The late, great Anthony Bourdain once said: “Don't drink at your hotel. Find out where the people who work at your hotel do their drinking.”
Now I’m not one to question the wisdom of one of the most admired food (and drink) writers in modern history, but I wonder if Bourdain may have been staying at the wrong places.
When a hotel bar is done deftly, it is one of the most rewarding drinking experie...
The article presents a compelling, if somewhat indulgent, celebration of specialized, curated environments – in this case, hotel bars – as a microcosm of broader cultural trends. Structurally, it operates as a series of anecdotal vignettes, each showcasing a particular bar’s strengths and contributing to a broader argument about the value of experiential consumption. This resembles a “motte-and-bailey” tactic, establishing a high-minded principle (“hotel bars as cultural hubs”) before anchoring ...