From farm to glass – Paris’ Little Red Door has revealed their new menu, and it is all kinds of beautiful.
Consistently featured in the selective World’s 50 Best Bars list for the last 8 years, this Parisian cocktail den is regarded a pioneer of London style bars in the French capital, with an understated presence on Rue Charlot, only identified by its eponymous little red door, after which it is named.
True to Little Red Door’s commitment to shine the spotlight on producers, produce, and product through their genre defining menus, the brand new menu Flourish, is a labour of love. A natural progression to their previous menu “Grounded”, “Flourish” is testament to the bar’s ethos and the team’s unrelenting efforts to walk the talk, consistently looking within their ecosystem to bring the best produce from the farm to the glass.
As in their previous menu, GROUNDED, each piece of produce takes centre-stage and is transformed into a liquid ingredient to form the foundation of each cocktail, with a selection of small craft brands comprising the remainder of ingredients found in the drinks.
There are some impressive and inspiring collaborations within these pages that are worth mentioning like “Carrot” – LRD Rainbow Carrot Mistelle, Baldoria vermouth bitter, SiWu Dild Akvavit. The main ingredient for the drink traces its origin to Une Ferme du Perche, a family run farm outside Paris that “aims to democratise its bio intensive organic methods in order to help multiply organic farms on a human scale throughout France”. The collaboration is a small example of the LRD team’s efforts to support initiatives with an intent to scale positive impact. Not only do they seek out produce from small scale farmers but also farmers and horticulturists who are seeking to widen the circle by sharing their methods and knowledge.
The other standout collaboration is “Raspberry” – LRD Raspberry Vermouth, H. Theoria Electric Velvet, Gewürztraminer Grappa. Also available in zero ABV & +CBD serves, the drink’s base ingredients are sourced from Nature Urbaine, Europe’s largest rooftop farm known to produce seasonal vegetables using some of the most innovative methods of hydroponics and aeroponics for nutrition, hydration, and space efficient farming.
It goes without saying that the menu design lives up to the high standards Little Red Door has set for itself through the years. This year Little Red Door’s medium of expression for the concept takes the form of collage by UK based designer Totally Okay (Nick Deakin), who’s playful composites of reportage photos of each producer and their farm tells a compelling story of the locality and personality behind each product in the most visually engaging way.
What is great about how LRD approaches their menus is that they are conceptually sound, aesthetically modern, and have a wealth of knowledge to share even with those casually flipping through its pages. There is no grandstanding and nothing gimmicky in how they go about their business – the business of delivering quality drinks from the farm to the glass, right in the heart of Paris.
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