Where to drink Itay’s chic cocktail, the Bellini

Imbued with white peach purée, this glamorous cocktail has become one of Italy’s most beloved, and as Becca Hensley discovers, it’s summertime in a flute

Aconfession. The first time I tried to go into Harry’s Bar in Venice for a Bellini, I was travelling Europe by backpack with my college boyfriend. Stunningly, we were denied entrance to the posh venue, even though it was midday. It wasn’t my fault. I was wearing a cheeky sundress and platform sandals. But my love, donning one of the few outfits he’d managed to stuff into his utilitarian rucksack, was doing the unthinkable. He was sporting shorts. Back in the day, people dropping into Harry’s Bar, (poised on St. Mark’s waterfront,) for their famous Bellinis (and a bite of beef carpaccio or spaghetti alio olio) needed to dress to impress. Today, the standards have loosened – just a bit. You can still get stopped at the door if you don’t look quite right. After all, this renowned haunt, home to the first Bellini, doesn’t need your business. It boasts a long history of high-rolling tipplers, many with a literary bent – think Sinclair Lewis, Orson Welles, and Ernest Hemingway. Today, serving up libations to celebrities in town for the Venice Film Festival or the Biennale, the bar still has its standards. Full of tourists in the know, the restaurant has the cachet of an icon, having survived the Second World War and a fascist regime, it is now a brand with outposts around the world. But, men, if you go, don’t hesitate to pull on a pair of linen slacks – lest you find yourself, as my boyfriend did, abandoned by your girlfriend to the pigeons of Piazza San Marco. Your significant other will probably do as I did and swill a Bellini or two alone, surrounded by a flock of attentive, white- coated waiters. I can’t say I even noticed that was alone. For nobody really f eels alone at Harry’s Bar. Today, bartenders across the globe can manage a decent Bellini, though those who dare to stir one up without fresh, white-fleshed peaches, those who venture into canned fruit’s realm will earn my ire. Beloved by brunch goers, light and refreshing in summer, a rich source of Vitamin A (thanks to all that peach purée), the Bellini was invented around 1940 by Giuseppe Cipriani, founder of Harry’s Bar. Inspired by the season’s abundance of peaches and the long tradition in Italy of marinating fruit in wine, he created a libation meant to evoke the fragrance of summer. Mixing Prosecco ( the Veneto’s regionally protected sparkling wine) with white peach purée, Cipriani purportedly added j ust a bit of cherry juice to add a pink glow. He named the drink after one of his favorite 15- century painters, the Venetian Giovanni Bellini, who used a mesmerising suffused pink in his work. An immediate success among the glitterati, the beverage lives on, often made in various iterations, such as the Rossini (with strawberry purée) or Puccini (with mandarin juice). The only real tip for success: use no other sparkling wine but Prosecco, say some experts, because it emits a crisp, acidic vibrancy to the concoction, rocketing the peachysweetness to celestial heights.

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