Harry’s Bar: reports of its death in Venice greatly exaggerated
It’s been a while since Ernest Hemingway last ordered two bottles of champagne at Harry’s Bar in Venice. But he has not been forgotten. The great man, then aged 50 and approaching the height of his fame, found that doubling up on bubbly helped get him through the day, at least until it was time for some serious drinking.
His least memorable novel, Over the River and Into the Trees, which opens in Venice, was completed at his table in Harry’s in the bitterly cold winter of 1949. It is easy to imagine him writing The End with a flourish before calling out for one or other of the establishment’s trademark cocktails, a sparkling Bellini or, more likely, given the gravitas of the occasion, a “Montgomery” dry Martini, served in a flat-bottomed glass, without a stem, best followed by another of the same.
It’s not quite like that at Harry’s these days. For a start, the place, which first opened its doors in 1931 and seventy years later was declared a national landmark, has been shut for the last three months. The word was that it might even be closing down for good as its owner, 88-year-old Arrigo Cipriani, despaired of the damage done by the coronavirus to the city of his birth.
Signor Cipriani had good cause to be concerned. Venice had enough problems on its hands when Covid-19 crossed continents, from China to Italy, in mid-February. The city, built around its Adriatic lagoon, had become a posh version of Blackpool on the August bank holiday weekend. Ships as big as factories sailed in each morning to within just metres of its centuries-old buildings. Passengers in their thousands would disembark, climb aboard buses and vaporetti, swarm into Saint Mark’s Square, invade the restaurants and hire gondaliers to transport them along the Grand Canal until it was time to return to their ships. Next stop, Valetta, then on to Barcelona. On and on it went, without relief, as the city crumbled around them. For Venetians, tourism had become a curse and an addiction. They couldn’t live with it, but they couldn’t live without it either.
And then there was Harry’s. The story goes that back in 1927 a young American student, Harry Pickering, from a wealthy family, found himself in Venice, which his parents thought might take his mind off the booze to which he was becoming too much accustomed. As could have been predicted, the reverse happened and Pickering became a habituee of a backstreet bar in which Giuseppe Cipriani – father of Arrigo – worked as a barman. The two became friends and when Harry was abruptly cut off by his family it was Giuseppe who loaned him 10,000 lire (roughly £6,500 in today’s money) to see him through his difficulties. Harry returned home, reclaimed his fortune and, two years later, returned to present his friend with no less than fifty-thousand lire, with the proviso that he use it to open a bar. Giuseppe did not disappoint.
Like Stella Artois in the 1980s, Harry’s is – or was – reassuringly expensive, meaning that the hoi polloi could look, and maybe, if they were flush that day, order a Bellini (peach juice and champagne) for €22, or a Coke for just €13. But it was not – not since Hemingway’s day at any rate – a place to settle in for the evening if you were worried about how to make next month’s mortgage bill.
No doubt this is why the likes of Charlie Chaplain, Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Aristotle Onassis, Frank Lloyd-Wright, Orson Welles and Truman Capote used to be thought of as regulars. Today, it is why George Clooney and Woody Allen like to call Harry’s their “local” when they’re in Venice – in Allen’s case not so much anymore, but then he is 84, and almost as grouchy as the owner. Movie stars could afford to buy the place, but Harry’s can’t buy them, it can only hope that they bring their friends next time and that they leave a large tip (a hundred dollars would be nice) when they finally say goodnight.
Look again at that list of names: all except Clooney and Allen are dead. Several were born when Queen Victoria was still Empress of India, before Mussolini set out on his March on Rome. If it wasn’t for the Venice Film Festival, which each September (including, possibly, this September) disgorges various A and B-list stars into its discreetly monogrammed interior, where they are welcomed by Signor Cipriani, Harry’s might not be famous at all.
The problem goes far beyond the vagaries of modern-day celebrity culture. The imperial city of the Doges, even before the current emergency, was fast being deleted from the Christmas card lists of the rich and famous. What was once strange and ethereally beautiful – the setting for Death in Venice and Don’t Look Now, the inspiration for Canaletto, Veronese, Monet, Voltaire and Byron – has been photographed, filmed and trodden upon so many millions of times that, like the Taj Mahal or St Peter’s in Rome, no mystery remains.
It is said that over the last three months Venice has in fact has recovered something of its old magic. The Piazza San Marco is empty; the canals are deserted; there are no floating hotels to churn up the lagoon; and the smell of diesel no longer overpowers the scent of the camellias. But the city in remission is still deeply infected with decay. As a World Heritage Site, it is crying out for the cure that only meticulously observed restrictions on the number and activities of tourists can provide. Urbi et orbi, the city and the world: unless the two come to an understanding, Venice, as we have known it, is doomed to slowly sink into the waters from which it sprang so many centuries ago.
Locked away in Calle Vallaresso, a narrow passage less in which social distancing is only possible longitudinally, Harry’s Bar is presently shuttered and lost to view. Arguably, it has been stuck in aspic for years. George Clooney prefers the clone version overlooking Lake Como. The last time Tom Cruise passed through was probably in 2008, when he took his then wife Nicole Kidman to dinner. In the security-conscious twenty-first century, it is unlikely to become a favourite watering hole for Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, still less Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Rather, it has become a faded icon where old hands, with equally old faces, still drop in from time to time to be gawped at by the shiperatti.
The bar itself is also a restaurant, serving classic Venetian dishes that are consistent and well-prepared, but unremarkable. Carpaccio is said to have been invented here, along with bellini. The setting is intimate. If you wander in alone (and can get a table), there is a good chance you will be seated next to or opposite another solitary diner. A “senators” table is set aside for well-connected locals, most obviously politicians, business leaders and city administrators. But ordinary city-dwellers are also to be found. Indeed, these days, regulars augmented by optimistic tourists, easily make up the majority.
By all accounts, Harry’s is still Harry’s, just without the glamour – rather like Cannes after the movie stars have made their way back to their private planes, en route to New York and Los Angeles. It might even be said to be in danger of becoming “authentic”. Just as important, it is apparently remaining open. Arrigo Cipriani – not a man known for his pessimism – was exaggerating when he announced its death knell to journalists last week.
In fact, Harry’s will draw back its shutters as soon as it can, providing employment for its 75 workers, several of them old enough to remember Hemingway, and reliable, if pricey, food and drink for the better class of Venetians and their pals. After that, who knows? Maybe George Clooney and his wife Amal will drop by to relive old times. Just don’t ask him to join you in a selfie.