There are plenty of reasons to cross the bridge to Macau for a weekend. Most of them involve a table with green felt. This month, a better one comes in a coupe glass.
Every city in Asia has that one no-fly destination where plans to visit are almost always spontaneous, where different rules seem to apply, where the escape is as fun as the arrival and where respite from the corporate coal face is only a short hour or two away. Jakarta has Bandung, Shanghai has Moganshan, and some cities, like Singapore, have more than one (we’re looking at you, JB and Batam).
For Hong Kong, that’s Asia’s own Sin City, Macau. Many a Friday night that started with a few cold ones after work graduated to a ferry ride and a flutter in Macau, followed by the inevitable slink back to the city in the early hours. And while we’d like to think that we’ve matured and moved away from such frivolous escapes, the city’s siren call remains. And here’s one reason why.
W Macau – Studio City has given talented mixologist Victor Pun his Head Mixologist stripes, and his first menu in the role, Sonata, has just landed at the Living Room.
The Man Behind the Menu
Pun (centre above) isn’t a hired gun parachuted in from London. He was part of the hotel’s opening bar team and worked his way up. Named “Best-in-Class Bars Rising Star” in Macau, mostly for what he does with traditional Asian ingredients, Pun takes things like black sesame and fermented pickles and makes them taste as if they’ve always belonged in a cocktail.
Sonata is ten drinks long and, like the musical composition, is arranged in four movements: Sun, Moon, Time and Love. Together they trace a day from dawn to night, drawing on Macau’s coastline, tides and its tangled Portuguese-Chinese heritage. That sounds like a concept that could go wrong. In practice, it gives you a route through the menu.
Four Drinks Worth the Ferry Fare
From the ten, there are a couple that we consider standouts. Despite its name, the Hojicha Martini (above) is not a martini in the gin-and-vermouth sense. This is dark rum given a smoky, toasty edge from roasted hojicha tea and toasted rice. Dark cacao and black sesame show up halfway through, and a little dark sugar smooths it all out. Order this one first, while the sun’s still lingering below the towers of the Cotai Strip.
Then you’ll want to move on to a braver pick, Moonlight, which opens with oyster distillate and salted seaweed, with dry fino sherry adding a soothing, savoury backbone. Clarified kiwi brightens it up, and jasmine and basil linger on the finish. If you like a Gibson or a dirty martini, this is your drink. If you don’t, it might convert you.
Talking of unusual ingredients, Purple & Tonic‘s (above) headline is purple pickle juice fermented for a full 168 hours, which works out to a week. That gives it a sharp, deep tang. Gin and white rum hold it up, well, like a couple of reliable wingmen running a drunk to the 3 am ferry, while lemongrass and kaffir lime add a Southeast Asian lift, and tonic finishes it bright and fizzy. It’s the closest thing on the menu to a long, easy drink, the one you deserve after a week staring at a computer screen.
The final foray is the Shiso Margarita (below), where Shiso-infused tequila tangos with Iichiko Saiten, a high-strength Japanese barley shochu, with lime and agave keeping tempo in the background. It’s a Margarita for people who’ve had too many ordinary ones.
The Sonata series cocktails start at MOP 128 (roughly HK$124 / US$16, plus service charge), which we think is pretty reasonable for a sophisticated hotel watering hole like the Living Room.
Just be sure to pre-book that return ticket to the rat race; it might be a little trickier once you’ve had your fill.
