Harry's Bar When the Bellini Is Still the Original

Harry's Bar When the Bellini Is Still the Original

Harry's Bar at Calle Vallaresso 1323 invented the Bellini — white peach puree and Prosecco — in 1948, and it has been serving it in the same small, white-tableclothed room near Piazza San Marco ever since. The bar is tiny, the prices are extraordinary, and the experience of sitting at the counter where Hemingway, Orson Welles, and Truman Capote drank is either an extravagance or an investment in personal mythology, depending on your relationship with money.

The Bellini arrives in a small glass, the color of a pale sunset, and the taste — sweet peach cut by dry Prosecco — is simple enough that you wonder what the fuss is about until you try to replicate it elsewhere and discover that simplicity, done perfectly, is the hardest thing to copy.

Insider tip: Go for a single Bellini at the bar (standing or on a stool), not a table. The bar experience is Harry's at its most authentic, and the bill for one drink is manageable. The restaurant upstairs is excellent but priced for the kind of people who arrive by water taxi.