Bar hop across Rome to The Jerry Thomas Project, Freni e Frizioni

Speakeasies, and cocktails crafted with rare ingredients highlight this bar crawl across Rome featuring The Jerry Thomas Project, Freni e Frizioni

When When Gregory Camillo and Simone Onorati from The Jerry Thomas Project, Rome, hosted a bar takeover at the Pullman Hotel in New Delhi in May 2024, the hotel in recognition of the former’s antecedents, converted a room behind their salon on the first floor into a speakeasy for the night, with a gent sitting in a dentist’s chair in the lobby, handing out coupons and directions to guests. I missed them that night, but I heard that they had Delhi in thrall with their cocktails, and on a recent Italian holiday, I made it my mission to go to their home.

The Jerry Thomas Project is named after the legendary bartender, born in 1830, and considered the father of American mixology and has two bars in Rome. The first one we went to was the Jerry Thomas Speakeasy with a jaunty little owl replacing the door knob. Our antecedents verified (yes, there was a secret word!) we were escorted into a bar that was made for a·mó·re. The lighting was dim, the seating whispered intimacy, and the music was rousing. I have been to my share of bars around the world and there are those rare few that captivate you the moment you enter, and this was one. Not for nothing have they been featured in the World’s 50 Best Bars list six times.

House of Classic is their cocktail menu, that combines the creation of forgotten cocktails along with the rediscovery of rare or outdated ingredients. We ordered three, all priced reasonably between 12 and 15 Euros, the Improved Aviation, the Tommy Jirry, and Rome with a View, to end, I ordered a Robo De Gallo (a Brazilian Manhattan, swapping cachaca for rye, with rosso vermouth and cynar). My first, the Improved Aviation, swapped out maraschino for lavender, with violet and wild rose, completing the ingredients. In the end, we also filled out little membership cards, and it will be hard to keep me from using them when I return to Rome.

The sister bar, the Jerry Thomas Bar Room is located in Rome’s rowdy Trastevere neighbourhood and also demands entry via words spoken through a recess in the door. As Lorenzo, the manager explains, the bar room is Inspired by the classic bars of the 70’s of Central Europe as well as the Orient Express train and the windows in the bar are from a real Italian train. Luggage racks line the wall to store your luggage and the small toilette in the corner also has a sliding door, as you would expect on a train.

Champagne is a guiding light for the bar, and they serve by the glass, but I chose to go with the Champagne Martini, which uses leftover Champagne to great effect to create their in-house Champagne Vermouth. To follow, I ordered the Banana Daiquiri, a silent assassin, luscious and delightful. American Pie comes on the sound system, and as I leave, I ask Lorenzo if he knew what Don Maclean said, when he was asked what the song meant. “It means, I’ll never have to work again”, Don apocryphally said. We shared a laugh on that as I paid my bill and exited into the noisy Trastevere by-lanes.

The intimacy offered by Rome’s cocktail bars is a welcome counterpoint to the city as a whole, which is built to a scale, that suggests that it was inhabited by giants in the heyday of the Roman Empire. The quiet Stravinskij Bar at the Hotel de Russie is another great find, with the menu curated by a modern-day cocktail legend, Salvatore Calabrese. The hotel’s doors lead you onto a quiet garden, scattered around with cocktail tables, at one of which Giampiero, my host for the evening was seated. My two favourites said the manager are the Americanello (a refreshing take on the Americano with fresh pomegranate juice and soda) and the Negroni Svegliato, which along with gin and campari, also brought together two of Italy’s staples, via its coffee-infused vermouth. A pitch-perfect mini-martini separated the two, and I exited the bar well-equipped to face the turmoil that is finding a cab in rush-hour Roma.

I was headed for Trastevere and had dinner with my family. After an early dinner, we head to Freni e Frizioni, set in a former mechanic’s workshop, with the name translating to “brakes and clutches”. It has a large vibrant courtyard, with throbbing music, but I settle for a seat at the bar, where after perusing its carousel-like menu, I order a Mexican Manhattan, a spirit-forward drink with mezcal, mancino vermouth rosso amaranto, tia maria and bitters. I sense though that the bar is better visited later on in the night, especially judging from the waiter’s t-shirts that at the back bear the slogan, “Trastevere as ----”. “We’re called Wisdomless as we’re meant for people without a wisdom tooth”, Dario, the manager at Rome’s Wisdomless Club tells me, “The world for them is free”. It’s worth the entry just to survey the bric-a-brac from around the world collected by the bar’s owners, and there is a taxidermist somewhere who is also very rich. My Truffle Gibson is delightful, served in a goblet, with an onion on the side also as a garnish. Wisdomless doubles up as a tattoo parlour also, but I urge you to sample its wares separately!