importantly—the salty, briny lacquer of the garnish married with the high-acid balance of the cocktail works.
“If you dunk the Gilda in your drink for a second, then lay it on top, it works perfectly because the Martini, itself, is not dirty,” says the drink’s creator, Sarah Morrissey, who helmed the bar at Ernesto’s before taking over as bar manager at much-lauded uptown French revival spot Le Veau D’or. “I was so proud of that drink.”
To be transparent: I’ve photographed Ernesto’s Pintxotini each time (many) I’ve ordered it—if only because there are few things sexier to me than the unholy potency of gin and anchovy joining forces. But perhaps this is where we solve the problem of the garnish: at the nexus of documentation-worthy invention and proper sensory acclaim.
“If TikTok were a thing at the time, [the Pintxotini] would’ve been on lots of food influencer pages—but in this case, I don’t think that undercuts the quality of the drink. It’s just a bonus,” says Morrissey. “It has to be good, memorable, something people will come back for 20 more times.”
Of course, nothing exists in a vacuum: At The Snail, an American bistro in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, you’ll find a different variation on a Gilda Martini—this one including skewered olives, anchovies, piparra peppers, and the aforementioned octopus tentacle.
At the heart of the phenomenon—at least in the best-case scenarios—is a ploy for longevity. The pace at which venues open and close in New York is near comical. Your options for dinner rank in the thousands—all of them offering a host of contemporary cocktails, miles-long wine lists, truly inventive non-alc options, 600 variations on the Espresso Martini, probably. But which of them will you truly remember? Which will you go back for?
“As far as I’m concerned, any garnish should change the experience of the drink … and hopefully elicit joy,” says Shaina Loew-Banayan of Hudson’s Café Mutton, where guests can indulge in Bloody Marys topped with a rotating selection of just about anything that strikes the fancy of the staff that week (octopus, whole quail, full-blown sandwiches). “The thing is: People are bored and sad. We’re all experiencing a deep and irrevocable loss of hope in humanity. We lack morals. We lack elegance. We’re taping bananas to the wall as art. And if this unpalatable world is going to hell in a handbasket, I’d rather it come topped with some mozzarella sticks and some gold leaf, you know?”
