It was no coincidence that Noël Coward played Mr. Bridger in the 1969 caper The Italian Job which predominantly featured the baroque, gin-loving city of Turin. Coward had famously said, “The perfect martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy.”
Fifty-six years later, Turin had also become the chosen location for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. Pointing its own spirit at Italy, event partner Gin Mare, like Michael Caine’s film character Charlie Croker, had assembled a team of specialists to pull off its own Italian heist of palates in the city.
Gin Mare actually originates in Spain, from the coast just outside Tarragona. The original still, where the unique blend of Mediterranean botanicals was first created, is found in a maritime 18th-century chapel distillery. The core flavour comes from the Arbequina olives, which vary in their annual acidity, meaning each batch is unique, followed by a selection of key herbs and fruits. The other three are predominantly at the heart of the blend, being rosemary, thyme, and basil. These are then complemented by orange, lemon, coriander, juniper, and green cardamom.
The distillery’s coastal location also adds its own subtlety from the surrounding salty air. It is this, as the cognoscenti would say, all-encompassing “Mazzetto di erbe aromatiche” taste profile of Gin Mare that has made it so accessible to the European taste buds. It has also led to the Italians to adopt it as their own. This is to such an extent that we enjoyed an unsolicited soliloquy from one waiter in the Piazza San Carlo who passionately extolled the virtues of this ‘Italian Mediterranean Gin’ as he poured it and asserted it as being “best in the world”.
The night before the event saw Villa Mare – a cleverly themed deep dive into the brand
The Italian centre of operations in Turin became the cleverly executed ‘Villa Mare’, a showcase of the brand's creation and lifestyle, within an opulent seventeenth-century property and 22 hectares of parkland. To fully steal our palates, attention to detail had left nothing to chance. The skills of chef Massimo Bottura and bar supremos Ago Perrone and Georgio Bargiani from The Connaught Bar had been recruited to ensure the assembled guests acknowledged the compatibility and accessibility of the spirit in a selection of bespoke cocktails.
The Connaught Bar's Giorgio Bargiani shows off his stuff
There did, however, turn out to be a deeper connection between the chef and mixologists than just appearing together in Turin. In conversation, Bottura told me he had first tasted Gin Mare whilst staying at The Connaught Bar and that as a result it was his preferred gin both personally and professionally.
Bottura also went on to assure me that “Gin Mare I use for my private parties, and that Gin Tonic is the perfect drink after service,” when he likes to relax and review the day. That alone is no mean feat, given he has 13 restaurants globally and also has Casa Maria Luiga, a hotel named after his mother with some 210 employees he sees as both family and “his children”. He cites his mother as his biggest influence in hospitality, as she was “the perfect host with always the door of the house open for the unexpected guest.”
Wherever Bottura opens a restaurant, he also opens a soup kitchen, in his words, “to restore the dignity of the people.” He set up ‘Food for Soul’ to harness the power of food to bring vulnerable people together and enable them to regain a sense of worth as well as nourishment. There is currently a waiting list of 4000 people volunteering to work at his soup kitchen in Paris and 2800 in London.
As a previous double World’s Best Restaurant award winner and the holder of three Michelin stars (and a green star) for his Osteria Francescana in Modena, Massimo had brought his own ‘crew’. In his trademark poetic style, he created ‘aperitivo’ – dishes ranged from 34-month-old Parmigiano with extra old Villa Mandoori Balasamic Vinegar to Melanza, a crunchy eggplant fritter in a rich herbed sauce and the tricolour ‘Crunchy part of the lasagna.’ All the specially selected, gin cocktail friendly, morsels gave a great snapshot of a visit to Modena in the hands of a three star master.
The Connaught team had shown classic creativity, keen to equal and complement chef with vision and quality of ingredients. With four inspired cocktails on offer, it was the Un Paloma A Capri that had caught my eye. The base spirit was Gin Mare’s Capri variant, which has the signature four principal botanicals with the addition of a supercharging of citrus, capturing the island of Capri in a glass. The melange attached was then tomato juice, Campari, Ancho Reyes, grapefruit soda, and bergamot. This landed as a refreshing, slightly piquant offering which accented perfectly chef’s panoply of Modenan flavours.
Un Paloma A Capri - one of the four bespoke cocktails made for the Villa Mare event
The following day, it was a somewhat restorative and contemplative GM&T enjoyed in the name of what else but ‘self-preservation’. The venue? The rooftop of the Lingotto factory, where the infamous scene of the three Italian Job minis was shot, as they prepared to jump skywards and make their escape.
At the award ceremony, in the building below, Maido based in Lima, Peru, was crowned World’s Best Restaurant and the Gin Mare sponsored Art of Hospitality Award was taken away by Wing in Hong Kong. The latter, specialising in a fusion of contemporary Chinese courses, made with local ingredients, underpinned by European techniques, echoing in some ways the gin brand's own approach.
A straightforward serve shows off the liquid's European appeal
In overview, Turin showcased admirably the flexibility of Gin Mare, paired simply with a mixer, in cocktails and with food pairings. It also highlighted for me its powerful appeal to the European palate and restaurant trade in harnessing a spirit with cleverly-combined, familiar and flexible flavours along with a very subtle umami olive-accented edge.
With crack cuisine by Bottura and slick mixology by The Connaught Bar, Gin Mare certainly “blew the bloody doors off” and held an event in Turin worthy of not only the World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards but of both Coward and Mr. Bridger himself.
