According to Romain de Courcy, head bartender at the Ritz-Bar for four years, César Ritz, the founder of the palace, had everything of a “troublemaker”. Is it to pay tribute to him that his new menu was centered around biodynamics, a first in the cocktail world? “No, it was my passion for wine that influenced me,” replies the thirty-year-old, who studied in London alongside Tony Conigliaro, the inventor of molecular mixology.
How to mix biodynamically when spirits are not, with the exception of a vintage of Waterford whisky? “I was inspired by the lunar calendar created by Rudolf Steiner, with its fruit, flower, root and leaf days. The cocktails are made up of a single product of different origins and varieties,” explains Romain de Courcy. He also uses various extraction methods and plays with textures to obtain the aromatic structure which reveals the very essence of the chosen ingredient, whether it is grapes, corn or ginger. Steiner’s approach then revealed itself to be an art.