Argo is Four Seasons Hotel's multi-awarded bar, started by its former beverage manager and Time Out's 2020 Bartender of the Year, Lorenzo Antinori. The bar docked in Hong Kong in 2021 to challenge the way we think about drinks. As part of the second phase of the hotel's renovation, it replaced the former Blue Bar located in the hotel's lobby.
Compared to Caprice bar, located on the sixth floor of the hotel, which has a more formal setting and focuses on wines and cocktails with seasonal ingredients, Argo is more relaxed, highlights innovative spirits, and offers a conceptual cocktail programme.
Their inaugural cocktail menu, 'Here Today, Gone Tomorrow,' – Time Out's Best Cocktail Programme winner in 2021 – celebrates six staple ingredients – coffee, honey, rice, cacao, vanilla, and apples – that face an uncertain future because of climate change or the way it is cultivated. Replacing this menu in 2022, the bar launched the second volume of its cocktail menu, Cook Book, inspired by Hong Kong's culinary traditions. The menu features 12 new cocktails using soybean, apricot kernel, XO sauce, vegan char siu, black vinegar, and aged tea.
Spirit aficionados can explore unique liquors – available in 50ml shots, tasting flights, or as a classic cocktail – with the help of the bar's spirit bible, 'Field Guide to the World's Innovative Spirits', that highlights each bottle's unique story and origin. Interesting bottlings include the world's first AI-created gin Monker's Garkel, lab-made whisky Glyph, Argo's very own signature gin crafted with Never Never Distilling Co, and other quirky spirits that break away from traditional production.
It is now helmed by new beverage manager Federico Balzarini (formerly of Vesper, Bangkok and American Bar at Savoy Hotel, London), who spearheaded the launch of their new cocktail menu for 2023, Argo Forestry. Inspired by the synergy between agriculture and nature found in Hong Kong’s ecosystem, the menu features 12 cocktails spotlighting ingredients such as granite, sweet potato, ginger lily, strawberries, bamboo, and goat’s milk. Standout drinks include Thief! ($175), which uses ingredients like Havana Club 7 rum, melon, and hazelnut, served with goat yoghurt and Ratafia rossi and To The Valley Below ($175), a spin on Irish coffee made with Remy Martin VSOP, Honduran single origin coffee, a 40-year-old aged tangerine peel distillate, and topped with a purple potato cream foam.
Read the opening coverage of Argo here. And check out what made Argo number one on Time Out's list of coolest bars in the world. For more information about their menu, watch the video and read the full story here.
