The Botanical Club

“What is genius? It’s imagination, intuition, willingness and speed of execution.” These words from the movie “Amici Miei” sum up what Alessandro Longhin and Davide Martelli created with their bar. We are in the Isola area, and we are talking about The Botanical Club.

Davide Martelli and Alessandro Longhin.

A unique place, which appears to be a cocktail bar with fine dining, but actually is Italy’s smallest gin distiller. Davide and Alessandro are the firsts to blaze a new trail into the italian market. Coming from different professional backgrounds, their only experience with gin prior to this venture was just as keen drinkers. But they learnt with passion and intuition how to make their own gin production. Choosing the botanicals through a series of experiments and different batches, they created a really interesting gin. It is called “Spleen and Ideal”, while The Big Charlie is the name of the 150 litre still which dominates the bar.

At the moment it’s a limited edition, but you can taste it at the bar or reserve a bottle. It is distilled from organic alcohol, made from high quality italian grain and juniper of Serbian origin, mixed and blended with the botanicals chosen from carefully selected suppliers. When I tasted it I fell in love!

The food menu is also a lot of fun. If you want to eat something you will find creative small dishes – the gourmet tapas with prices ranging from 5€ to 10€ – or standard sized dishes, with no distinction made between appetizers, starters and mains.

The cocktail bar led by Katerina Logvinova is rich and well thought out. She is Russian, a graduate in economics, beautiful, smiling, with a passion for spirits, particularly whiskey. She selected a hundred gins. Sitting at the counter and watching her work is therapeutic. She squeezes lemons and measures ingredients like a perfect alchemist. The wines on the list, about fifteen, are all from small companies working naturally, also carefully selected and researched.

But it doesn’t end here. In fact the opening of the second Botanical Club at Via Tortona 33, just across the road from Mudec, is imminent. So, over just a year (willingness and speed of execution, like we said at the start) these young entrepreneurs are about to take off with a second bar. It will be bigger than the first, with about 130 seats and you will find it open for both for lunch and dinner.

I’m sure it will become the new “Flawless place” in the Tortona area. We are looking forward to it!