London - Vermuteria

A copy of my Google Maps review for Vermuteria, in the new Coal Drops Yard development in King's Cross, London.

I have been taking a keen interest in the resurgence of vermouth since I first visited Turin in 2012 (and even there, in its birthplace, it is surprisingly hard to find a dedicated vermouth bar), so I was pleased to see London now has a place focusing on the Italian aperitif.

This particular Vermuteria does however do several other things, it is more of a cafe by day, and they serve tapas style food in the evenings - I was already slightly saddened by this fact, that they didn't have the courage to let the vermouth alone lead at least the drinks offering. 

Although there is an impressive display of vintage vermouth bottles behind the bar, on the drinks menu itself the vermouth section was a bit buried - there's a two sided sheet of A4 for wines, then a two sided sheet of A5 with cocktails on one side, and a list of about 10 or so vermouths on the other side. For a place which, given the name, is presumably making vermouth its primary focus, this section of the menu needed work, in my opinion. There was just a name and a price for each vermouth, with producer and product names sometimes mixed a bit confusingly. For example "Punt e Mes" appears, then further down there's "Carpano Punt e Mes", which confused me as I happen to know Punt e Mes is a Carpano product. This turned out to be just plain wrong - they meant to say Carpano Classico in the latter case. Further down one item simply said "Americano", which is a style of vermouth made by several producers, so it wasn't clear what it actually was. There were no descriptions or tasting notes and the staff didn't really elaborate much when asked - it feels like they're really missing a trick here, given that this is surely their unique selling point.

The first half to two thirds of the vermouth list were names you might already be familiar with, which you can easily find in supermarkets etc in the UK - starting with very mass market products like Cinzano, Martini, moving through the Carpano range (the aforementioned Punt e Mes, Carpano Classico and Antica Formula), then brands like Cocchi, and towards the end some vermouths from Chinati Vergano. This tuned out to be the producer of the enigmatic "Americano", which I plumped for, having not had it before, and emboldened by the fact it was £12 for a 50ml measure, so presumed it to be something quite special. This is a well balanced vermouth, and thanks to the added bittering agents in the Americano style (the "amer" in Americano derives from the French word for bitter) it can very much stand alone as an aperitif. This was a very hefty markup though at £12 a glass - something like 5x or 6x based on the retail price for a bottle (around £30).

I had their Negroni "V" afterwards which was extremely gin forward, to the point that I almost wondered if they had forgotten the vermouth (billed as Antica Formula for this particular Negroni). Perhaps they used a different ratio to the standard 1:1:1. Surely in a vermouth bar the cocktails ought to be about showcasing the vermouth?

This seems to be the sad fate of vermouth, that is doomed to be taken for granted, downplayed, overlooked and unloved - even in places you would expect to be celebrating it. To some extent this was reminiscent of my visits to Turin - both here and there I wanted a more informed connoisseurial experience, with enthusiastic staff promoting the product, providing tasting notes and just generally engaging in a dialogue about the drink. Sadly I didn't find it.