Have We Reached Peak Experimental Martini?

These days in New York, you could have a multi-course meal made purely of martinis.

For the bread course: the brioche martini at Arthur, or the garlic bread martini at San Sabino. For an appetizer, you have an array of options: the tomato martini at Torrisi, the caprese martini at Jac’s on Bond, the feta brine martini at Mr. Melo, the sour cream and onion martini at The Corner Store, or the seaweed martini at Smithereens.

For an entrée, the MSG martini at Bonnie’s, perhaps? Alternatively, there’s Bar Valentina’s pizza martini, or a borscht martini from Russian Samovar, or the Tamatar Martini at the new Ambassadors Clubhouse. For a palate cleanser, try Monkey Bar’s cucumber martini.

If you’re feeling breakfast-for-dinner, Backstage has an everything bagel martini. For dessert, you could go for a pistachio martini or espresso martini, or maybe Balthazar’s pomegranate martini. For your pickle cravings, there’s no shortage of fantastically filthy martinis chock-full of brine. And the list goes on.

The sour cream and onion martini at The Corner Store.Photo: Nick Johnson, Courtesy of The Corner Store

Inventive martinis aren’t new. But now, it seems that every buzzy restaurant must have its own savory, science-experiment martini. Bartenders are clarifying, fat-washing, infusing. They’re smoking, stirring, shaking. And people are slurping it up.

“At the end of the day, I really like a classic martini,” says Charlotte Mirzoeff, the general manager and beverage director at Arthur, a new restaurant in Greenpoint. So why did she create a brioche martini?

Originally, Mirzoeff was going to stick with the classics, but she was inspired to make more creative cocktails by Arthur chef Kevin Finch’s exciting culinary ideas, like brioche with house-cultured butter. She dreamed up a martini with butter fat-washed gin, vermouth, whey eau de vie, and barley tea. When I tried it, I was expecting to taste something like Willy Wonka’s Three Course Dinner Chewing Gum, but the cocktail is, as Mirzeoff explains, much subtler.

The brioche martini at Arthur.Photo: Evan Sung, Courtesy of Arthur