Great Bars I Have Known

Alexander’s Bar, Hotel Grande Bretagne, Athens, Greece

Whenever you see some international correspondent filing a story on the latest financial/political crisis in Greece, she is standing in the same location: the rooftop garden bar at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. Of course, most viewers don’t realize where she is. On screen all you can see is the correspondent speaking with the Greek Parliament and Syntagma Square in the background.

It’s a great shot and a great view. I know because I have stood in that same spot, drinking Chablis while waiting for a table in the rooftop restaurant. The rooftop bar is nice, and I recommend it, but it is not even the best bar in the hotel. That distinction belongs to Alexander’s Bar downstairs, just off the hotel’s lobby. Legend has it the bar was named for Alexander the Great who drank his first Cosmo there after conquering the known world.

Of course, it is more likely the lounge was named for the giant 18th-century tapestry displayed behind the bar. It depicts the moment Alexander the Great entered the city of Gaugamela (close to modern-day Mosul in Iraq) after defeating the Persian forces under King Darius III in 331 B.C. (Today you can buy a single malt scotch from that same period for the cost-equivalent of a modern battleship.)

The tapestry scene is significant because the Greeks prevailed often against the Persians back in those days. The Athenians defeated Persia’s King Darius at the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Ten years later, at Thermopylae, the celebrated 300 Spartans, supported by 700 foot soldiers from Thespiae, hacked up the Persians so badly they lost their vast numeric advantage. The Athenian navy then finished them off at Salamis. One hundred fifty years later, Alexander came along and destroyed the Persians again at Gaugamela. Unfortunately, that moment was the historical highpoint for the Greeks. Since then, the Persians haven’t done too well, either.

It doesn’t matter, really, how the room got its name because it’s a great bar. It was apparently named by Forbes Magazine as the best hotel bar in the world. I’m not sure it’s the absolute best but it is certainly in the running. Alexander’s is known for its back bar, as most great hotel bars are. You can order a Cosmopolitan for 16€ (currently $17.50), a shot of 15-year-old Havana Club rum for 36€ ($39) or a tumbler of 1940 Macallan single malt scotch for 800€ ($872). The wine collection numbers more than 3,000 bottles. Ah, Life with an expense account!

The world outside the bar could use a drink these days. Like most of southern Europe, Greece is a financial mess. Greece has a declining population most of which is on the dole. Greece has few private-sector businesses left to pay taxes. Best of all, when I was there, the astute Greeks had just elected a Communist to solve their problems. (Yeah, that will work.)

The Grand Bretagne has seen a lot of these crises since 1842 when it was constructed. (It has been renovated and expanded many times.) Since it is a 5-star hotel in the political center of Athens, the Grande Bretagne tends to draw its share of the Swells. You can ogle the powerful, the famous, the rich, and me whenever I’m in town.

I know why the privileged go to Alexander’s, usually the opportunity to live it up on somebody else’s nickel. But I go there to travel through time. The bar could be a London gentlemen’s club in the 1920’s, all marble and mirrors, overstuffed divans and deep leather armchairs. I can easily imagine Bertie Wooster and his fellow Drones at the table in the corner. They are tossing dinner rolls at Hercule Poirot as he tries to sample a Napoleon brandy. And, over there, is that Dorothy Sayer’s famous detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, investigating a murder?

Probably not, because there is never any Unpleasantness at this Bellona Club.