MARTINIS AND MUNESH :MAKING MERRY AT THE OLD KING COLE BAR

MAKING MERRY 

Old King Cole

Was a merry old soul,

And a merry old soul was he;

He called for his pipe,

And he called for his bowl,

And he called for his fiddlers three!

And every fiddler, he had a fine fiddle,

And a very fine fiddle had he.

"Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee," went the fiddlers.

Oh, there's none so rare

As can compare With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

Cooling his heels in the lobby of the St Regis hotel in midtown New York, as a young banker Sood is not a merry soul. To start with, his client is late. As he takes in the ambience of the marble clad lobby, elaborate draped canopies, carved plaster moldings, he is overcome by annoyance at the client who has put him up at a rather less impressive chain hotel and has personally very conveniently turned up a day later and checked into the St Regis on the pretext that no rooms were available at the other hotel. Swept up by the old world charm, Sood  relaxes and starts noticing the bold and the beautiful walk through the lobby into the bar on the other end. One day, he swears, one day - this is the place he will stay and that is the bar that he will drink in. 

Many moons later, Sood checks in at the hallowed lobby of the St Regis hotel, and soon takes refuge in the dark, woody warmth of the KingColeBar. The marble lobby contrasts the dark, lounge, gentlemen's club feeling of the bar (women were not permitted into the bar area until the 1950's). This bar is famous for the huge mural by Maxfield Parrish (one of the greatest American illustrators), depicting the eponymous nursery rhyme, which runs from one end of the bar to the other and stares down at the patrons. The clientele is well heeled, old school New York  a few midtown bankers and a few fashionable women, taking a break from shopping at Tiffany's around the corner  and most importantly, no tourists! 

The house specialties are the stiff martinis and of course, the signature drink is the Red Snapper, the St Regis version of the Bloody Mary - there many claimants to the invention of this drink, including Harry's Bar and also the Hemingway Bar in Paris (we prefer the Hemingway bar legend). The drink bar snacks are excellent and Sood finds himself munching Wasabi crunches, pretzels and macadamias and examining the bar matchbox for his collection (it has a picture of the mural on it). 

The bartender and the bar attendants are ever helpful and make sure that no one is drinking alone. One of them, of Bangladeshi origin, strikes up a conversation with Sood, asking him if he watched Bollywood movies and mentions that a Bollywood movie was being shot in the Disney store across the street. Within minutes, the discussion turned to the stars in the movie and it happened that some of them were (obviously) known to Sood. Armed with a promise of a free martini, the bar attendants and Sood make their way across the street and soon they are preening at being introduced to a reigning Khan, who then joins Sood at the bar. Plenty of free martini's follow …  

The original article as it appeared in Business India