Harry’s Bar through Russell Norman’s eyes.

I am delighted to have a guest post from Genevieve Verdigel about her experiences of Harry’s Bar in Venice with her boyfriend, the late restaurateur Russell Norman.

It is impossible for me to ever push open the door to Harry’s Bar without thinking of Russell Norman. In fact, it is impossible for me to walk down the unassuming Calle towards Harry’s without half thinking that I will find him waiting there for me. We went there countless times together, and over the course of the many hours spent there, we would analyse all of the elements that made it so alluring. With his endless eye for detail, Russell would comment on this design facet or that, I would contribute my thoughts on the clientele and together we would discuss the food and the wine. It became such a shared obsession of ours that I eventually told him that he should write an article on Harry’s Bar. He took little convincing: while sitting there with a bottle of prosecco one afternoon he got out a notebook and his favourite black ink rollerball to start making notes. The list of potential content got long rather quickly and we continued to add to it over our many following visits. The upcoming Brutto book launch and its promotional material meant that he never got around to writing much of the article aside from a few hundred words on the historical context which I made him write while on a train to Bath for an event at Toppings bookshop. But, what I do have is the list of what he had planned to write about which is sufficient for me to give some picture of how the article might have looked had he ever got around to writing it. In fact, I wrote this sitting in Harry’s with a White Lady on 9 December, his birthday. We had meant to be there together, so to help me come to terms with his death I thought it fitting to spend the evening writing as that was what he always encouraged me to do.

As to the history of Harry’s Bar, I shall briefly summarise for there are far more interesting things to talk about. Now part of the global Cipriani brand with outposts as remote as Mexico and Hong Kong, the small bar was established by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1931. He managed to do so thanks to the intervention of Harry Pickering, a wealthy American who had somehow wound up in Venice and who would spend his days and nights drinking at the Europa Hotel which is where Giuseppe worked at the time. Like many rich kids Harry overspent and ran out of funds. He pleaded with Giuseppe to help and Giuseppe acquiesced, giving him the 10,000 lire that he had been saving to open his own bar. Harry left for America for two years before eventually returning to Venice with the borrowed 10,000 lire and an additional 40,000 lire that he handed over uttering the now legendary lines, “Mr Cipriani, thank you. Now you can open the bar you have always wanted. We’ll call it Harry’s Bar”.

But to call Harry’s Bar simply a bar is a misnomer. It is a microcosm of Venice; of Venice and society. I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who made this observation first, but I’m willing to defer to him. Sit here for an hour and you will witness a human menagerie. An endless stream of tourists here for a €28 Bellini. Ladies who lunch with their lapdogs in tow. Russell was often to be found sitting at the bar with a Gibson in the smallest glass you will ever see and a side of extra silver skin onions, or we would nab one of the prized corner tables and stay there all afternoon. We met up with countless friends from the hospitality world here, from Robin and Judy Hutson one hot July afternoon to many of our Venetian ex-pat friends. One afternoon we walked in to see an American friend eating alone in the corner and went to join him, cementing a flourishing friendship founded on art, food and Shakespeare that was cut short far too soon. Russell and I had also been to Harry’s Bar separately before we met. He used to reminisce with joy about one trip he had done to Venice with Robin, Mark Hix, Ewan Venters, Tom Parker-Bowles and Angela Hartnett where they spent hours drinking Bellinis, Gibsons and the like before meandering back to the Pensione Seguso where they promptly got stuck in the lift. Russell came to their rescue.

Harry’s is also the meeting place for the high society of Venice. They qualify as regulars, getting - as is their due - the acceptable version of the astronomical prices printed on the menu. Thankfully, we came frequently enough that we also joined that select group. To echo Anthony Bourdain, everything here costs a ‘fuck of a lot’. And to be honest, the best advice Russell ever gave me the first time we decided to have a meal there was to order without even glancing at the right hand side of the menù. I did as he instructed. He used to also follow the premise of paying without checking the bill, something that came back to bite him when our aforementioned American friend kindly told Russell once he had offered to pay that he had had a plate of caviar to himself before we had joined him.

The word institution is a loaded and often overused term. But it seems fitting here. It is probably best encapsulated by another friend in our British ex-pat circle, Robin Saika who, on his first trip to Venice to aged 17, was instructed by his schoolteacher to refrain from going to the Lido, drinking whiskey and visiting Harry’s Bar, all of which he did that same night. And who can blame him. Harry’s really is intoxicating in an intangible way.

If you look at it objectively, there’s nothing really special about Harry’s Bar. The room is small, the walls are a bland yellow and there is little natural light other than that which manages to trickle through the frosted windows. But somehow it works. Russell had established that it was something to do with the sense of space. To offset the cramped room, the simple yet ingenious solution was to change the perspective. He noted that everything at Harry’s Bar is 30 centimetres lower than it should be. Apart from the bar, which is normal. The seats are low, the glossed wooden tables are so low that anyone walking in can immediately see who has the prime seats. And of course, in perennially hierarchical Venezia, there are prime tables. Of course, there are.

The tables that are gold dust are the two aforementioned corner seats, and if you reach the VIP list, the Tavolo del Senato which is most usually reserved for the friends of Arrigo, Giuseppe Cipriani’s son. At 91 years old, Arrigo still cuts a dashing figure, always in impeccably cut suits and perfectly groomed hair, working the room with a flair and energy that would put someone a third of his age to shame. Sometimes - rarely and preciously - if you are deemed important enough or visit frequently, the privilege of this table will be extended to you. Back in June we spent a few hours in said spot, reverting to our beloved pastime of him reading to me. On this occasion it was Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach.

Going to Harry’s Bar is an experience that should always be treasured, even if you might not be in for the greatest meal of your life. One friend swears that every recipe starts with a kilo of butter, including the carpaccio; another claims that the only thing worth eating here are the tiny postage stamp-sized egg mayonnaise and anchovy sandwiches that they automatically bring to friends. Russell, who was particularly fond of his well-thumbed copy of Harry’s Bar: The Cookbook, begged to differ. The philosophy here is ‘no chefs, only cooks’; a distinction that Russell himself was particularly fond of. What emerges from the kitchen is an impressive roster of dishes that he would from time to time recreate at home: fegato alla Veneziana, the cuttlefish with polenta or their unrivalled Croque Monsieur. And should we ever spill a drop of prosecco or inevitably splatter some oil on the pristine linen tablecloth when we were laughing too much, then it was immediately and subtly replaced to hide our shame. Let’s just call it the Venetian version of covering your face with a napkin when eating ortolans.

So, here’s the thing. No matter how many Bellini glasses, plates or linen napkins Russell managed to claim from Harry’s Bar (apologies on his behalf) to tide us over until we returned, nothing ever came close to the feeling of pushing open those wooden doors to the uplifting and energising chaos that awaits within. It is, quite simply, a world unto its own. And Russell and his legacy will forever be part of that world.

Genevieve Verdigel trained as an Italian art curator before changing tack to work on French vineyards. Eventually she found a way to reconcile her interests, and now writes about wine, food and Italy principally for Passione Vino and Italy Segreta.