Why it works
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The radio man embroiders around the figure of bartender Frank Meier during the 1930s and 1940s.
In the fall of 1936, Frank Meier celebrated the release of his book, the Artistry of Mixing Drinks. The bartender at the Ritz (he existed) had recorded his recipes on the advice of Scott Fitzgerald. That evening, Frank remembers, Arletty was waiting for his Manhattan: “Tell me, my darling, is my cocktail arriving by ferry?” Autumn 1940. Among the German uniforms are once again reunited Arletty, Serge Lifar, Cocteau, Sacha Guitry. Frank Meier brought back the chic customers of yesterday, at the request of the boss, Marie-Louise Ritz, widow of the founder. Such is life at Place Vendôme. “While Paris sinks into cold and hunger, the bar is operating at full capacity.” There are the cultured officers, like Hans Speidel, and the charismatic Jünger. We saw Göring. At the beginning of August 1944, in the deserted bar, Guitry asked for an Americano, “it’s in season“. The Ritz remains open, readers watch for Hemingway. The Ritz: that’s a palace. With the period of the Occupation, we have two ingredients for the cocktail proposed by the Ritz Bartender, first novel by Philippe Collin, a radio man born in 1975 who has been heard on France Inter for a long time. He is currently producing biographical series devoted to Pétain, Blum, Poutine, Molière, Céline, Beauvoir. He is also a writer of historical comics.
What is the bartender’s secret?
Nobody knows. Frank Meier is Jewish. His maternal grandfather was a rabbi. But his father, a Polish worker exiled in Austria, had decided that «pl
